Method for associating data with ATM cells

A method for associating data with ATM cells reaching an item of ATM network equipment via virtual connections, comprising the following steps when establishing each of the virtual connections:

• adopting a pair of identifiers for said virtual connection, comprising a virtual path identifier of Lp bits and a virtual channel identifier of Lc bits;
• and
• storing, in a table of the item of equipment, data relating to said virtual connection in relation to the identifier pair thereof, the method further comprising, at the arrival of each ATM cell having a header including the identifier pair of one of the virtual connections, the step of reading from the table data relating to said one of the virtual connections, wherein the table includes p.2m storage areas organized as 2m rows and p columns, m and p being integers at least equal to 1, and wherein the data relating to a virtual connection are stored in an area of the table located in a row labelled by an m-bit index calculated by applying a systematic cyclic code, having a generating polynomial of degree m, to a binary word extracted from a sequence of Lp+Lc bits which consists of the bits of one of the identifiers of the pair adopted in respect of said virtual connection, arranged in order of decreasing significance, followed by the bits of the other identifier of said pair, arranged in order of increasing significance.