Patent ID: 7088742

Claim:
A termination unit for use in a digital subscriber line system, comprising: a first communication interface adapted for receiving first traffic having a first number of timeslots, each timeslot corresponding to an incremental bit rate, wherein a number (N 1 ) of timelots used for payload is less than or equal to the first number of timeslots; a second communication interface adapted for receiving second traffic, wherein the second traffic has a bit rate equal to some multiple (N 2 ) of the incremental bit rate; and a third communication interface for coupling to a digital subscriber line and for providing a combined traffic having a second number of timeslots, each timeslots corresponding to the incremental bit rate, wherein the second number of timeslots is greater than or equal to N 1 +N 2 ; wherein the termination unit is adapted to map the timeslots of the first traffic to a first portion of the timeslots of the combined traffic; wherein the termination unit is adapted to map the second traffic to a second portion of the timeslots of the combined traffic; and wherein the first portion of the timeslots of the combined traffic begins at a first timeslot of the combined traffic.