Patent ID: 6973041

Claim:
A data transmission system for transmitting a payload constituted from a number of concatenated signals, the system comprising: a demultiplexer having an input for coupling to the payload and having plurality of outputs; a multiplexer have a plurality of inputs; a plurality of pointer processors, each having an input coupled to a respective output of the demultiplexer and having an output coupled to a respective input of the multiplexer, wherein each of the pointer processors comprises: (a) a bidirectional terminal coupled to a common node, and (b) circuitry coupled to the processor input, processor output and bidirectional terminal, the circuitry for: (i) causing a logic level to be asserted at the common node in response to an error signal at the processor input, and (ii) causing an alarm signal to appear at the processor output in response to the application of a logic level signal at the processor bidirectional terminal by at least one of the plurality of pointer processors.