Patent ID: 8897215

Claim:
A method for communicating a first signal on a wiring infrastructure, the first signal being carried initially over a first frequency band, the wiring infrastructure having two or more endpoint devices, each endpoint device being associated with a wireless device for the first frequency band, the method comprising: in a first endpoint device of the two or more endpoint devices, (a) converting the first signal from being carried over the first frequency band to being carried over a second frequency band, said second frequency band being able to propagate on the wiring infrastructure; (b) embedding a reference signal on a synchronous Ethernet packet stream, said reference signal being usable for transforming the wireless signal from the first frequency band to the second frequency band and from the second frequency band to the first frequency band, said reference signal being recoverable from said packet stream; and (c) submitting said packet stream and said converted first signal on the wiring infrastructure; and in a second endpoint device of the two or more endpoint devices, (d) recovering said reference signal from said packet stream; and (e) using the recovered reference signal for transforming said first signal from being carried over said second frequency band to being carried on said first frequency band, wherein the converted first signal is included in digital format in certain frames of said packet stream; wherein: the first endpoint device is a hub unit associated to a cellular base station or to a cellular repeater, the first signal is a downlink cellular signal, and the second endpoint device is a remote unit associated with cellular end-user devices and with Ethernet destinations; an uplink signal is transferred from said remote unit to said hub unit on said wiring infrastructure, said uplink signal is carried initially over an uplink frequency band, the uplink signal is communicated transferred by, in said remote unit, (i) down-converting said uplink signal from being carried over said uplink frequency band to being carried over a down-converted uplink frequency band, said down-converted uplink frequency band being able to propagate on the wiring infrastructure, said uplink frequency band and said down-converted uplink frequency band being associated by said reference signal; and (ii) submitting said down-converted uplink signal on the wiring infrastructure; and in said hub unit, (iii) up-converting said down-converted uplink signal from being carried over said down-converted uplink frequency band to being carried over said uplink frequency band, thereby providing the up-converted uplink signal to the cellular base station or cellular repeater.