Abstract: A multi-port communications system is described, which includes hardware based subsystems for performing both physical medium dependent operations and transport convergence operations on a data transmission. A software based subsystem performs other operations as needed. Both types of subsystems are shareable by the communications ports so as to reduce a total hardware requirement of a communications system. In addition, processing blocks within both subsystems are adapted to be multi-tasking, in that they can perform multiple operations for a receive/transmit task, or even a mixture of receive/transmit tasks. The subsystems are arrangeable in a logical/hybrid pipeline arrangement with a common memory to further maximize the flexibilty and configurability of a communications system.

Abstract: A system that can be dynamically configured to achieve an optimal routing path for an end-to-end data link connection is disclosed. An optimal data path can be determined by a digital subscriber loop (DSL) user based on particular bandwidth requirements, data rate cost constraints, and/or data delay requirements. The data path can be set up to include one or more data routes, including the regular digital public switching telephone network (PSTN), a wide area networks (WAN), or virtual permanent circuit links via digital cross-connects (DCS).