American Telephone & Telegraph Co., At&t Bell Laboratories

Lucent Technologies Inc.

At+t Corp.

At&t Bell Laboratories

Christopher G McHarg

David A Pierce

James M Johnson, Jr

Kenneth N Schaff

Thomas L Hiller

Meyer J Zola

Dennis L DeBruler

Edward H Hafer

Thomas J Starr

Benjamin C Widrevitz

Ralph A Wilson, Iii

Scott W Pector

Paul D Hunter

Thomas E Newman

Douglas A Kimber

Jignesh S Panchal

Kenneth E Wendland

A system and method for determining a round trip delay (RTD) indicator for mobile telephone signals originating from a mobile unit and received at a plurality of base stations in a wireless telecommunications system comprising at least some base stations using rake receivers, each rake receiver comprising a plurality of fingers. The method includes the steps of: collecting one or more finger characteristics from one or more rake receiver fingers assigned to one or more multi-path components of a signal; determining a finger lock category for at least one of the assigned one or more rake receiver fingers using the collected one or more finger characteristics; selecting a rake receiver finger from the one ore more rake receiver fingers using the determined finger lock categories, wherein the selected rake receiver finger has an associated RTD; and recording the RTD indicator corresponding to the selected finger. The system includes a processor configured to perform the foregoing steps.

System and method for determining a best round trip delay indicator

A system and method are described for enforcing the validity of circulating pointers stored in a pointer FIFO (first-in-first-out) memory. One or more target pointers are generated and compared to circulating pointers. If a pointer does not circulate through the system within a pre-specified time, then a pointer has been lost and an error is reported. If a circulating pointer matches a target pointer, it is suppressed by being removed from the set of circulating pointers. Another timer is then set to determine whether further circulating pointers match a target pointer. If so, then multiple pointers to the same location are present and all duplicate pointers are suppressed. After expiration of the second time, the target pointers are added to the set of circulation pointers. This process repeats with new target pointers, so that the validity of the set of circulating pointers is verified.

System and method for monitoring the validity of circulating pointers in

A fast packet switch comprising one buffer directly connected between a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports to effect rapid throughput of data packets. A pointer to a location in the buffer is allocated by a buffer manager upon receipt of notification of an incoming packet at the receiving input port and the input port delivers the packet as it is received to the location designated by the pointer. After the data packet is received, the input port delivers the pointer and a destination address for the packet to a router, which selects one of the plurality of output ports based on the destination address. The router queues the pointer in a queue for the selected output port. The output port then retrieves the data packet from the buffer using the pointer to determine the location, and transmits the data packet. After the transmission is complete, the output port returns the pointer to the buffer manager. This packet switch may be pipelined to receive, route, and transmit simultaneously on adjacent data packets.

High bandwidth packet switch

A switching system including a number of switching modules each having a plurality of access ports. Incoming and outgoing packet channels are extended between each switching module and an inter-module packet switch. Each of the switching modules includes both a packet switching unit and a circuit switching unit for switching information to and from the access ports. Each switching module further includes a control unit that controls the switching units and that generates inter-module control packets, and a communication interface that transmits inter-module control packets generated by the control unit on the incoming packet channel to the inter-module packet switch. The communication interface also transmits inter-module control packets received on the outgoing packet channel from the inter-module packet switch to the control unit. The inter-module packet switch concurrently packet switches inter-module control packets received on a number of the incoming packet channels, via mutltiple independent paths to a number of the outgoing packet channels.

Control information communication arrangement for a distributed control

A packet switch for switching packets received on a number of incoming packets channels to a number of outgoing packet channels. The packet switch includes a number of packet buffers each for storing packets received from an associated one of the incoming packet channels and further includes a number of selectors each permanently connected to each of the packet buffers and each associated with one of the outgoing packet channels for selectively connecting any of the packet buffers to the associated outgoing packet channel. A packet switch control mechanism responds to packets stored by the packet buffers by controlling the selective connections made by the selectors based on headers included in the stored packets. The control mechanism also responds to the stored packets by selectively effecting the transmission of the stored packets by the packet buffers.

Packet switch

A switching system including a number of switching modules each having a plurality of access ports. Incoming and outgoing packet channels are extended between each switching module and an inter-module packet switch. Each switching module includes a packet switching unit that transmits user information packets, received from the access ports, via the incoming packet channel to the inter-module packet switch, and switches user information packets, received via the outgoing packet channel from the inter-module packet switch, to the access ports for inter-module packet-switched communication. The intermodule packet switch concurrently packet switches user information packets, received on a number of the incoming packet channels, via multiple independent paths to a number of the outgoing packet channels.

Distributed packet switching sytem

Growing community of inventors

Winfield, IL, United States of America

Christopher G McHarg