Patent ID: 8279875

Claim:
A method for an Ethernet network to bear Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cells, comprising: receiving a first ATM cell from an ATM network; stripping a first Header Error Control (HEC) information from a tail of the first ATM cell; mapping a first ATM virtual connection information in a cell header of the first ATM cell to a first interworking identifier (IW ID); judging whether a current Ethernet frame has enough space for packaging the first ATM cell; judging whether the first IW ID obtained from the mapping is identical to a second IW ID in a third ATM cell packaged in the current Ethernet frame if enough space is available in the current Ethernet frame for packaging the first ATM cell; packaging a first interworking word corresponding to the first IW ID obtained from the mapping operation into the current Ethernet frame, and packaging first cell header information and first cell payload information of the received first ATM cell into a payload area of the current Ethernet frame if the first IW ID obtained from the mapping operation is identical to the second IW ID in the third ATM cell packaged in the current Ethernet frame; packaging a first Ethernet frame header and adding a first Frame Check Sequence (FCS) into the current Ethernet frame; and sending the packaged current Ethernet frame over the Ethernet network.