| CPC H04L 12/2856 (2013.01) [H04L 12/2883 (2013.01); H04L 61/00 (2013.01); H04L 61/25 (2013.01); H04M 11/062 (2013.01); H04L 41/0213 (2013.01); H04L 2101/663 (2022.05)] |
| AS A RESULT OF REEXAMINATION, IT HAS BEEN DETERMINED THAT: |
| The patentability of claims 1-4, 6, 7, 17-20, 22 and 23 is confirmed. |
| Claims 5, 8-16, 21 and 24-31 were not reexamined. |
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1. Communication access apparatus, comprising:
a master shelf, comprising a master switching unit linked to communicate with a high-speed network;
a plurality of slave shelves arranged in a given system topology with respect to the master shelf, each of the slave shelves comprising ports configured to serve network subscribers, and further comprising a slave switching unit, coupled to communicate with the master switching unit and to multiplex among the ports so as to provide the subscribers with access to the high-speed network, and to receive, from the master shelf, management messages that are addressed to an internal network-layer address that is determined uniquely for each of the slave shelves based on the topology; and
a management station, coupled to convey the management messages to the master shelf over a management network in which at least some of the slave shelves share a common external network-layer address by mapping the internal network-layer address of each of the shelves to a respective transport-layer address, so as to perform configuration and maintenance functions on one or more of the slave shelves.
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