Patent ID: 8743913

Claim:
A distributed digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM), comprising: a head end subsystem located within a switching facility; a remote subsystem located outside of the switching facility; said head end subsystem being operative for routing streams of data from a data network to said remote subsystem over a communication link, said streams of data having packets each comprising header information associated with identification of respective local loops, the communication link carrying at least one multiplexed data signal into which a plurality of said streams of data associated with at least two local loops have been multiplexed by allocating a recurring slice of time to each of the local loops; said remote subsystem being operative for transmitting analog signals over a set of local loops; wherein said remote subsystem comprises: a demultiplexer having (i) a plurality of outputs and (ii) an input for connection to the communication link, said demultiplexer being operative for demultiplexing, on a per-local-loop basis, the multiplexed data signal arriving at its input into respective signals released at its outputs by allocating data to a local loop on a basis of a time slice occupied by a given data; and a plurality of loop processing units each having a respective input coupled to a respective one of said outputs of said demultiplexer and a respective interface for connection to a respective one of the local loops, each of said loop processing units being operative for modulating the signal arriving from the respective output of said demultiplexer into a respective modulated signal and for converting the respective modulated signal into an analog signal released via the respective interface.