Patent ID: 7080012

Claim:
A system capable of transmitting voice and Ethernet data signals over a wide-area network (WAN) circuit; said WAN circuit having a line rate; said system comprising: an Ethernet MAC layer interface for connecting a Subscriber Premise device between an Ethernet LAN and said WAN circuit; memory for storing an Ethernet frame received by the Ethernet MAC layer interface; a WAN transceiver; a telephone line interface for connecting a standard telephone line equipment to said WAN circuit; said telephone line interface containing a CODEC that digitizes analog signals for transmission of voice packets to said WAN circuit; fragmentation logic configured to: replace a first data value at a first replacement location in the stored Ethernet frame with a first frame identifier, said first replacement location based on said line rate; and transfer a first number of bytes from the start of the stored Ethernet frame to the WAN transceiver, said number based on said line rate; and a packet flow device configured to mix said fragmented Ethernet frames and said voice packets into a stream provided to said WAN circuit.