[54] HIGH SPEED DATA COMPRESSION AND TRANSMISSION FOR WIDE AREA NETWORK CONNECTIONS IN LAN/BRIDGING APPLICATIONS
[75] Inventors: Gary Videlock, Foxborough; Mark J.
Freitas, East Walpole; Philip P.
Gailinas, Whitinsville, all of Mass.
[73] Assignee: Microcom Systems, Inc.,
Wilmington, Del.
[21] Appl. No.: 824,732
[22] Filed: Jan. 21, 1992
Related U.S. Application Data
[63] Continuation of Ser. No. 580,657, Sep. 11, 1990, abandoned.
[51] Int. C1.5 H04J 3/02
[52] U.S. CI 370/85.13; 370/109
[58] Field of Search 370/109, 85.13, 85.14,
370/85.5, 82
[56] References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
4,679,191 7/1987 Nelson et al 370/118
4,700,341 10/1987 Huong 370/82
4,823,342 4/1989 Moute et al 370/109
4,901,312 2/1990 Hui et al 370/85.12
4,922,503 5/1990 Leone 370/85.12
Primary Examiner—Douglas W. Olms
Assistant Examiner—T. Samuel
Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Schiller & Kusmer
[57] ABSTRACT
A bridge/router for use in bridging and routing data among one or more local area networks and a wide area network is disclosed. The bridge/router utilizes a data compressor adapted to compress data in frames adding an end of compression marker after each frame. The bridge/router provides data transmission speeds as fast as 2.048 Mbps and includes means for inhibiting the end of compression marker, while generating a data structure with each frame which is compressed with the frame of data. The data structure includes information representing the number of bytes of raw data in the corresponding frame so that on decompression the decompresser knows the number of bytes to provide in the resulting frame of decompressed data, thus avoiding the need for the end of compression marker. By inhibiting the marker compression is performed with greater efficiency.
16 Claims, 4 Drawing Sheets
