An integrated transport technique for circuit and packet switched traffic

An approach to achieving integrated transmission of packet and circuit traffic is proposed. Starting with dynamic time-division multiplexing (DTDM), integrated multiplexing techniques based on block-level processing are described together with their design architecture. These multiplexing techniques allow the handling of both bursty traffic and continuous time-multiplexed signals through the same physical multiplexer, while maintaining a design complexity that is not greater than that of a conventional time division multiplexer. By incorporating these multiplexing techniques into the existing network, DTDM will provide a practical migration strategy from the existing predominantly circuit-switched network to a future broadband packet-switched network.<>