Patent ID: 8837508

Claim:
A system for allocating bonding engines, comprising: a chassis having a backplane and a plurality of slots; a plurality of access modules coupled to and terminating a plurality of subscriber lines, each of access modules having at least one bonding engine, wherein each of the access modules is inserted into a respective one of the slots of the chassis and is conductively coupled to the other access modules via the backplane; and logic configured to determine a value indicative of a total number of subscriber lines that (1) are to be bonded by a bonding engine of one of the access modules and (2) are terminated by the plurality of access modules without being terminated by the one access module, the logic further configured to perform comparisons between the value and a plurality of values respectively associated with the plurality of access modules, each of the plurality of values indicating a total number of subscriber lines that (1) are to be bonded by a bonding engine of an associated access module and (2) are terminated by the plurality of access modules without being terminated by the associated access module, the logic configured to select, based on the comparisons, the bonding engine of the one access module for assigning the selected bonding engine to a bonding group, the logic further configured to provision the one access module such that the bonding engine of the one access module bonds each subscriber line of the bonding group.