Patent ID: 7864685

Claim:
A system comprising: an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch with a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports; an outgoing line circuit connected to one of the output ports of the ATM switch; and an incoming line circuit connected to one of the input ports of the ATM switch, the incoming line circuit comprising: a first queue to store operation, administration, and maintenance (OAM) cells, a second queue to store non-OAM cells, a quality of service (QoS) control section to shape output of the non-OAM cells from the second queue, a shaper to shape output of the OAM cells from the first queue to ensure a quality of transmission of the non-OAM cells stored in the second queue, and an output controller to selectively output, to one of the input ports of the ATM switch, the OAM cells received from the shaper and the non-OAM cells received from the QoS control section.