Optical serial bus interface

Claim 1

In an optical fiber communications network having a remote terminal located in a subscriber neighborhood and fed by a high-rate optical fiber signal for providing, at a lower-rate signal interface of the remote terminal, lower-rate signals to various sites in said subscriber neighborhood, wherein the remote terminal includes a cross-connect having a high-rate interface connected to said high-rate optical fiber and having a plurality of internal electrical signal links each having a payload of a selected number of channels connected to said low-rate interface, wherein an improved remote terminal lower-rate interface comprises: means for directly converting the existing plurality of internal electrical signal links to corresponding optical signals; and means for transmitting the optical signals along corresponding distribution fibers to corresponding optical network units located at said various sites in said subscriber neighborhood.