An architectural framework for the support of integrated services by broadband customer premises equipment

The ATM customer premises equipment (CPE) architecture proposed in this paper supports a broad range of user applications with varying service requirements. A backplane bus was chosen as a cost effective, reliable means of providing the necessary internal interconnection bandwidth. Incorporating a novel access mechanism and graceful performance degradation under fault conditions, this bus provides a foundation for Quality of Service provision. Essential functions including traffic management, connection admission control and signalling are then built on top of this. A prototype system which uses a semi-custom ASIC to implement the backplane access mechanism is briefly described. The architecture provides a flexible basis for service provision, allowing a single CPE device to meet a variety of end user requirements. Results of simulations showing the effectiveness of internal bandwidth access mechanisms are presented.