Patent ID: 7839885

Claim:
A method of switching a plurality of tributaries disposed among a plurality of time slots in a frame, comprising the steps of: (A) buffering said frame in a switch circuit; (B) switching said tributaries among said time slots in response to a read address; and (C) generating said read address in response to a plurality of identifications in a connection map, wherein (i) said identifications define data rearrangement among said time slots in said frame and (ii) said connection map has (a) a number of said identifications no greater than a maximum number of said tributaries in said frame plus one for a transport overhead of said frame and plus one for a path overhead of said frame and (b) less than 180QN┌ log 2 90PN┐ bits, where P is a number of input ports of said switch circuit, Q is a number of output ports of said switch circuit and N is a number of either (1) SONET Synchronous Transport Signal, level-1 frames or (2) Synchronous Transport Module, level-0 frames in said frame.