Patent ID: 8233472

Claim:
A plain old telephone service (POTS) extender for at least one conductor pair for providing packets to a packet network and receiving packets from the packet network, the POTS extender comprising: a subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC) having a connection to the at least one conductor pair, said SLIC having an upstream voice signal output and a downstream voice signal input, the SLIC configured to transmit a master Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) modem control signal based on a fallback signal received over the at least one conductor pair; a codec configured to convert the upstream voice signal output to an upstream digital voice signal output and configured to convert a downstream digital voice signal input to the downstream voice signal input; a vocoder configured to convert the upstream digital voice signal output to a first data stream and configured to convert a second data stream to the downstream digital voice signal input; a packet assembler and disassembler (PAD) configured to convert the first data stream into a first at least one packet and configured to convert a second at least one packet into the second data stream, said PAD connected to the packet network and said PAD having a first at least one network address; and a master DSL modem having a second at least one network address and connected to the at least one conductor pair, the master DSL modem configured to receive the master DSL modem control signal and enter a quiescent state based on the master DSL modem control signal.