Patent ID: 7058056

Claim:
A method for gradual minimization of differential delay between fragment data streams transmitted via individual paths and forming a virtual data stream between a source point and a destination point; wherein said source point being a point of dismantling a concatenated data stream into said fragment data streams and of launching thereof in parallel onto respective individual paths to form the virtual data stream, and said destination point being a point of reassembling the fragment data streams transmitted over said individual paths into the concatenated data stream; said virtual data stream and each of said fragment data streams consisting of data frames; the method comprises: providing, at one or more intermediate points between the source point and the destination point, one or more intermediate devices for gradually minimizing differential delay; grouping the data frames of the fragment data streams into multiframes, each said multiframe comprising a constant number of the data frames, each data frame in the multiframe bearing its sequence number; arranging said intermediate devices at such intermediate points between the source point and the destination point that, at each of the intermediate points and at the destination point, the maximal delay difference between any incoming pair of the fragment data streams does not exceed ½T cycle , wherein T cycle is the multiframe length measured in time.