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

Douglas A Kimber

Thomas L Hiller

David A Pierce

James M Johnson, Jr

Edward H Hafer

Christopher G McHarg

Dennis L DeBruler

Scott W Pector

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

Growing community of inventors

St. Charles, IL, United States of America

Douglas A Kimber