US 6,487,223 B1Granted

SDH transmission apparatus with flexible system configuration

AssigneeFujitsu Limited

InventorKouji Tanonaka

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Abstract

An SDH transmission unit which processes various classes of digital bitstreams regardless of their levels of the SDH multiplexing hierarchy, harmonizing the signal formats handled in its integral cross-connect facilities. High-order group transmission units are installed in their dedicated high-order group slots on a mounting rack, and through the wiring on a backplane, they are connected to high-order group ports of a cross-connect unit installed in the same rack. Similarly, low-order group transmission units are installed in dedicated low-order group slots on the mounting rack, and connected to low-order group ports of the cross-connect unit through the backplane. Both high-order and low-order group transmission units are designed to send and receive multiplexed signals at a predetermined level of the SDH multiplexing hierarchy. Because of this harmonized signal format, the high-order and low-order group transmission units seamlessly interface with the cross-connect unit, no matter what level of multiplexed signals they process in their internal activities.

Claims15

Dependent claims

An SDH transmission apparatus which multiplexes transmission signals according to a multiplexing hierarchy, comprising:

a mounting rack having a plurality of module slots and a backplane providing electrical interconnection among functional modules installed in the plurality of module slots;
a cross-connect unit, installed in dedicated cross-connect unit slots on said mounting rack, which comprises high-order group ports and low-order group ports;
at least one high-order group transmission unit, installed in dedicated high-order group slots on said mounting rack to handle high-order digital bitstreams to communicate with equipment outside the SDH transmission apparatus, which sends and receives multiplexed signals at a predetermined level of the multiplexing hierarchy to/from the high-order group ports of said cross-connect unit;
and
a plurality of low-order group transmission units, installed in dedicated low-order group slots on said mounting rack to handle low-order digital bitstreams to communicate with equipment outside the SDH transmission apparatus, which sends and receives the multiplexed signals at the predetermined level of the multiplexing hierarchy to/from the low-order group ports of said cross-connect unit
wherein the predetermined level of the multiplexing hierarchy is fixed regardless of the bitrates of the high-order digital bitstreams or low-order digital bitstreams.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.