Patent ID: 7031339

Claim:
A communication method of communicating digital information of different data formats through a bridge unit located between at least two communication units able to communicate by at least one of the data formats, wherein the method comprises: a reception operation of receiving digital information having a first format, transmitted via a first communication channel from a communication unit that uses the first format; a determination operation of determining at least a need to reformat received digital information having the first format according to resources available on a second communication channel; a determination operation for determining a bandwidth allocation on the second communication channel in order to provide a minimum service of reformatting the received digital information; a reformat operation of reformatting the received digital information having the first format to digital information having a second format different from the first format and selected among a plurality of second formats, if a need is determined and if the allocation of the bandwidth is determined; and a transmission operation of transmitting the digital information having the second format via the second channel to one of the communication units, wherein said determination operation for determining a bandwidth allocation comprises: a request operation of requesting an allocation of a bandwidth that is necessary for transmitting the digital information having the second format; a determination operation for determining whether the requested bandwidth allocation is allocated; in a case in which the requested bandwidth allocation is not allocated, a renegotiation operation for requesting an allocation of a new bandwidth.