The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 10, 2002
Filed:
Sep. 08, 1999
3Com Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A system comprising a single sender SMS for forwarding multicast traffic is collocated in the same device as the LEC thus creating an optimal distribution path for multicast traffic. This reduces the latency of transmission of multicast traffic from sender to receivers by eliminating the need to transmit cells from the LEC to the SMS via the network and reassemble cells into frames and segment frames into cells. The SMS functions as a private SMS for exclusive use by the LEC alone. The SMS of the present invention enables a LEC to distribute multicast traffic in a very efficient manner. The LEC communicates with the SMS directly via the operating system internal messaging subsystem or equivalent. The multicast traffic is sent on a P M connection from the sending LEC via the SMS to all the receiving LECs interested in listening to a given MMAC. In a first embodiment, the LEC internally has knowledge of the existence of the private SMS and is inhibited from issuing a LE_ARP_REQ to find the SMS. The LES is prevented from assigning an LEC to that SMS. In a second embodiment, address and LEC information is predefined for the SMS and propagated to all the SMSs. The LES is directed to permit only a single LEC to be assigned to a SMS preventing the LES from assigning a LEC other than the registered LEC to that SMS.