Nortel Networks Corporation

Simon Daniel Breuckheimer

Julian Frank Barry Cable

Stephen Rylant Evans

David John Stacey

Michael Thomas

Bruce Leigh Townsend

Martin Sproat

Stephen Leonard Fagg

Roy Harold Mauger

Sarah Lucy Wright

Steve Leonard Fagg

An improved architecture in a circuit switched communications network is provided in which a plurality of network service provider devices, eg intelligent peripherals are arranged to provide network service data to a plurality of time division multiplex circuits and trunks by converting these circuits and trunks to streams of packets, and providing network service data packetized in a set of network service data packet streams to the circuit packet streams without incurring delays to the circuit packet streams. The circuit packet streams may be duplicated and forwarded to the network service provider devices without incurring delay to the ongoing through put packetized circuits, and similarly packet streams containing network service data may be superimposed into the circuit packet streams, without the requirement for the circuit packet streams to be switched to the network service provider devices. The architecture comprises a plurality of TDM interfaces, a plurality of conversion means for converting from time division multiplexed mode to a plurality of packet streams; a plurality of packet streams switching devices and a plurality of network service provider devices.

Network service provider architecture in communications network

To segregate functionality and to eliminate redundancy in service logic and associated hardware that together control the interconnection of narrowband trunk circuits ( ) and broadband virtual channels ( ) of a mixed node communication system (FIG. 5), a switch fabric ( ) has an associated memory ( ) that contains a pre-provisioned table of mappings between narrowband trunk circuits (DS- s) and broadband virtual channel identities. Therefore, to establish an end-to-end connection, the switch fabric ( ) searches the pre-provisioned table ( ) for an available connection and then performs the necessary cross-connection between the narrowband trunk circuit is ( ) and the broadband virtual channel ( ). The mappings principally relate to the narrowband-to-switch fabric interface and, as such, avoid the requirement for UNI signalling translation and negotiation, although the mappings may also include the broadband-to-switch fabric interface.

Communication system architecture and method of establishing a communication connection therein

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London, United Kingdom

Simon Daniel Breuckheimer