Patent ID: 7933288

Claim:
A method of facilitating connection-oriented, bi-directional communication between a first device and a second device over at least three frequency channels of a cable transmission network, the method comprising the steps of: providing at least two first frequency channels to facilitate a first direction of communication from the first device to the second device; providing at least one second frequency channel to facilitate a second direction of communication from the second device to the first device, the second direction of communication being in an opposite direction to the first direction of communication; communicating first direction frames in the first direction, the first direction frames being fragmented to allow contemporaneous communication of portions of the first direction frames over the at least two first frequency channels; and communicating second direction frames in the second direction, the second direction frames communicated over the at least one second frequency channel; wherein a first portion of the first direction frames and the second direction frames are Ethernet/802.3 frames, the Ethernet/802.3 frames comprising a first start frame delimiter, and wherein a second portion of the first direction frames and the second direction frames are control frames, the control frames comprising a second start frame delimiter different from the first start frame delimiter.