Patent ID: 7149223

Claim:
A fiber node in a hybrid fiber-coax network (HFCN) located between an upstream facility and a plurality of cable modems, comprising: a cable modem termination system (CMTS) comprising: a transmitter to transmit data to the cable modems as downstream analog radio frequency (RF) signals over a plurality of downstream channels, a converter to receive and digitize upstream analog RF signals from the cable modems over a plurality of upstream channels, the digitized upstream signals including first digitized signals and second digitized signals, a receiver to: receive the first digitized signals from the converter and demodulate or decode the first digitized signals to extract data from the first digitized signals, and receive the second digitized signals and packetize data from the second digitized signals without demodulating or decoding the second digitized signals, and a processor, connected to the transmitter and the receiver, to: provide the data to the transmitter, receive the extracted data and the packetized data from the receiver, and send the extracted data and the packetized data together over a packet network to the upstream facility.