Abstract: A multi-service switch for a telecommunications network (10) is provided. A system bus (13) has an ingress portion (14) and an egress portion (16). The system bus (13) is operable to carry data in a plurality of time slots. A system bus control (11) comprises a head-of-bus control (12) having an output. The output of the head-of-bus control is coupled to the ingress portion (14) of the system bus (13). The system bus control (11) also comprises a tail-of-bus control (15) coupled to the head-of-bus control (12). The tail-of-bus control (15) has an input coupled to the egress portion (16) of the system bus (13). A plurality of interface modules (28.sub.1 through 28.sub.n) each have an input and an output. The input of each interface module (28.sub.1 through 28.sub.n) is coupled to the egress portion (16) of the system bus (13), and the output of each interface module is coupled to the ingress portion (14) of the system bus (13). An ingress/egress bridge (18) has an input and an output.

Abstract: Three data formats for telecommunication networks are provided. One format is an asynchronous packet bus overlay datagram format (122) constructed to include an internal datagram header (140) and a datagram payload (141) concatenated with the internal datagram header. The internal datagram header comprises a destination address (146), a weighted age (152), and a source address (14). A second format is a wideband bus overlay format (126) comprising three header octets and a plurality of payload octets such that the data is formatted into one of a plurality of industry standard isochronous wideband data formats. A third format is a narrow band bus overlay format (124) comprising a plurality of signaling octets, a plurality of octets concatenated with the first plurality of signaling octets to hold data, and a common system multiframe structure.

Abstract: A multi-service switch for a telecommunications network (10) is provided. A system bus (13) has an ingress portion (14) and an egress portion (16). The system bus (13) is operable to carry data in a plurality of time slots. A system bus control (11) comprises a head-of-bus control (12) having an output. The output of the head-of-bus control is coupled to the ingress portion (14) of the system bus (13). The system bus control (11) also comprises a tail-of-bus control (15) coupled to the head-of-bus control (12). The tail-of-bus control (15) has an input coupled to the egress portion (16) of the system bus (13). A plurality of interface modules (28.sub.1 through 28.sub.n) each have an input and an output. The input of each interface module (28.sub.1 through 28.sub.n) is coupled to the egress portion (16) of the system bus (13), and the output of each interface module is coupled to the ingress portion (14) of the system bus (13). An ingress/egress bridge (18) has an input and an output.