Patent ID: 7656905

Claim:
A system for aggregating and transporting packet-based data, the system comprising: an ingress stream block configured to receive and aggregate a plurality of packet-based data streams, in a native mode, to produce a composite packet-based data stream, wherein the ingress stream block comprises: a first transceiver configured to convert a first packet-based data stream of the plurality of packet-based data streams to a first electrical signal; a second transceiver configured to convert a second packet-based data stream of the plurality of packet-based data streams to a second electrical signal; a first serializer/deserializer configured to generate a first recovered clock signal and a first encoded data signal from the first electrical signal and generate a second recovered clock signal and a second encoded data signal from the second electrical signal, wherein the first recovered clock signal comprises a Gigabit Ethernet recovered clock signal and the first encoded data signal comprises a Gigabit Ethernet data signal; a first field programmable gate array configured to aggregate the first and second encoded data signals, using a clock signal, to produce an intermediate composite signal; a first forward error correction component configured to encapsulate the intermediate composite signal to produce a first encapsulated composite signal; and a second serializer/deserializer configured to serialize the encapsulated composite signal to produce the composite packet-based data stream; an optical transport coupled to the ingress stream block, wherein the optical transport is configured to transport the composite packet-based data stream; and an egress stream block coupled to the optical transport, wherein the egress stream block is configured to receive the composite packet-based data stream and to recover the plurality of packet-based data streams therefrom.