Multi-service PHY box

• US 8,300,640 B2
• Filed: 04/20/2009
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ARRIS Enterprises LLC (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: ARRIS Group, Inc. (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Inventors: Al-Banna, Ayham, Arnold, Erich, Cloonan, Thomas J., Howe, Jeff
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz
• Assistant Examiner(s): HAMPTON, TARELL A
• Application Number:
  US12/426,763
• Publication Number:
  US 20090285233A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,289 Days
• Field of Search: 370/419, 370/389, 370/392, 370/395.3
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2881 IP/Ethernet DSLAM
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2889 Multiservice, e.g. MSAN

Abstract

A data communication system includes multiple Media Access Control (MAC) units, multiple physical layer (PHY) interface units, and logic to communicate between the MAC units and the PHY units using a single tunneling protocol over Internet Protocol (IP).

Claims

1. A data communication system, comprising

multiple Media Access Control (MAC) units;

multiple physical layer (PHY) interface units, at least some of the PHY units having different physical media types from one another;

logic to communicate between the MAC units and the PHY units using tunneling protocol over Internet Protocol (IP)

logic to enable a MAC unit of the multiple MAC units and a corresponding PHY unit of the multiple PHY units to agree on an Attribute Value Pair (AVP) interpretation that is unique to the MAC unit and corresponding PHY unit; and

logic for each PHY unit to assign a session ID to each corresponding MAC unit, the session ID used to identify the type of PHY, to route packets to a particular PHY, and to interpret application payloads.

2. The system of claim 1, where the tunneling protocol used is Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol Version 3 (L2TPv3).

3. The system of claim 1, where the logic to communicate between the MAC units and the PHY units using a tunneling protocol over IP further comprises:

logic to establish a PHY-specific control channel between each MAC unit and each corresponding PHY unit.