Abstract: In a telecommunication system that employs asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and minicells to transport communication data, accurate minicell header information dramatically improves the ability to align the minicells at a receiving station. More accurate minicell header information can be achieved by deriving a single header integrity check code (e.g., a cyclic redundancy code) for each ATM cell based upon minicell headers that have been inserted into contiguous locations in the ATM cell. By inserting the headers in contiguous locations, the receiving station can extract each header without having to rely upon the length indicator codes in each header, which may contain one or more bit errors. This, in turn, allows the receiving station to recompute the header integrity check code with far fewer errors, thus substantially increasing the probability of detecting and correcting the aforementioned errors and, ultimately, the ability to align the minicells.

Abstract: In a telecommunication system that uses asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) with the ATM adaption layer (AALm) protocol as a data transfer infrastructure, a method and apparatus for segmenting and reassembling user data packets. The method and apparatus improve the quality and effectiveness of telecommunication data transfer by avoiding the problems associated with excessively long minicells.

Abstract: When using asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) in low bit rate applications, such as cellular voice communication, bandwidth utilization is significantly improved by employing decoupling minicells. Decoupling minicells are of predetermined length, such as one octet, and are inserted into the payload of ATM cells when there is a delay in the availability of assigned minicells. As soon as an assigned minicell, which contains actual user data, becomes available, the assigned minicell can be inserted into the payload of the current ATM cell immediately after the last decoupling minicell. Unlike prior methods, there is no need to wait until the next ATM cell to insert an assigned minicell.

Abstract: The process of detecting lost data cells in a telecommunication system that employs Asynchronous Transfer Mode is significantly improved in terms of bandwidth utilization by using an optional minicell or ATM cell sequence count. This may be accomplished by inserting the minicell or ATM cell sequence count into the ATM cell stream at intervals that can be adjusted at the transmitting station.

Abstract: Segmenting, multiplexing and transporting user data packets in a telecommunication system that employs Asynchronous Transfer Mode can be accomplished more effectively by assigning a transmission priority code to each segmented user data packet based on the type of data contained therein. Data that is highly sensitive to transmission delays (e.g., voice data) will be assigned a high priority, while data that is less sensitive to transmission delays (e.g., signal strength measurement data) will be assigned a lower priority. When the user data packet segments are assembled into segment minicells and multiplexed into the ATM cell stream, those with the highest priority will be inserted first so that they experience the least amount of transmission delay.