Patent ID: 6104714
Filing Date: 2000-08-15
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
Apparatus comprising:a plurality of station adapters connected in a ring network and defining a first station, a second station and a third station, said third station operating as a ring server controlling and managing isochronous traffic; anda flow of data frames communicated among said stations,each of said frames having a Frame starting delimiter (START), a TOKEN field used by each station to request access to the next frame, an ACCESS field including a first LEVEL field, a field receiving the contents of an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cell, and a frame ending delimiter (STOP);each of said frames being one of a first type and a second type;said first type of frame being an isochronous control cell containing a cell header, a sequence number field (Snum), a typs of command field (Action) and a parameter field for establishing and managing connections between said station adapters;said parameter field containing a slotlist in which slots are allocated for sharing of data cells by a plurality of different connections;said second type of frame being an isochronous data cell containing a header and a payload divided into N number of m bit slots for exchanging data via established connections;said server station providing to each established connection a transmit identifier in the header associated with a list of allocated slots for transmission and a receive identifier in the header associated with a list of allocated slots for reception from other linked stations.