Patent ID: 6680954
Filing Date: 2004-01-20
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A method of reducing error-multiplication due to error events in a cell stream transmitted as a plurality of cell sub-streams in an inverse multiplexing system whose actions include:receiving an incoming cell stream comprising an ordered sequence of cells including payload cells; transmitting the incoming cell stream in a round robin fashion on a plurality of physical links such that the ordered sequence of cells is transmitted as a plurality of cell sub-streams, each cell sub-stream comprising a multiplexed set of cells from said incoming cell stream; inserting stuff (st) cells into said cell sub-streams so as to form continuous streams of data; inserting sequence number (S) cells periodically into each cell sub-stream, wherein said S cells are used to align said cell sub-streams in frames; and re-constructing at the receiving end a sequence of said ordered sequence of cells from said cell sub-streams, the method comprising the steps of: encoding sets of cell location information for the cell sub-streams, each of said sets of cell location information comprising the location of payload cells and st cells located within a corresponding cell sub-stream; passing said sets of cell location information to a receiving end; and decoding the sets of cell location information to identify and locate errored cells and missing cells within the cell sub-streams and demultiplexing and releasing error-free payload cells from the cell sub-streams.