On cell size and header error control of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)

Abstract

Addresses two important issues related to the format of an ATM cell: the optimum size of the information field that minimizes the resource utilization, and the cell header error control. Analysis results indicate that an optimum size for the information field of an ATM cell does exist. However, its specific value is not too critical when viewed from the particular aspect of channel utilization efficiency, because a broad range of values provides about the same average channel utilization rate. The impact of cell header protection (i.e. error correction and/or detection) on the cell loss of an ATM network is also investigated. It is shown that a cyclic redundancy code that can correct a single bit error significantly reduces the cell loss of the network and appears to be a sufficient mechanism for protection of the cell header against single-bit transmission errors.