Patent ID: 8036219

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, at a first device, a plurality of data units from a plurality of source terminals; determining a second device for the plurality of data units received from the plurality of source terminals; determining if there is a data frame queued for the second device, wherein the data frame comprises: a header field, a payload field, and a parity field; wherein the header field comprises a transmitter address field, a receiver address field, and a data frame number field; wherein the payload field comprises header subfields and payload data subfields; and wherein the header subfields each comprise a data length field, a source address field, and a destination address field; if there is a data frame queued for the second device, populating the payload data subfields with information from the plurality of data units, populating the source address fields with addresses of the plurality of source terminals, and populating the destination address fields with addresses of a plurality of destination terminals; and if there is not a data frame queued for the second device, formatting a new data frame for the plurality of data units, and populating the transmitter address field with an address of the first device, populating the receiver address field with an address of the second device, populating the payload data subfields with information from the plurality of data units, populating the source address fields with addresses of the plurality of source terminals, and populating the destination address fields with addresses of the plurality of destination terminals, wherein the addresses of the plurality of destination terminals are different than the address of the second device, and wherein the plurality of data units are directed to different destination terminals of the plurality of destination terminals.