Patent ID: 7336604

Claim:
A cable modem for interconnecting a stand alone multi-media terminal adapter with a network controller of a frame switched network, the cable modem comprising: a frame switched network interface coupling the cable modem to the frame switched network for communicating with the network controller; a communication link interface coupling the cable modem to a communication link for communicating with the stand alone multi-media terminal adapter using physical layer communication protocols, communications with the stand alone multi-media terminal adapter comprising both band width management frames and frames of IP traffic; a data link router for: routing band width management frames between the communication link interface and a QOS module; and routing IP traffic between the communication link interface and a service flow module; the service flow module coupled to the frame switched network interface and coupled to the data link router for receiving a plurality of frames of IP traffic from the multi-media terminal adapter and for sorting the frames such that each frame is delivered to the frame switched network interface at a time that corresponds to a time division logical channel which corresponds to the frame; and the QoS module coupled to the service flow module and coupled to the data link router for: receiving a bandwidth management frame comprising a bandwidth management instruction send by the stand alone multi-media terminal adapter to the cable modem via the communication link; generating a quality of service request for transmission to the network controller in response to receipt of the bandwidth management instruction from the multi-media terminal adapter.