Performance evaluation of a variable bit-rate architecture with voice and data traffic

The performance of a novel variable-bit-rate architecture is evaluated by analytical and simulation techniques under different combinations of simultaneous voice and data traffic. The proposed architecture has a star topology with a central switching module and several peripheral modules interconnected by standard digital links. The system implements a variable bit-rate switching channel with a broad range of values given by the expression 2^N of natural numbers. This includes the standard 64 kb/s PCM (pulse code modulation) bit-rate as a particular value. In the implementation presented, the lowest switching level is 4 kb/s and the highest level is 2 Mb/s. However, these limits can be changed to other values for different applications with minor architecture modifications