Patent ID: 6961335

Claim:
A communications network for providing logically switched telephone service and broadband data communication service, using packet transport, comprising: soft network interface devices, including a soft network interface device located at and serving each respective one of a plurality of customer premises receiving service via the communications network, each soft network interface device comprising: a telephone interface for providing telephone communications over customer premises media, a data interface for providing broadband data communications over customer premises media, and an optical network interface; remote terminals; first layer optical fiber rings, each first layer optical fiber ring providing packet transport, between optical network interfaces of a plurality of the soft network interface devices and a remote terminal, for the telephone service and the broadband data communication service; host digital terminals; second layer optical fiber rings, each second layer optical fiber ring providing packet transport between a plurality of remote terminals and a host digital terminal; and a third layer optical fiber ring providing packet transport between the host digital terminals; and a media gateway controller coupled to one of the rings for communication through the network, the media gateway controller being programmed to receive a query from and provide a responsive control instruction to at least one of a host digital terminal, a remote terminal and a soft network interface device to implement at least some service logic for control of the logically switched telephone service or the broadband data communication service when service is provided via the communications network to each customer premises; wherein one of the remote terminals comprises: optical network interfaces coupled to a plurality of the first layer rings; an optical network interface coupled to one of the second layer rings; a routing means; a high-speed bus coupled to the optical network interfaces and the routing means; at least one telephone switch interface, for communications with a legacy telephone switch; and a low-speed bus coupled to the routing means and to the at least one telephone switch interface.