Abstract: A panel system includes a chassis holding one or more tray arrangements, which are each configured to receive one or more cassettes at two or more bays. The tray arrangements and cassettes cooperate to define a cassette sensor arrangement and a port occupancy sensor arrangement having separate interface points. The cassette sensor arrangement may include electronic memory storing physical layer information about the cassette. All active components of the port occupancy sensor arrangement are disposed on the tray while the electronic memories of the cassette sensor arrangement are stored on the cassettes.

Abstract: An approach is described for providing shared trunking between a telephony gateway and an end office switch. The telephony gateway processes a packetized voice call, and interfaces a shared trunk to an end office switch (e.g., Class 5 switch) configured to switch calls over a circuit-switched telephone network. The trunk utilizes out-of-band signaling (e.g., Primary Rate Interface (PRI) signaling) in support of call establishment or teardown of the packetized voice call.