CIRCUIT AND METHOD FOR MULTIPLEXING A FRAME-RELAY VIRTUAL CIRCUIT AND FRAME-RELAY SYSTEM HAVING MULTIPLEXED VIRTUAL CIRCUITS

摘要

For use with a frame-relay network capable of relaying frames having associated flags, a multiplexing circuit and method for providing end-to-end data management over a single frame-relay virtual circuit of the network. The circuit includes: (1) a logical channel creation circuit for designating a channel flag and first and second headers to be associated with frames relayed via first and second logical channels over the single frame-relay virtual circuit, respectively and (2) a multiplexer for associating frames of first and second data streams with the first and second logical channels, respectively, by inserting the channel flag and second header into each frame of the second data stream and the first header into only frames of the first data stream for which the associated flags match the channel flag, the first and second logical channels thereby allowed to be multiplexed over the single frame-relay virtual circuit, ones of the frames of the first data stream free of the first header to reduce an overhead of the multiplexing circuit.