Lucent Technologies Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

Alcatel-lucent USA Inc.

Yang Cao

William M Buchanan

Steven Arvo Surek

Steven R LeClair

Antonio Zuniga

Chun-Lung Philip Chen

Stephen George Lefoley

Steven Aa: Surek

A hybrid telecommunications switch includes circuit and packet switch fabrics, and a controller. The controller is configured to map IP traffic into ATM service categories, to separate incoming IP from circuit switched traffic and to provide access, through a connection admission control (CAC) protocol to a circuit switched fabric for IP traffic. Real-time traffic, such as voice traffic, may be separated from non-real-time traffic, such as Internet email traffic. Once separated, the real time traffic may be switched through a circuit switch fabric and the non-real-time traffic maybe switched through a packet switch fabric. IP traffic, such as that mapped into CBR and rt-VBR ATM service categories may aggregated 'on-the-fly', that is, without pre-provisioning, and switched through the hybrid switch's circuit switch fabric. IP traffic mapped into other ATM service categories is routed through a packet switch fabric.

Apparatus and method for synchronous and asynchronous switching of internet protocol traffic

A hybrid telecommunications switch includes synchronous transfer mode (circuit), and packet switch fabrics. A controller within the hybrid switch determines the type of traffic that is to be switched in either switch fabric. Real time traffic, such as voice traffic, may be routed by the controller to an circuit switch fabric for example. Internet protocol (IP) and packet traffic may also be routed to the circuit switch fabric. A SONET/SDH overhead byte associated with traffic may be employed by the controller to determine which switch fabric to employ. Circuit switch resources are provisioned for circuit, IP and packet traffic. IP or packet traffic, as indicated by the path overhead byte, is routed to the packet switch after resources are dynamically allocated for the traffic.

Apparatus and method for hybrid telecommunications switching

A heterogeneous telecommunications system employs 'out of band' signalling to automatically discover the identity of the two ports connecting two network elements through a specific link. Either of the connected network elements may be a circuit switching network element or a packet switching network element. One network element initiates the port discovery process and transmits an overhead signal, such as a SONET/SDH protection switching message, to the network element attached at the other end of the link. The other network element monitors the status of its ports and, when it detects a change in state at one of the ports, resulting from the first network element's transmissions, the receiving, or passive, network element recognizes the port as the port which forms a part of the link of interest. Each group of network elements, packet switching and circuit switching, elects a network element leader which coordinates requests for port identification.

Apparatus and method for automatic port identity discovery in hierarchical heterogenous systems

A hybrid telecommunications switch includes synchronous transfer mode (STM) and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch fabrics, and a controller. The controller is configured to separate incoming ATM from STM traffic and to provide access, through a connection admission control (CAC) protocol to an STM fabric for ATM traffic. In one aspect of the invention, real-time traffic, such as voice traffic, may be separated from non-real-time traffic, such as Internet email traffic. Once separated, the real time traffic may be switched through a circuit switch fabric and the non-real-time traffic may be switched through a packet switch fabric. ATM traffic, such as CBR and rt-VBR may aggregated 'on-the-fly', that is, without pre-provisioning, and switched through the hybrid switch's circuit switch fabric. ATM traffic falling into other categories is routed through a packet switch fabric.

Apparatus and method for synchronous and asynchronous transfer mode switching of ATM traffic

A network element for use in a heterogeneous telecommunications system employs &ldquo;out of band&rdquo; signalling to automatically discover the identity of the two ports connecting two network elements through a specific link. Either of the connected network elements may be a circuit switching network element or a packet switching network element. One network element initiates the port discovery process and transmits a SONET/SDH overhead signal to the network element attached at the other end of the link. The other network element monitors the status of its ports and, when it detects a change in state at one of the ports, resulting from the first network element's transmissions, the receiving, or passive, network element recognizes the port as the port which forms a part of the link of interest.

Apparatus and method for automatic port identity discovery in heterogenous systems

A router in accordance with the principles of the present invention employs explicit routing protocols to establish a plurality of explicitly routed label switched paths between source and sink routers. The sink router selects one of these explicitly routed paths as a primary path and communicates along that path. Upon a failure in a path selected as a primary path, a secondary path is instantaneously selected as the new primary path. Since the new route has already been established, there is no need to re-compute the path at the time of a failure. Consequently, a new path is rapidly established in response to the failure of a path. One of the new routers may employ physical level maintenance information, such as loss of signal (LOS) or loss of pointer (LOP), for example, to detect such path failures. Additionally, the new router may employ provisioned flow information to propagate path failure alarms.

Apparatus and method for internet protocol flow ring protection switching

In an optical telecommunications network in accordance with the principles of the present invention, a link connection undergoes an automatic port recognition process, whereby the port binding information for the link is detected, recorded and shared with the network elements connected by the link, before the link is used to transmit bearer traffic. One of a group of optical network elements that communicate through an out of band channel, such as a LAN, is &ldquo;elected&rdquo; a network element leader. After election, the leader network element coordinates the port discovery process; requests for port &ldquo;recognition&rdquo;, responses to requests, and other messages are passed through the network element leader on the out of band channel from one non-leader network element to another. Once the recognition process is set up through the leader network element, an optical test signal is transmitted along the link in question from the recognition requesting network element to all other network element s in the network. The receiving network elements monitor the power level at each of their &ldquo;inactive&rdquo; ports and the inactive port at which an increased energy level is detected is determined to be the port attached to the link in question.

Apparatus and method for automatic port identity discovery in heterogenous optical communications systems

An orthogonal functional basis method for function approximation is disclosed. Starting with the orthogonal least squares method, a new subset selection method for selecting a set of appropriate basis functions is explained where, instead of picking a subset from a given functional basis, the subset is selected from a combination of functional basis evolved from a set of heterogeneous basis functions. The method results in a more efficient neural network.

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Bradford, MA, United States of America

Yang Cao