Patent ID: 6108338
Filing Date: 2000-08-22
Classification: H04J,H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
A dynamic synchronous transfer mode network for transmitting information, comprising:a first dynamic synchronous transfer mode ring topology having a first node, a second node, a third node and a fourth node for receiving and transmitting frames, the first ring topology using time division multiplexing of time cycles that are dividable into time slots, a first set of time slots being dynamically allocated to the first node, a second set of time slots being dynamically allocated to the second node and a third set of time slots being dynamically allocated to the third node and a fourth set of time slots being dynamically allocated to the fourth node, a portion of the first set of time slots being dynamically allocatable to the second node, the first topology being adapted to transmit frames only in a first fiber direction;a second dynamic synchronous transfer mode ring topology having the first node, the second node and the third node in common with the first ring topology, the second ring topology being adapted to transmit frames only in a second fiber direction that is opposite the first fiber direction; andthe fourth node being an expansion node having an expandable buffer segment for storing incoming frames transmitted by the first node, the second node and the third node;a first segment in the first ring topology extending from the fourth node to the first node;a second segment in the first ring topology extending from the second node to the third node so that the second segment is disjointed from the first segment;an extended DTM block token format describing the first and second segments; andthe fourth node being arranged to reserve block token capacity only on the first segment and the second node being arranged to reserve block token capacity only on the second segment to permit a simultaneous transmission in the same time slot over the first and second disjointed segments.