Nortel Networks Corporation

William Smith

Simon Daniel Brueckheimer

David John Stacey

Mark Brian Carson

Michael Thomas

Julian Frank Barry Cable

Fai Tsang

Martin Sproat

Stephen Rylant Evans

Andrew Geoffrey Tomlins

John Andrew Shotton

Christopher Clotworthy

James Kearney

One aspect of the invention provides an ingress apparatus comprising a signal processing apparatus for receiving an incoming data frame and locating the position of path overhead, and a monitoring apparatus arranged to extract information from the located path overhead. The ingress apparatus further includes an insertion apparatus for receiving, from the monitoring apparatus, information extracted from the path overhead of one or more signal path, and being further arranged to insert the extracted information into a respective data frame component which occupies a fixed position in a data frame. Thus, information which would normally occupy a non-fixed position in a data frame is moved to a fixed position. As a result, the information can subsequently be accessed without having to employ relatively complex apparatus for locating information which occupies a non-fixed position.

Transmission path monitoring

A method and apparatus for handling persistence measurement of channel associated signaling for a plurality of line circuits, eg, T1, E1, OC3, STM 1 circuits, which extracts channel associated signaling data from a plurality of line circuits; assembles the channel associated signaling data into a data frame; contains the data frame in a suitable carrier, eg, an AAL 0 cell; monitors a continuous stream of the data frames, to check for changes in line status; and generates an event message data frame when a persistent change of line state has been detected. The extracting of associated signaling data may be provided on a separate card to a call control processor, and using separate processor functionality. A data processing load of a prior art call control processor which would otherwise be taken up in channel associated signaling persistence measurements may be alleviated, and the data processing burden on a prior art call control processor for handling persistence measurements is separated off and handled by the data processing apparatus and method according to the present disclosure.

Automated line signal processing

An apparatus for processing a frame structured data signal, the data signal comprising at least one data frame comprising a plurality of data elements arranged in accordance with a frame structure. The apparatus is arranged to generate a tag element for each data element, the configuration of the tag element corresponding to the position of the respective data element within the detected data frame. The apparatus further includes a data processor, arranged to perform one or more respective processing operations on one or more of the data elements, wherein the or each processing operation is determined by the configuration of the respective tag element. The apparatus enjoys the flexibility afforded by a data processor while having relatively low processing power requirements. As a result, it is capable of processing a relatively high volume of data in real time, and is programmable to support more than one frame structure and data rate thereby reducing development, implementation, field maintenance and upgrade costs.

Apparatus and method for processing frame structured data signals

Growing community of inventors

Ballynahinch, United Kingdom

William Smith