Patent ID: 8787151

Claim:
A communication system comprising: a plurality of digital subscriber line (DSL) links comprising a first group of DSL links and a second group of DSL links, each of the first and second groups comprising more than one DSL link, wherein the first group comprises the same number of DSL links as the second group; a first node having at least one application port and a plurality of DSL ports, each DSL port coupled to a respective one of the plurality of DSL links; a second node having at least one application port and a plurality of DSL ports, each DSL port coupled to a respective one of the plurality of DSL links such that the first and second nodes are communicatively coupled via the plurality of DSL links; wherein each of the first and second nodes is configured to interleave a first copy of data received over the respective at least one application port across the first group of DSL links and to interleave a second copy of the data received over the respective at least one application port across the second group of DSL links; wherein the first group is designated as an active group and the second group is designated as a back-up group; wherein when a failure is detected on one of the DSL links in the first group, each of the first and second nodes is configured to switch from the first group to the second group; wherein each of the first and second nodes is configured to interleave the first copy of the data circularly and serially across the first group of DSL links and to interleave the second copy of the data circularly and serially across the second group of DSL links, or to interleave the first copy of the data circularly and in parallel across the first group of DSL links and to interleave the second copy of the data circularly and in parallel across the second group of DSL links.