ATM multiplexing apparatus, ATM demultiplexing apparatus, and communication network with the apparatus

Abstract

An ATM multiplexing apparatus receives a multiplexed signal obtained by multiplexing a plurality of signals, converts each of a plurality of signals to a predetermined ATM cell according to a kind of the signal, then multiplexes these ATM cells, and outputs the multiplexed ATM cells. The ATM multiplexing apparatus includes a discriminator for discriminating each of a plurality of signals on the multiplexed signal, and a cell multiplexing apparatus for converting each of a plurality of signals on the multiplexed signal directly to a predetermined ATM cell on the basis of the output of the discriminator and outputs a stream of multiplexed ATM cells. On the other hand, an ATM demultiplexing apparatus receives a multiplexed stream of ATM cells, converts each ATM cell to a signal, then conducts multiplexing processing on the signals so as to correspond to a signal kind, converts the signals to a multiplexed signal, and outputs the multiplexed signal. The ATM demultiplexing apparatus includes an ATM cell disassembler for taking out each of a plurality of signals and a time stamp, and a signal multiplexer for converting a plurality of signals supplied from the ATM cell disassembler directly to a multiplexed signal on the basis of the time stamp and outputs the multiplexed signal.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.