Patent ID: 7382780

Claim:
A method of transmitting data comprising: synchronizing a system clock with a real time clock to provide a system clock time; collecting digital data from a plurality of sources at a known system clock time, each source being identified with a source identifier; providing the system clock time to a sample counter having a full count and a partial count, the partial count being the least significant portion of the full count, and the sample counter providing a count for each system clock time; associating the digital data for each source with each count of the partial count at the system clock time; composing a data cell from the digital data associated with at least one count of the partial count and the source identifier; composing a data frame from the composed data cells from all of the sources; composing a cell frame from a plurality of data frames, each cell frame being associated with a revolution of the partial count; composing a time frame as a predetermined number of cell frames; composing a heads up cell from the full count of the sample counter; composing a time/count cell from the full count of the sample counter and a synchronized real time from the real time clock; transmitting the heads up cell before transmitting each composed time frame; transmitting the composed time frame; and transmitting the time/count cell between cell frames within an associated time frame, said transmitted heads up cells, composed time frames and time/count cells being collectively identified as an asynchronous data stream.