Cisco Technology, Inc.

Cem Yildirim

Cherng-Ren Sue

Ruey Kao

A switch apparatus and method according to the invention implements a three stage switching process. Various types of media streams presented to the switch apparatus by the broadband and narrowband connections are adapted for switching by being converted to ATM cells and enqueued in corresponding virtual circuit (VC) queues. ATM cell switching is performed among the different cards based on the quality of service requirement for each virtual circuit. The switched ATM cells are then converted to the outgoing media types and outputted to the necessary broadband and narrowband connections. The switch apparatus and method is further adapted to perform rate shaping and traffic management so as to guarantee the quality of service for various media types (voice, video, data) and also minimize the traffic loss due to rate mismatch between narrowband and broadband connections during the burst period. By virtue of this implementation, the switch apparatus and method of the present invention can perform any-to-any media type switching.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Cem Yildirim