Patent ID: 7333478

Claim:
A method for transporting at least one digital audio-related signal of a first bit rate, comprising acts of: a) controlling at least one packet-based physical layer transmitter to cause the at least one packet-based physical layer transmitter to generate at least one time division multiplexed (TDM) serial bit stream of a second bit rate, wherein the first bit rate is associated with a first oscillator, the second bit rate is associated with a second oscillator and the first and second bit rates differ in response to a difference between the first oscillator and the second oscillator; and b) transporting a representation of the at least one digital audio-related signal in at least one assigned time slot channel of the at least one TDM serial bit stream over a non-packet based, non-circuit switched local area connection including selectively buffering, in response to a difference between the first bit rate and the second bit rate, at least a portion of the representation of the at least one digital audio-related signal so as to at least partially compensate for the difference between the first bit rate and the second bit rate and; c). selectively inserting, in response to the difference between the first bit rate and the second bit rate, at least some padding information in the representation of the at least one digital audio-related signal so as to at least partially compensate for the difference between the first bit rate and the second bit rate.