Patent ID: 8644332

Claim:
A communication system, comprising: a transmitter configured to transmit over a plurality of conductive pairs a plurality of downstream signals originating from a common downstream signal to a plurality of receiving destinations; and for each receiving destination of the plurality of receiving destinations, a respective aggregation device configured for coupling to multiple conductive pairs of the plurality of conductive pairs, the respective aggregation device being configured: to receive and combine signals carried on the multiple conductive pairs into a respective aggregate downstream signal; to couple the respective aggregate downstream signal to its respective receiving destination; to receive a respective upstream signal from the respective receiving destination; and to couple the respective upstream signal to a respective conductive pair for upstream transmission; the aggregation devices being configured such that multiple receiving destinations share multiple conductive pairs for downstream transmission but each conductive pair is used by at most one receiving destination for upstream transmission, each aggregation device comprising: a plurality of analog to digital converters, each analog to digital converter coupled to a respective conductive pair of the multiple conductive pairs; and a digital signal processor coupled to the plurality of analog to digital converters, the digital signal processor being configured to combine digital signals received from the plurality of analog to digital converters to produce a combined digital signal.