US Patent 11425110 Secured transport in remote MAC/PHY DAA architecture

Exchanging encrypted packet payloads between a cable headend and a Remote MACPHY device. A single device executes a cable modem termination system (CMTS) implemented in software and not hardware. The software-implemented CMTS (i.e., a virtual CMTS) instantiates a tunnel to the Remote MACPHY device. The virtual CMTS encrypts the payloads of one or more packets and transmits those packets over the tunnel to the Remote MACPHY device. In similar fashion, the Remote MACPHY device may send packets with encrypted payloads to the virtual CMTS over the tunnel. In this way, encryption is not performed on a hop by hop basis, thereby allowing the payloads of packets to remain encrypted at all times during transmit through the tunnel.