1. A method of routing cables within a splice tray, each cable including an incoming cable portion and an outgoing cable portion, the method comprising the steps of:
a) providing a splice tray, the splice tray including a base, a storage arrangement including first and second radius limiting arrangements, and a splice holding arrangement positioned between the first and second radius limiting arrangements;
b) positioning a splice component of each cable within the splice holding arrangement, each splice component providing a connection between the incoming cable portion and the outgoing cable portion;
c) routing the outgoing cable portion of each cable within an initial one of a number of slack loops defined by the first radius limiting arrangement;
d) routing the incoming cable portion of each cable within an initial one of a number of slack loops defined by the second radius limiting arrangement;
e) shortening one of the incoming and outgoing cable portions after routing each of the incoming and outgoing cable portions within the initial slack loops; and
f) routing the shortened cable portion within a slack loop of the respective radius limiting arrangement that is different than the initial slack loop;
g) wherein after routing the shortened cable portion, none of the incoming and outgoing cable portions of the cables, including the shortened cable portion, cross over one another.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of routing the outgoing portion of each cable within the initial slack loops includes routing the outgoing portion of at least one cable in an outer slack loop of the first radius limiting arrangement.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of routing the incoming portion of each cable within the initial slack loops includes routing the incoming portion of at least one cable in an outer slack loop of the second radius limiting arrangement.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of shortening one of the incoming and outgoing cable portions includes shortening the outgoing cable portion of the at least one cable, and wherein the step of routing the shortened cable portion includes routing the shortened outgoing cable portion within a first inner slack loop defined by the first radius limiting arrangement.
5. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of shortening one of the incoming and outgoing cable portions includes shortening the outgoing cable portion of the at least one cable, and wherein the step of routing the shortened cable portion includes routing the shortened outgoing cable portion within one of two different inner slack loops defined by the first radius limiting arrangement.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of routing the outgoing cable portion of each cable further includes routing a length of at least one outgoing cable portion about a spooling structure.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of positioning the splice component of each cable within the splice holding arrangement includes positioning ribbon splice components within the splice holding arrangement.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of positioning the splice component of each cable within the splice holding arrangement includes positioning stranded splice components within the splice holding arrangement.
9. The method of claim 1, further including reviewing text formed in the base of the splice tray prior to routing the outgoing cable portion and the incoming cable portion of each cable.
10. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of positioning the splice component of each cable within the splice holding arrangement includes positioning the splice components within the splice holding arrangement in order, the method further including re-ordering the splice components within the splice holding arrangement.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein after routing the shortened cable portion, and after re-ordering the splice components, none of the incoming and outgoing cable portions of the cables, including the shortened cable portion, cross over one another.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claims which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. An apparatus comprising:
a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) mapper associated with a plurality of interfaces and a plurality of ports corresponding to the interfaces,
wherein the VLAN mapper is configured to direct a plurality of packets between the interfaces and the corresponding ports based on a VLAN mapping table.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least some of the packets include a VLAN identifier (VID), and wherein the VLAN mapping table associates each VID with one of the interfaces.
3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the mapping table comprises the VIDs and an interwork termination point (TP) pointer associated with each VID, wherein the interwork TP pointer indicates a port corresponding to the interface associated with the packets.
4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the mapping table comprises a table index associated with each VID and interwork TP pointer.
5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the table index comprises an add operation, a delete operation, or both.
6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the VLAN mapper is configured to direct at a plurality of untagged packets, packets with unrecognized VLAN identifiers (VIDs), or both between the interfaces and the corresponding ports based on a default marking attribute.
7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the default marking attribute comprises a default VID associated with a designated port.
8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the interfaces are outer Ethernet interfaces that communicate packets to customer networks or nodes, and wherein the ports are Gigabit Passive Optical Network Encapsulation Method (GEM) ports that communicate packets to an optical line terminal (OLT) via an optical distribution network (ODN).
9. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:
a Media Access Control (MAC) bridge associated with the VLAN mapper and the interfaces;
a plurality of Transmission Containers (T-CONTs) associated with the ports; and
an optical distribution network (ODN) interface function associated with the T-CONTs.
10. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor configured to implement a method comprising:
receiving a packet via an interface;
determining whether the packet is tagged;
mapping the packet to a port corresponding to the interface using a mapping table if the packet is tagged; and
mapping the packet to a designated port using a default marking attribute if the packet is untagged.
11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the packet is mapped to the port corresponding to the interface by associating a Virtual Local Area Access Network Identifier (VID) in the packet with a pointer in the mapping table that indicates the port.
12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the method further comprises:
determining whether the VID is in the mapping table;
adding the VID and the pointer that indicates the port to the mapping table if the VID is not in the mapping table.
13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the packet is mapped to the designated port by assigning a default VID to the packet and associating the default VID with the designated port.
14. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the determining step and the two mapping steps are modeled within a single managed entity (ME).
15. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises:
receiving a packet via the port; and
mapping the packet to the interface corresponding to the port using the mapping table.
16. A method comprising:
mapping a plurality of packets between a plurality of Ethernet interfaces and a plurality of corresponding Gigabit Passive Optical Network Encapsulation Method (GEM) ports based on a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) mapping table and a VLAN mapping model.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the VLAN mapping model comprises a GEM interworking termination point (TP) managed entity (ME), a physical path termination point (PPTP) Ethernet user network interface (UNI) ME, and a single ME that interfaces with the GEM interworking TP ME and the PPTP Ethernet UNI ME.
18. The method of claim 16, wherein the quantity of managed entities (MEs) is substantially independent of the quantity of interfaces in the VLAN mapping model.
19. The method of claim 16, wherein the VLAN mapping model is part of an optical network terminal (ONT) management and control interface (OMCI).
20. The method of claim 19, wherein the mapping the packets is implemented within the ONT.