Method of transmitting data reliably over N normal channels, and over at least one back-up channel, and a transmit end station, a receive end station, and a relay station corresponding to the method

摘要

The invention concerns a method of transmitting data reliably over N normal channels (3), where N>/=1, and over at least one back-up channel (4), between a transmit end station (1) and a receive end station (2), the data transmitted comprising both traffic data and supervisory data. According to the invention, the following successive steps are performed in said transmit end station (1): the traffic data and the supervisory data applied to each of the N pairs of inputs are multiplexed on a respective one of the N normal channels; then, the multiplexed data from a "backed-up" one of the N normal channels is switched to the back-up channel. The following successive steps are performed in the receive end station (2): the multiplexed data from the back-up channel is interchanged with the multiplexed data from the backed-up normal channel; then the traffic data and the supervisory data on each of the N normal channels are demultiplexed so as to make the data available at a respective one of the N pairs of outputs.