A network interface device has a safeguard apparatus. The safeguard apparatus is operable in power on, power off, and degraded power conditions. In power on operation, the safeguard apparatus maintains the quality of active and passive branch communications. During power off and degraded power operation, the safeguard apparatus safeguards the quality of the passive communication path.

In general, techniques are described for simplifying admission control signaling between subscriber devices, access nodes, and service edge routers to facilitate subscriber-specific admission control for multicast streams. In one example, a service edge router receives a service request and accesses a subscriber profile to determine whether the requesting subscriber is authorized to receive the service. Upon authorization, the service edge router returns the service request to the access node in a substantially similar form in which the service request was received. The access node receives the service request on a service edge router-facing interface, indicating the service edge router has granted authorization for the subscriber device to receive multicast traffic associated with the multicast group identified within the service request. The access node therefore modifies internal mapping tables that determine local elaboration of multicast traffic associated with the multicast group to include an interface to the subscriber device.

A central office point of delivery within a broadband access network of a telecommunications network includes: access network facing nodes; and a control function and/or a switching fabric and/or service edge nodes. Execution of network attachment tasks and/or further functional or configuration tasks within the central office point of delivery involves using an execution state database as well as stateless execution service functionalities being assigned to different execution stages realized within the central office point of delivery, and a message bus connecting the different execution stages, wherein the execution stages comprise at least an access stage, a processing stage, and a device stage, wherein the execution service functionalities—in order to process or execute the network attachment tasks and/or further functional or configuration tasks—generate a plurality of messages on the message bus and consume a plurality of messages from the message bus.

Exemplary methods for performing service chaining include generating a plurality of service chaining (SC) next hops (NHs) by, for each SC NH hop, generating a plurality of SC maps, each SC map identifying a chain of one or more service modules, wherein each service module is to apply a corresponding service on a packet. The methods further include generating a plurality of hosted NHs, each hosted NH including forwarding information that causes the packet to be forwarded to a corresponding service module. The methods further include in response to receiving a first packet, identifying a SC NH of the plurality of SC NHs based on an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the first packet, and forwarding the first packet to a service module based on the identified SC NH.

A cable modem termination system (CMTS) for use with a modem test server, an external network, and a cable modem. The CMTS including a memory and a processor configured to execute instructions stored on memory to cause CMTS to: provide a downstream service flow to the cable modem; provide an upstream service flow to the cable modem; receive a speed test initiation request from the modem test server; provide a second downstream service flow to the cable modem, provide a second upstream service flow to the cable modem; receive a speed test query from the modem test server; transmit the speed test query to the cable modem via the second downstream service flow; receive a speed test response from the cable modem via the second upstream service flow; and transmit the speed test response to the modem test server.

A converged small cell communication system includes a mobile network core, a data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) core, and a common policy platform for managing a service flow of a user equipment within a communication vicinity of the small cell communication system. The mobile network core includes a policy engine and a packet data network gateway (PGW). The DOCSIS core includes a packetcable multimedia (PCMM) unit having a policy server and an application manager, and a cable modem termination system (CMTS).

A central office point of delivery within a broadband access network of a telecommunications network includes: access network facing nodes; and a control function and/or a switching fabric and/or service edge nodes. Execution of network attachment tasks and/or further functional or configuration tasks within the central office point of delivery involves using an execution state database as well as stateless execution service functionalities being assigned to different execution stages realized within the central office point of delivery, and a message bus connecting the different execution stages, wherein the execution stages comprise at least an access stage, a processing stage, and a device stage, wherein the execution service functionalities—in order to process or execute the network attachment tasks and/or further functional or configuration tasks—generate a plurality of messages on the message bus and consume a plurality of messages from the message bus.

A converged small cell communication system includes a mobile network core, a data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) core, and a common policy platform for managing a service flow of a user equipment within a communication vicinity of the small cell communication system. The mobile network core includes a policy engine and a packet data network gateway (PGW). The DOCSIS core includes a packetcable multimedia (PCMM) unit having a policy server and an application manager, and a cable modem termination system (CMTS).

A multi-port access node, for communicating data to-and-fro a plurality of transceiver units via a plurality of respective communication lines, comprising: a plurality of processors, each processor includes a main communication unit that includes a network-side port, said processor includes at least one line-side port associated with a respective one of said communication lines, at least one of said processors further includes a relay unit having a relay port, said relay unit Is coupled with said main communication unit of the same said processor, said relay port is coupled with at least one of said network-side port of at least one different said processor, wherein said relay unit is configured to relay at least part of said data in at least one of a downstream direction destined toward at least one of said transceiver units, and an upstream direction arriving from at least one of said transceiver units.

A method of providing information regarding an Ethernet frame, within the Ethernet preamble of the Ethernet frame, comprises inserting into the Ethernet preamble an inter-line-card header that includes a start control character, a version number, a parity bit, a source port, a destination port, and a forwarding domain entry; and preserving said inter-line-card header, inside of said Ethernet preamble, in a Media Access Control (MAC) sub-layer in said Ethernet frame. The method may include a step of selecting the decoding format for the inter-line-card header corresponding to the version number and/or forwarding other Ethernet frames according to additional forwarding information provided by the forwarding domain entry. The inter-line-card header may be preserved in the MAC sub-layer by keeping the Ethernet preamble at the beginning of an Ethernet frame received over an Ethernet backplane, and passing the combined preamble and associated Ethernet frame to an inter-line-card header processing module.