US Patent 7606179 High integrity data propagation in a braided ring

In one embodiment, a node comprises an interface to communicatively couple the node to a channel. The channel communicatively couples the node to a first neighbor node and a first neighbor's neighbor node in a first direction. When the node relays relayed data along the channel, the node compares data received from the first neighbor node with data received from the first neighbor's neighbor node. The relayed data comprises: at least one of: the data received from the first neighbor node and the data received from the first neighbor's neighbor node; and information indicative of the results of the comparison.