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Abstract

The present invention is a novel method and apparatus for efficiently transporting and synchronizing data between the Media Access Control (MAC) and physical communication protocol layers in a wireless communication system. An inventive method and apparatus for transporting and synchronizing to fixed-length ATM cell boundaries and for protecting against the potential misinsertion of ATM cells has been described. An inventive ATM packet format is described. The ATM packet format is used by the present invention for the transportation and synchronization of ATM cells. The ATM packets include fields that are used to detect errors occurring within each ATM cell. ATM cells are transported in exactly two TC/PHY packets, or TDUs. ATM header information is contained in the first TDU only. No ATM header information is carried by the second TDU. An entire ATM cell is discarded if an uncorrectable error is detected in the first TDU. If no uncorrectable error occurs in the first TDU, the second TDU is checked for errors. If an undetectable error exists in the second TDU, no discard action is taken. The error is noted, and both TDUs are passed through to the higher MAC communication layers. The inventive method protects against errors occurring in the ATM header because the ATM header is always carried in the first TDU. Consequently, misinsertion of ATM cells is also prevented.

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First Claim