Patent ID: 8780915

Claim:
A method of routing traffic to a plurality of customer premises devices (CPDs), each of the CPDs being reachable via a respective one of a plurality of dedicated customer interfaces (DCIs), wherein the DCIs are grouped into clusters included in respective outside plant units (OPUs), the method comprising: receiving traffic via an input interface, the traffic comprising packets, each of said packets being destined for one of said CPDs; determining a destination DCI and a destination OPU for each of the packets, the destination DCI for a particular packet destined for a particular CPD being determined by identifying the DCI via which the particular CPD is reachable and the destination OPU for the particular packet being determined by identifying the OPU that includes the destination DCI; for each particular OPU that is the destination OPU for one or more packets, buffering the one or more packets and transmitting the buffered packets via an OPU interface uniquely associated with the particular OPU; and for each particular DCI that is the destination DCI for one or more packets, tagging each of the one or more packets with an indication of the particular DCI; and for a particular one of said clusters: receiving upstream traffic via an access interface for a particular one of the DCIs in said particular cluster, the traffic comprising upstream packets, each of said upstream packets originating from at least one of the CPDs reachable via said particular DCI; sending the upstream packets towards a head-end unit over a communication link; and for said particular DCI: receiving additional upstream traffic from an adjacent one of the DCIs in said particular cluster, the additional upstream traffic comprising additional upstream packets, each of said additional upstream packets originating from at least one of the CPDs reachable via ones of said DCIs in said particular cluster other than the particular DCI; and aggregately sending said upstream packets and said additional upstream packets to a designated one of the DCIs in said particular cluster that is connected to the communication link and that is responsible for releasing the upstream traffic towards the head-end unit.