Approaches for a virtualized Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) for providing high speed data services to a remote physical device (RPD). The virtualized Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS) comprises a core routing engine (CRE) for performing packet switching and routing and one or more physical or virtual compute servers (CS) that each perform CMTS functions for the one or more remote physical devices (RPDs). Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Transport Stream tunnels are employed on Ethernet links between the core routing engine (CRE) and the one or more core servers (CSs).