ATM cell handling
A method of enhancing the resistance of ATM cells ( 10 ) to burst errors and jamming, the ATM cells each including a header ( 12 ) and payload ( 11 ), the method including the step of interleaving the ATM cell header into an error correction transmission frame.
1 . A method of enhancing the resistance of ATM cells to burst errors and jamming, the ATM cells each including a header and payload, the method including the step of interleaving the ATM cell header into an error correction transmission frame wherein empty/idle ATM cells are eliminated/used to substantially match input and output rates of an ATM link.
2 . A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein error correction is applied separately to the payload and header prior to interleaving them within a transmission frame.
3 . A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the error correction corresponds to Reed Solomon forward error correction.
4 . A method as claimed in claim 3 wherein the Reed Solomon encoding is applied to the header and payload separately following which the encoded header is interleaved with the encoded payload.
5 - 6 . (canceled)
7 . An apparatus adapted to enhance the resistance of ATM cells to burst errors and jamming operation in accordance with the method of claim 1.