Patent ID: 7701979

Claim:
A Residential Ethernet node apparatus for maintaining a starting point of a superframe, comprising: a synchronous queue for receiving and temporarily storing synchronous data, in order to transmit the synchronous data by inserting the synchronous data into a transmission cycle; a parser for receiving asynchronous frames from at least one exterior source, parsing the asynchronous frames according to characteristics of the asynchronous frames; a plurality of the asynchronous queues for separately storing the asynchronous frames received from the parser according to the characteristics of the asynchronous frames, wherein each of the asynchronous queues having at least a first asynchronous frame for each respective characteristic parsed by the parser; a scheduler for receiving the asynchronous frames from the asynchronous queues, and for transmitting a particular received first asynchronous frame from a first asynchronous queue from the plurality of asynchronous queues when there is sufficient capacity to transmit the particular received first asynchronous frame in a transmission cycle; and a multiplexer for receiving a synchronous frame and an asynchronous frame from the synchronous queue and the scheduler, respectively, to transmit the synchronous frame and asynchronous frame in a form of a transmission cycle while strictly maintaining a starting point of a superframe; wherein said scheduler for determining whether there is remaining sufficient capacity for transmitting another first asynchronous frame with different or the same characteristics than said particular received first asynchronous frame in the transmission cycle and transmitting the particular received first asynchronous frame and said another first asynchronous frame when there is sufficient capacity to transmit said another first asynchronous frame with said different or the same characteristics and the particular received first asynchronous frame in a transmission cycle.