Telecommunications network architecture for transporting fax, voice and data via an ATM switch including a STM to ATM terminal adapter

A telecommunications network including a STM switch, a ATM switching network, and a terminal adapter disposed there between, the terminal adapter being configured to (1) map trunks and trunk subgroups from the STM switch into virtual paths/virtual circuits in the ATM switching network;

• and (2) classify a type of incoming signal as one of voice, fax and data;
• and the terminal adapter including a silence detection module that, responsive to a classification as voice, marks one or more silence cells and a silence insertion module that repeats one or more silence cells in response to a silence cell missing from a virtual circuit,
• wherein said silence detection module further marks cells containing partial silence and partial speech and cells substantially containing speech.

A telecommunications network including a STM switch, a ATM switching network, and a terminal adapter disposed there between, the terminal adapter being configured to (1) map trunks and trunk subgroups from the STM switch into virtual paths/virtual circuits in the ATM switching network;

• and (2) classify a type of incoming signal as one of voice, fax and data;
• and the terminal adapter including a silence detection module that, responsive to a classification as voice, marks one or more silence cells and a silence insertion module that repeats one or more silence cells in response to a silence cell missing from a virtual circuit,
• the terminal adapter further for determining bandwidth availability and the silence detection module dropping marked cells if there is congestion.