Providing access to a high-capacity packet network
View Patent ↗A simple access device provides access to a high-capacity network to a traffic source. Once connected to a traffic source, an edge module in the high-capacity network can assign a sub-network address to the traffic source so that the source may also serve as a sink for data traffic. Although the sub-network address assigned to the traffic source may bear little resemblance to a network address for the edge module, distant edge modules may route traffic to a traffic sink having such a sub-network address easily and flexibly. Features may be added to the access device, which would otherwise be little more than a multiplexer, but, for the most part, the edge modules make the routing decisions. Data transfer from the current Internet to the high-capacity network and vice versa can be facilitated by requiring that each edge module in the high-capacity network that acts as a gateway be bilingual, that is, understand both a simple high-capacity network-specific routing protocol and conventional Internet protocols.
1. An address identifying a traffic sink by connection to an access device and a constellation of edge modules, said address embodied in a computer readable medium, said address comprising:
an indication of a constellation number associated with said constellation;
an indication of a length of said indication of said constellation number;
an indication of a device number associated with said access device;
an indication of a length of said indication of said device number;
an indication of a user number associated with said traffic sink;
an indication of specific edge modules in said constellation to which said access device connects; and
an indication of a length of said address.
2. The address of claim 1 wherein said indication of said length of said indication of said constellation number has a value one less than a number of bits in a binary representation of said indication of said constellation number.
3. The address of claim 1 wherein said indication of said length of said indication of said device number has a value one less than a number of bits in a binary representation of said indication of said device number.
4. A computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave comprising:
a data packet including:
an indication of a constellation number associated with a constellation of edge modules;
an indication of a length of said indication of said constellation number;
an indication of a device number associated with an access device;
an indication of a length of said indication of said device number;
an indication of a user number associated with a traffic source;
an indication of specific edge modules in said constellation to which said access device connects; and
an indication of a length of said data packet.
5. The address of claim 1 wherein said indication of said specific edge modules is an access code comprising a sequence of bits having a one-to-one correspondence to said edge modules in said constellation.
6. The address of claim 5 wherein a particular bit, in said sequence of bits, corresponding to a particular edge module in said constellation is set to equal “1” if said access device has a communication channel to said particular edge module and is set to equal “0” if said access device does not have a communication link to said particular edge module.
7. The address of claim 1 wherein said length of said address provides an upper limit for a number of users that can be simultaneously connected through said access device.
8. The address of claim 1 wherein said indication of said length of said address is expressed as an integer number of bytes and is equal to a length of said address in bytes minus four, where said length of said address is at least four bytes.