Patent ID: 7660330

Claim:
A method of distributing a centralized clock source synchronously over an asynchronous optical Ethernet network, said method comprising the steps of: receiving a plurality of available input asynchronous optical Ethernet signals of various rates, zero or more available input clock signals and zero or more input time division multiplexing (TDM) signals, and recovering clock signals therefrom, each recovered clock signal having a rate associated therewith; translating the rate of each receive clock signal and any available input clock signals to a common rate to generate a plurality of common rate receive clock signals; selecting one of said common rate receive clock signals to serve as a primary clock; generating one or more regenerated Ethernet clock signals and one or more output clock signals from said primary clock signal, wherein a separate Ethernet clock signal at a particular rate is generated for each required Ethernet clock; and generating one or more transmit optical Ethernet signals utilizing said regenerated Ethernet clock signals, thereby distributing a clock source over said asynchronous optical Ethernet network.