Abstract: A system using a public access medium to establish asymmetric full-duplex circuits connecting a premises device and a central device. The premises device converts a standard Ethernet interface into the asymmetric full-duplex link. The central device aggregates traffic from a plurality of asymmetric links into one or more local ethernet connection. The premises device is attached to any network node (such as a personal computer, LAN bridge/router, terminal server, etc.) which offers an ethernet interface. The device thereby emulates an Ethernet LAN so that the network node's operation is transparent. Such an Ethernet to asymmetric converter is provided at one end of the asymmetric full-duplex link. The central device aggregates traffic from several asymmetric links into one or more Ethernet connection. This device inspects Ethernet packets as they are transferred in order to determine which physical ports should receive a packet. This device resembles or is provided as a local area network bridge.