Patent ID: 7321590
Filing Date: 2008-01-22
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of aggregating cells in a communication system employing asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) bonding, wherein a stream of cells is split among a plurality of member links in a bonding group and sequence numbers are attached to cell headers, comprising the steps of: a) based on the attached sequence numbers, writing received cells from member links into a current aggregation buffer at addresses specified by the sequence numbers, wherein a size of the current aggregation buffer is greater than or equal to L  and  and a profile of the data rates of the member links of the bonding group is given by {R b) if a location at a sequence number in the current aggregation buffer is filled, writing a received cell into a next aggregation buffer at an address specified by the sequence number, wherein a size of the next aggregation buffer is greater than or equal to L c) initializing a write pointer to point to a predetermined location in the current aggregation buffer; d) examining a location in at least one of the current and next aggregation buffers at an address specified by the write pointer, and if the location examined is not empty, reading out a cell stored at the location examined to a reconstructed cell stream, marking the location examined as empty, and incrementing the write pointer; e) repeating step d) until the write pointer points to an empty location; f) reading out the current aggregation buffer when the next aggregation buffer's location X, wherein X≧L2, is filled, and subsequently swapping the current and next aggregation buffers; and if a location in the current aggregation buffer is left unfilled when the buffer is read out, reading out the cells in the buffer starting at the write pointer.