A simple cell spacer architecture regenerating source cell interval for multiple traffic classes

A new simple cell spacing architecture that guarantees the peak cell interval and realizes preferential contention resolution is proposed. Scheduling the cell emission on departure of the previous cell not arrival allows the source peak cell interval to be regenerated without clumping. Priority control is also realized in the proposed spacer. A connection is scheduled either at the head or tail of the contention chain depending on its priority. The proposed method is applied to realize the UPC function. The proposed cell spacer eliminates the clumping effects of CDV completely and achieves high bandwidth efficiency.