Importance

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Abstract

An arrangement for concentrating broadband data from a plurality of CPEs (customer premises equipments) for transmission over a link to an ATM network. Because each CPE can generate data at the full rate of the link, it is necessary to detect peaks of bursty traffic from a CPE user quickly and to limit the rate of data transmission whenever the capacity of the link may be exceeded. This is accomplished first by allowing the transmission of certain classes of traffic (lower priority) only when a token to permit transmission has been accumulated in the CPE, and second, by having a FIFO buffer for each user and detecting whenever the FIFO buffer has accumulated more than n cells; when this condition is detected, no more tokens are sent back to the user. The user is not allowed to accumulate more than m tokens. Advantageously, this arrangement allows essentially the full bandwidth of the link to the ATM network to be utilized by a timely throttling of bursts of traffic when they cannot be accommodated.

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First Claim