Patent ID: 7957391

Claim:
A method of transmitting packet data, the method comprising: dividing a packet data stream into sequential packet data blocks, each packet data block is comprised of multiple packet data symbols, each packet data symbol is comprised of multiple bits; removing interpacket gap symbols appearing in the packet data stream, tracking the net number of interpacket gap symbols removed from the packet data stream and not accounted for by adding characters to the parallel packet data substreams that did not appear in the packet data stream, and compensating for the net number of interpacket gap symbols removed by adding fill control characters following the end of a packet in a packet data block; distributing the sequential packet data blocks among a plurality of parallel packet data substreams; concatenating, among the plurality of parallel packet data substreams, multiple packet data blocks into a data frame without block delimiters; and sending the concatenated data frame to a corresponding physical layer coder, each data frame concatenated among the plurality of parallel packet data substreams is delimited from a neighboring data frame by a control character sequence comprised of interpacket gap characters included in each of the parallel data frame substreams.