Designing of Data Link Layer for Virtual Bus Architecture

This paper presents a new data link layer design for the virtual bus architecture. The virtual bus architecture is a hierarchical access network offering a broadcast capability for data and signalling. We illustrate a multiple access protocol (MAP) with generic frame procedure (GFP) for transmitting IP network protocol datagram over SDH/SONET. The protocol adds multiterminal access capability to an inherently point-to-point link. This is a novel method for transmitting MAP with GFP. It enables the design of seamless networking environments using SDH/SONET as the transmission medium for metropolitan area network. The new frame mapping protocol is known as virtual bus transport (VBT).