Abstract: In a switching network with a plurality of inlets and outlets and a plurality of interconnected switching nodes having inputs and outputs with respective addresses, a method is described of modifying a first set of outlets to which a cell stream is routed from one of the inlets to a second set of outlets to which this cell stream is to be routed, the addresses of the outputs of each switching node from which the cell stream is output being stored in a routing table of the node. The method includes the steps of transmitting a modification request message to the inlets from each outlet belonging to one but not to both sets and in each switching node receiving the modification request message on one of its outputs, selectively transmitting the request message to the inlets or transmitting a confirmation message to the above each outlet depending on the absence or presence in the node routing table of addresses of node outputs other than the one node output, respectively.

Abstract: A packetizer arrangement is disclosed with at least one packetizer device (PDPI1..PDPIM, PDPO1..PDPOM) for generating packets of respective individual packet streams from corresponding respective individual data streams (IDS1..IDSN) which are multiplexed and form part of an incoming data stream (CDS). Each of the packets includes a set of subsequent data portions of a corresponding respective individual data stream, and a last data portion included in the set is the one incoming substantially a time interval after a packet immediately preceding the present packet has been generated, this time interval corresponding to the length of this packet.