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Combined terminal adapter for SMDS and frame relay high speed data services

  • US 5,251,207 A
  • Filed: 03/10/1992
  • Issued: 10/05/1993
  • Est. Priority Date: 03/10/1992
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A terminal adapter for interfacing a native frame relay DTE with an SMDS telecommunications network so that said SMDS network is transparent to said frame relay DTE, said terminal adapter comprising:

  • a frame relay element for interfacing with said frame relay DTE;

    an SMDS element for interfacing with said SMDS network; and

    a protocol conversion and address translation element connected between said frame relay element and said SMDS element for converting the transmission protocol between frame relay and SMDS and for translating the addresses between frame relay and SMDS,said frame relay element comprising means for receiving frames of data from said frame relay DTE, each frame having a header and a trailer, means for parsing said frames of data, and means for passing said parsed frames of data to said protocol conversion and address translation element, said frame relay element further comprising means for receiving frames of data from said protocol conversion and address translation element and means for sending frames of data to said frame relay DTE;

    said SMDS element comprising means for receiving cells of data from said SMDS network, each cell having a header and a trailer, means for verifying and removing said headers and trailers thereby forming shorter fixed-sized data blocks, means for assembling a plurality of data blocks, and means for passing said assembled data blocks to said protocol conversion and address translation element, said SMDS element further comprising means for receiving assembled data blocks from said protocol conversion and address translation element, means for segmenting said assembled data blocks into said shorter fixed-sized data blocks, means for adding a header and a trailer to each fixed-sized data block so as to form a plurality of cells of data, and means for sending said cells of data to said SMDS network; and

    said protocol conversion and address translation element comprising means for sending and receiving frames of data to and from said frame relay element, means for sending and receiving assembled data blocks to and from said SMDS element, means for removing the frame relay headers and trailers from said received frames of data and for appending SMDS headers and trailers to said assembled data blocks to be sent to said SMDS element, means for removing the SMDS headers and trailers from said received assembled blocks of data and for appending frame relay headers and trailers to said frames of data to be sent to said frame relay element, means for translating frame relay addresses to SMDS addresses and means for translating SMDS addresses to frame relay addresses.

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