For communications interface across the line of demarcation between the customer
premises media and a link of a public digital broadband communication network,
a network interface device is "soft" in that it is adaptable to different service
applications and readily programmable from both the network-side and the customer-side.
A network-side interface provides a communications connection to a broadband network
link at an edge of the digital broadband network. A customer-side interface provides
communications connection to one or more media in the customer premises, for example,
to telephone and LAN wiring within the premises. The soft network interface device
also includes a data processing system, for controlling at least some of the communications
through the interfaces. The data processing system is capable of being programmed
with network service provisioning data from the public network as well as with
user programming received from the customer premises.
