only 1024 involve atm cells the aforementioned 3072 rcbs is a hardware limitation attributable to the ibm rainier the 1024 rcbs assigned to atm is a software implementation decision neither of these values are to be interpreted as limitations of the invention a free list which is initiated and maintained by control software lists up to 3072 entries in this implementation a re assembly queue identifier which is available for drq service is placed on the free list the free list may be modified dynamically allowing online reconfiguration the 1024 re assembly queues are used to perform the re assembly function for up to 100k atm connections sharing the re assembly queues rqs between the atm connections require dynamic assignment of the rqs and this dynamic assignment is provided by the present invention according to the invention an rq is assigned to only one atm connection at any one time during that time atm cells received from a connection are stored in the corresponding rq from which the cells are reassembled into an mpls packet when re assembly of an mpls packet is complete the packet is forwarded to an i o port for transmission over the mpls network assignment of rqs to atm connections is controlled with an exception that will be explained.