Patent ID: 7623453

Claim:
An aggregation switch apparatus for broadband subscribers, comprising: an upstream input buffering means for buffering packets received from more than one subscriber link; a scheduling means for scheduling the packets stored into the upstream input buffering means and transferring the scheduled packet without identifying the destination of the packet; a rate match buffering means for buffering a transfer rate difference between an output of the upstream input buffering means scheduled by the scheduling means and an output of said more than one upstream link; a downstream destination identifying means for identifying a destination of said more than one subscriber link only of the packets received from said more than one upstream link, wherein said more than one upstream link and said more than one subscriber link are separate sources of packets; a broadcasting means for broadcasting the packets received from the downstream destination identifying means to all terminals of the broadcasting means; a packet selecting means for selecting a corresponding packet by identifying a destination port of said more than one subscriber link of the received packets though the broadcasting means; and a downstream output buffering means for buffering the packets outputted from the packet selecting means to said more than one subscriber link.