Virtual distribution point architecture

A distribution point unit (DPU) circuit associated with a communication system configured to be coupled to a central office management (COM) circuit over fiber, the DPU circuit comprising:

• a memory configured to store a plurality of instructions;
• and
• one or more processors configured to retrieve the plurality of instructions from the memory, and upon execution of the plurality of instructions is configured to:
• provide one or more upstream data signals in digital domain or analog domain, to the COM circuit over fiber, in order to enable the COM circuit or a cloud management (CM) circuit associated therewith to perform one or more signal processing operations comprising analog to digital (A/D) conversion, time domain (TD) filtering, fast fourier transform (FFT), frequency domain (FD) equalization, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) demodulation, constellation shaping, inner forward error correction (FEC) decoding, outer FEC decoding and data encapsulation, on the upstream data signals;
• wherein the one or more upstream data signals are associated with one or more modem circuits respectively coupled to one or more lines associated with the DPU circuit,
• wherein signal processing tasks associated with a set of DPU circuits are split between the COM circuit, the CM circuit, and the set of DPU circuits and the one or more signal processing operations to be performed by the COM circuit or the CM circuit are a portion of the signal processing tasks that are assigned to the COM circuit or the CM circuit.

A cloud management (CM) circuit associated with a communication system configured to couple to a COM circuit over fiber, the CM circuit comprising:

• a memory configured to store a plurality of instructions;
• and
• one or more processors configured to retrieve the plurality of instructions from the memory, and upon execution of the plurality of instructions is configured to:
• receive one or more upstream data signals from the COM circuit in analog domain or in digital domain, wherein the one or more upstream data signals are associated with one or more modem circuits coupled respectively to one or more lines associated with a set of DPU circuits coupled to the COM circuit;
• and
• perform one or more of the signal processing operations comprising analog to digital (A/D) conversion, TD filtering, fast Fourier transform (FFT), frequency domain (FD) equalization, quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) demodulation, constellation shaping, inner forward error correction (FEC) decoding, outer FEC decoding and data encapsulation, on the received one or more upstream data signals,
• wherein signal processing tasks associated with the set of DPU circuits are split among the COM circuit, the CM circuit, and the set of DPU circuits and the one or more signal processing operations to be performed by the one or more processors are a portion of the signal processing tasks that are assigned to the CM circuit.