Patent ID: 7522612

Claim:
A system, comprising: a plurality of base stations communicating with a radio network controller by an asynchronous transfer mode based data connection, at least one of the plurality of base stations comprising a plurality of radio sectors having physically distributed asynchronous transfer mode adaptation layer 2 based termination points, each termination point having an asynchronous transfer mode adaptation layer 2 over asynchronous transfer mode structure for mapping different call ID's into an asynchronous transfer mode adaptation layer 2 cell stream of a single asynchronous transfer mode virtual connection under control of a control unit timer having a determined delay time; and an asynchronous transfer mode switching unit configured to receive all asynchronous transfer mode adaptation layer 2 cell streams sent parallel to each other from said termination points, wherein said asynchronous transfer mode switching unit comprises a multiplexer configured to multiplex said received asynchronous transfer mode adaptation layer 2 cell streams into a single asynchronous transfer mode virtual connection to be processed by an asynchronous transfer mode switch, and wherein a control unit timer used in said multiplexer has a larger value than a control unit timer used for said asynchronous transfer mode adaptation layer 2 cell streams.