US 6,687,225 B1 · Bandwidth control apparatus

Abstract

The invention relates to a bandwidth control apparatus in ATM equipment, for inserting management cells such as OAM cells, the control apparatus being configured to secure a bandwidth for the insertion of a management cell such as an OAM cell when the need arises, while guaranteeing the service quality of user cells, thereby making effective use of network resources for a best effort service such as ABR or UBR. The bandwidth control apparatus comprises a cell insertion block 1-10 for inserting a management cell such as an OAM cell and a shaping block 1-20 for performing user cell shaping, wherein the cell insertion block 1-10 issues an empty cell request when a cell insertion request occurs, the shaping block 1-20, upon receiving the empty cell insertion request, inserts an empty cell in a user cell stream being output from a shaping buffer 1-22, and the cell insertion block 1-10 writes a management cell such as an OAM cell over the empty cell inserted on a cell highway 1-30, thus sending the management cell out on the cell highway 1-30.

Claims27

Dependent claims

A bandwidth control apparatus, comprising:

a buffer for accumulating received user cells;
a shaping means for reading out said user cells within a predetermined bandwidth from said buffer onto a cell highway, and generating an empty cell to be replaced with an insertion cell, in response to an empty cell request,
so that said user cells are read out of said buffer, in such a manner as to allow the empty cell to be inserted between the user cells;
a cell insertion means for accumulating received insertion cells, and overwriting the insertion cell into the empty cell on the cell highway;
and
an empty cell requesting means for monitoring the cell insertion means, and sending the empty cell request to the shaping means based on the arrival of an insertion cell.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Bandwidth control apparatus

Life of this patent

Bandwidth control apparatus

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims27