Patent ID: 7155009

Claim:
A modem comprising: a housing including modem circuitry, including a location that is a slot exposing an internal portion of the housing and that is adapted to receive a filter cartridge into the internal portion of the housing, the modem circuitry including an internal electrical connector exposed within the internal portion that includes at least one modem conductor pair; a filter cartridge removably inserted into the location and including a first end and second end, the filter cartridge including filter circuitry for filtering the analog signals from DSL signals received on either of at least two input conductor pairs, outputting DSL signals on at least one of two filtered conductor pairs while outputting analog signals on at least one of two analog conductor pairs, and including a block to merge the two filtered conductor pairs into a single filtered conductor pair that is in electrical engagement with the at least one modem conductor pair; the first end including at least one electrical connector that includes the single filtered conductor pair and that is in electrical and physical engagement with the internal electrical connector disposed in the location of the housing; the second end including at least two telephone connectors of a first gender with each of the at least two telephone connectors of the second end adapted to receive a telephone connector of the opposite gender, the second end remaining exposed to an area external to the housing while the filter cartridge is removably inserted into the location, a first of the at least two telephone connectors of the second end receiving both analog and DSL signals on at least one of the at least two input conductor pairs, the filter cartridge sending the analog signals to the second of the at least two telephone connectors on at least one of the two analog conductor pairs of the second end.