One embodiment of the invention includes a coax media converter (CMC) system communicatively coupled to at least one modem in a network system. The system includes a frequency reference configured to generate a clock signal in a local time domain. The system also includes a scheduling processor configured to extract a bandwidth allocation message from a data stream and to re-stamp each of at least one timestamp in the bandwidth allocation message in the local time domain based on the clock signal to generate a corresponding updated bandwidth allocation message comprising a respective at least one re-stamped timestamp. The system further includes a downstream physical interface configured to transmit the updated bandwidth allocation message to the at least one modem to schedule upstream burst transmissions from the respective at least modem based on the at least one re-stamped timestamp.