Patent ID: 7298762

Claim:
A method for flexibly mapping a plurality of coordinated downstreams transmitted by a downstream transmitter to a plurality of optical nodes and combining shared upstreams arriving from a plurality of optical nodes and coupling them to the input of a shared cable modem termination system (CMTS) receiver having a master clock, comprising: 1) receiving input data defining which of the plurality of optical nodes are to receive which coordinated downstreams and which CMTS; 2) doing all necessary switching, combining and splitting to couple the designated coordinated downstreams output from one or more downstream transmitters to the designated optical nodes; 3) doing all necessary combining and switching to combine shared upstreams from different optical nodes into one upstream shared by the designated coordinated downstreams and switch the shared upstream to the inputs of one or more CMTS receivers; 4) monitoring for failures of said one or more downstream transmitters which supply said coordinated downstreams and monitoring for failures of said one or more CMTS receivers and, when a failure is detected, causing a new transmitter or receiver to be switched in to do the work of the failed component and switching the message and data traffic that was being input to the failed component to the input of the substitute component that is taking over the work of the failed component and switching the output of the substitute component to couple said output to the same optical node or nodes in the case of a failed transmitter or the same media access control process for a shared upstream in the case of a failed receiver.