METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RECOVERY OF PEAK CELL RATE TOKENS IN AN ATM NETWORK INTERFACE

摘要

A method and apparatus are described for transmitting data cells in an ATM network (100) having a plurality of connections (102, 104). A first number of tokens are allocated to a selected one of the plurality of connections. Data cells are transmitted from the selected connection at a peak cell rate (408) while the first number is greater than zero (406). The first number is decremented by one (410) for each data cell transmitted by the selected connection at the peak cell rate. Data cells are then transmitted from the selected connection at a sustainable cell rate which is less than the peak cell rate while the first number is zero. The first number is incremented (432) by a variable increment during an idle period in which the selected connection does not transmit data cells. The variable increment increases in value as the idle period increases in duration.