Patent ID: 6256323
Filing Date: 2001-07-03
Classification: H04L,H04Q

Abstract:
For use in a communication system including an intermediate network through which data is transmitted in fixed length cells and a set of one or more sources of asynchronous data traffic, a method of processing asynchronous characters provided by said sources to provide data in a form suitable for transport through the intermediate network, said method comprising the steps of:a) removing any Start, Stop and parity bits from each asynchronous character received from any of the sources in said set to produce a character data unit;b) assembling a data block comprising one or more character data units resulting from processing asynchronous characters received in sequence from the same source in said set;c) adding at least one source-identifying ID byte to each assembled data block to create a data unit;d) concatenating a plurality of data units to build a data unit frame; ande) encapsulating said data unit frame within a fixed length cell structure suitable for transport through the intermediate network.