Patent ID: 8532094

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a processor coupled to a memory and configured to: receive a packet data comprising a header and a payload; receive a time division multiplexed (TDM) data; and communicate the packet data and the TDM data within a synchronous optical network (SONET)/synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) frame comprising an overhead section and a payload section, wherein the payload section comprises the TDM data and the packet data, wherein the overhead section comprises a timeslot map that specifies a data type for the TDM data and the packet data within the payload section, wherein the packet data is positioned within the payload section without adding any signaling information to the header and without modifying the header to contain signaling information beyond that which existed when the packet data was received, wherein the apparatus is coupled to a multimedia distribution network, wherein the packet data comprises a high performance flow of an audio data or a video data, wherein the high performance flow data is encoded using a 7 bit data encoding scheme, wherein the apparatus is coupled to an internet service provider (ISP) or an internet, wherein the packet data further comprises a best-effort packet data, wherein the best-effort packet data is web-browsing data or file download data, and wherein the best-effort packet data is encoded with a 9 bit encoding scheme in the SONET/SDH frame.