Abstract: Multi-service telecommunication switches which include enhanced component redundancy and which also allow multiple chassis connections to a switching fabric enhance the likelihood that packets transmitted to and from the switch will not be lost due do a particular component failure and also enable chassis stacking in a rack system. Such a multi-service telecommunication switch includes redundant physical layer adapter cards, redundant service cards, redundant timing modules, and redundant switching fabrics. Further, the multi-service telecommunication switch, includes an enhanced data flow distribution (load-balancing) architecture which enables multiple chassis connections to the switching fabrics.

Abstract: A method of telecommunication network switch port polling enables very highly channelized ports to be polled. A polling engine reads information from at least one of a plurality of poll registers, and each of the plurality of poll registers is associated with a unique identifier. Depending on the information read from the at least one poll register, the polling engine reads a channel number representing the channel to be polled from a location in channel memory. The polling engine determines the location from the unique identifier associated with the at least one poll register from which the information is read. The polling engine polls channel represented by the read channel number.