Patent ID: 6434154
Filing Date: 2002-08-13
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A method of transporting high and low bite rate communicative services in a communications network arrangement comprising a passive fibre optic network (15) in which traffic is transported in ATM cells in both upstream and downstream directions, and a local distribution network (11) to which subscriber terminals (13) are connected and in which downstream traffic to said terminals is broadcast and upstream traffic from said terminals is allocated to time slots in a time division multiple access (TDMA) protocol, the method comprising packetising said services for upstream transmission within the local network into minicells for transmission within time slots allocated thereto, wherein said time slots are partitioned into a plurality of minislots each capable of accommodating one or more said minicells, wherein each said minislot comprises a unique word (UW) which provides delineation of the minislot, a start field (SF) and a payload, the start field incorporating a pointer indicating the start of the first complete minicell in the payload, and wherein said minislots are allocated in contiguous blocks for said high bit rate services and are allocated individually for said low bit rate services.