Method and apparatus for transport of multiple TDM and data clients over multiple variable data rate streams

Methods, apparatus, computer program products, and systems to transport multiple variable data rate LAN streams and fixed data rate voice streams through a plurality of variable data rate transmission links used as a conduit for transmission of data between each local area network are disclosed. Incoming data streams are placed within payload data units and distributed among the transmission links, which use a framed protocol. While the frame size for each transmission link varies dependent upon the transmission rate of that link, the number of payload data units within each frame remains constant.