Patent ID: 7068657

Claim:
A method for facilitating inverse multiplexing (IM) over asynchronous transfer mode, comprising: receiving a stream of sequentially aligned ATM cells via an originating end point logical communication link; associating a sequence identifier with each one of said ATM cells for creating sequence-identified ATM cells including determining a sequence code for each one of said ATM cells and inserting the sequence code for each one of said ATM cells into a header portion of a corresponding one of said ATM cells and identifying when a particular sequence identifier results in a header portion bit value that corresponds to a reference bit value designating a reference function; holding a first portion and a second portion of said sequence-identified ATM cells in a first transmitter queue and a second transmitter queue, respectively, wherein the first transmitter queue and the second transmitter queue are associated with a first one and a second one, respectively, of a plurality of IM communication links; and sequentially forwarding said sequence-identified ATM cells from each said queue over said associated one of the plurality of IM communication links, wherein the first one of the plurality of IM communication links has a data transmission rate disparate in at least one data transmission direction with respect to a data transmission rate of the second one of the plurality of IM communication links.