Patent ID: 8064773

Claim:
An optical fiber communications apparatus comprising: a housing provided with a motherboard and with a support defining a plurality of card receptors; a plurality of modular cards, each of which is engageable with the motherboard via one of the card receptors; an optical card comprising a first of said modular cards, said optical card including an optical transceiver for communication, using a digital optical communications signal, over a single optical fiber link, wherein each modular card being provided with a plurality of circuit sub-assemblies, each circuit sub-assembly being configured for digital communication with a respective local audio, video or data electronic device via a respective connector using a respective electronic information-carrying signal, and wherein each circuit sub-assembly being configured for communication of an audio, video or data information-carrying signal with the optical transceiver using the digital optical communications signal; and circuitry for assigning time periods for the individual information-carrying signals of the circuit sub-assemblies controlling transmission of communications between the optical transceiver and the circuit sub-assemblies, and time division multiplexing said communications over the single optical fiber link to communicate a predetermined combination of audio, video and data channels multiplexed onto a single optical channel carried by the optical fiber link.