Patent ID: 7197052

Claim:
A method for enabling communication between a physical layer device and a media access control (MAC) layer device in an access network, the access network including a Head End and a plurality of nodes which communicate with the Head End via at least one upstream channel and at least one downstream channel, the method comprising: receiving at the physical layer device a first data parcel from a first node, the first data parcel including a data parcel data; generating, at the physical layer device, a plurality of data block messages using information retrieved from the first data parcel; and transmitting the plurality of data block messages from the physical layer device to the MAC layer device; wherein each of the plurality of data block messages includes a header portion and a payload portion; the header portion including a block type parameter usable for specifying a type of data block message; the header portion further including a block length parameter usable for specifying a length of the payload portion.