Patent ID: 7379481

Claim:
A SONET multiplexer comprising: at least one OC3 port operable to receive and transmit optical signals; a plurality of DS3 ports operable to receive and transmit electrical signals; an optical interface to receive an optical signal via said at least one of said plurality of OC3 ports and convert it into an electrical signal; a SONET synchronizer operable to evaluate bits in said electrical signal received from said optical interface and detect at least one of a plurality of SONET conditions comprising loss of signal, loss of frame and out of frame; a SONET overhead terminator configured to locate SONET frames in said electrical signal received from said optical interface and extract selected overhead bytes in said SONET frames; a mapper operable to use data from said electrical signal received from said optical interface and said selected overhead bytes to generate a plurality of DS3 streams; and a line interface unit operable to convert the said DS3 streams into respective analog signals for transmission from said at least one DS3 port, said line interface unit being operable to receive analog signals via said at least one DS3 port and convert them to corresponding digital signals, said mapper being operable to format said digital signals as a SONET stream, said SONET overhead terminator being operable to append selected overhead bytes to said SONET stream, and said SONET synchronizer being operable to prepare said SONET stream for transmission via said optical interface and said at least one OC3 port; wherein no provisioning is needed to configure said SONET multiplexer to transport data between said at least one OC3 port and said at least one DS3 port.