Telephonic communications – Telephone line or system combined with diverse electrical... – Remote indication over telephone line
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-05
2001-08-14
Matar, Ahmad (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Telephone line or system combined with diverse electrical...
Remote indication over telephone line
C379S102010, C379S106030, C379S106090, C379S219000, C379S207030
Reexamination Certificate
active
06275571
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is related to a U.S. patent application, titled “System for Party Line Suppressed Ringing Access of Subscriber Lines” filed on the same date as the present application.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to subscriber line access systems and, in particular, to a system that provides a user or service provider with direct access to a selected subscriber line via a suppressed ringing connection.
PROBLEM
It is a problem in the field of telemetry monitoring for the telemetry service provider to obtain remote access to the serving central office without the need for dedicated direct trunk connections to the central office system. In telemetry applications, the telemetry equipment to be polled typically resides at the customer premises, such as a residence. The telemetry equipment can comprise utility meters, appliance controllers, medical monitoring equipment, security systems, telephone line test apparatus, and the like. The telemetry equipment is typically connected via the telephone company network interface unit to the serving subscriber line in a manner similar to an extension telephone. The telemetry service provider access to the telemetry equipment is effected by the use of a Central Office Service Unit (COSU) that is connected to the serving central office switch via a plurality of dedicated Utility Telemetry Trunks (UTTs). In operation, the telemetry application user, such as a utility company, dials or is directly connected to the Central Office Service Unit that functions to connect the telemetry applications user via one of the dedicated Utility Telemetry Trunks to the serving central office switch, which then provides a suppressed ringing connection to the selected subscriber line. The telemetry applications controller collects data from the polled telemetry equipment and the trunk connection is then dropped. An alternative architecture supports direct access using the emulation of a Central Office Service Unit over E&M analog or digital trunking. The Central Office Service Unit functionality (the support of the Utility Telemetry Trunk protocol) may be emulated by a personal computer or workstation at the server site and not require an adjunct Central Office Service Unit at the central office.
Existing Central Office Service Units can be connected to a number of serving central office switches and therefore represents a single point of failure. In addition, the provision of a plurality of dedicated Utility Telemetry Trunks for each serving central office switch represents a significant investment in limited functionality equipment that may be only infrequently used. There is presently no method or apparatus that enables a service provider to remotely access the subscriber lines via a suppressed ringing connection for the purpose of telemetry monitoring.
SOLUTION
The above-described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved in the field by the system for direct suppressed ringing access to both a subscriber line and the equipment that is connected to this subscriber line. The present system makes use of intelligence in the serving central office switch that identifies the suppressed ringing access nature of the incoming call. When the incoming call is identified as a suppressed ringing access call and the authorization of the calling party to initiate a suppressed ringing access is validated, the subscriber line is accessed via a suppressed ringing connection and the access operation proceeds in well known fashion to retrieve collected telemetry data from telemetry equipment connected to the subscriber line or perform tests on the subscriber line or equipment connected thereto, or perform any other data collection function on the selected subscriber line.
The present system for direct suppressed ringing enables service providers to access a subscriber line without the need for the Central Office Service Units and their associated dedicated Utility Telemetry Trunks. The subscriber line can be accessed from any location, as long as the incoming call is identified and authenticated as a suppressed ringing access call. There are numerous methods proposed for identifying the incoming call as a suppressed ringing access call and these can be broadly classified as either preauthorized call originations or service provider authorization on a per call basis. Included in the first category, the serving central office switch can maintain a list of predefined line numbers that are used by an authorized service provider to perform the suppressed ringing access function. When an incoming call is received by the central office switch that serves these predefined lines, the serving central office switch scans the Automatic Number Identification (ANI) of the incoming line to validate the identity and authorization of the calling party. If the calling party is an authorized service provider, the serving central office triggers an intelligent network function to signal the central office switch that serves the identified subscriber line to automatically cause the initiation of a suppressed ringing connection from the service provider to the identified subscriber line based upon the validated identity of the call originating line. One other calling party validation arrangement is for the ANI information to be passed to the central office switch that serves the identified subscriber line for calling party validation. Alternatively, the suppressed ringing connection is accomplished by the inclusion of a predefined code in the dial string by the service provider to identify this call origination as a suppressed ringing access call. This process is the same as the activation of a subscriber line function, such as deactivation of call waiting service. Again, the serving central office switch scans the Automatic Number Identification (ANI) of the call originating line to validate the identity and authorization of the calling party and triggers an intelligent network function that automatically causes the initiation of a suppressed ringing connection to the identified subscriber line based upon the validated identity of the call originating line and the prefix code that indicates this as a suppressed ringing call connection.
The second category of suppressed ringing access call identification includes manual authorization on a per call basis where the service provider dials the number of a predefined access line, which connects the service provider to a suppressed ringing access apparatus that authenticates the identity of the service provider and their authority to initiate a suppressed ringing access connection to the selected subscriber line. Once the service provider authentication is accomplished, the suppressed ringing access apparatus then forwards the incoming call to the identified subscriber line via a suppressed ringing connection.
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Garland Stuart M.
Kinkhabwala Pulin M.
Smith David B.
Bui Bing
Duft, Graziano & Forest, P.C.
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Matar Ahmad
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