Abstract: An xDSL modem apparatus for installation on a telephone jack wall plate. The apparatus includes a port for transmitting and receiving carrier waves, a low-pass filtering means, a high-pass filtering means, and a band-pass filtering means. The low-pass filtering means isolates low-frequency component of a received composite carrier wave below a first frequency and transmitting the isolated low-frequency component of the composite carrier wave. The high-pass filtering means isolates a high-frequency component of the composite carrier wave above a second frequency. The band-pass filtering means isolates a power component of the composite carrier wave, the power component being in a frequency range between the first and second frequencies. The apparatus also includes an xDSL modem for demodulating the high-frequency component of the composite carrier wave in order to recover a computer readable bitstream and for modulating a high-frequency carrier wave with a received computer readable bitstream.

Abstract: A switch for switching a packet within a communications network includes a switching core that services a number of ports. The switch also includes address matching logic, coupled to the switching core, that implements an address lookup scheme according to which the switching core may switch to packet received at the switch. Override logic, that is also coupled to the switching core, determines with a packet received at any one of the number of ports serviced by the switching core is received at a predetermined port. This may be done by snooping a bus within the switch that provides an indication of an active port. If the packet was not received at the predetermined port, the override logic override the address matching logic to cause the switching core to route the packet exclusively to the first port.