Patent ID: 7372862

Claim:
A method for rate adaptation applied to a node in a communication network, said node comprising one or more time slot buses transferring frames from a number of serial input lines located on a receiving side of the node to a number of serial output lines located on the transmitting side of the node, the serial input/output lines each having one respective FIFO into/from which bits corresponding to the associated serial line are shifted, said method comprising the steps of: a) transferring one extra bit per frame from a FIFO of an input line if the number of bits in the FIFO exceeds a predefined upper limit; b) transferring one bit less per frame from a FIFO of an input line if the number of bits in the FIFO goes below a predefined lower limit; and c) inserting one header to each frame comprising at least a control and an extension field, the control field indicating if the respective frame includes one extra bit or one bit less, and the extension field is reserved for the possible extra bit.