Telephonic communications – Telephone line or system combined with diverse electrical... – Having transmission of a digital message signal over a...
Reexamination Certificate
2002-07-10
2004-03-16
Woo, Stella (Department: 2643)
Telephonic communications
Telephone line or system combined with diverse electrical...
Having transmission of a digital message signal over a...
C379S090010, C379S142160
Reexamination Certificate
active
06707893
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to telephone service over a cable network.
For many years, telecommunication service in the United States has been offered primarily through a network having wire pairs extending to customer homes. More recently, cellular telephony has taken off, and efforts are being made to similarly expand the telecommunication offerings through hybrid fiber-coax cable (HFC).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,653 describes an illustrative system, not unlike the one depicted in
FIGS. 1 and 2
, that provides telephone service through a cable network, as well as Internet service through the cable network. In
FIG. 1
, a fiber-coax cable
100
extends from head-end station
110
to a plurality of customers, such as customers
200
and
300
, which tap into the cable. Cable
100
is representative of an entire network of cables that extend from head-end station
110
. Station
110
obtains television signals from some source (for example, the antenna depicted with station
110
), modulates those signals into preselected frequency bands, and forwards the signals downstream by means of HFC cable
100
. Within a customer's premises, cable
100
signal is received in a set-top box, such as box
210
, the set-top box demodulates the received signal in accordance with instructions provided to box
210
by a user, resulting in a specific channel (frequency band) being applied to television monitor
170
at the frequency band to which the tuner within television
170
is set. Thus the user receives a television signal from the specific channel. This is, basically, a one-way broadcast communication arrangement, from head-end
110
to all of the customers on cable
100
.
Internet service is provided to PC
150
of customer
200
by interposing cable modem
220
between cable
100
and PC
150
. To accommodate such a service, cable
100
and head-end
110
must be adapted to allow two-way communication between the PCs of the various customers that are connected to cable
100
and possess a cable modem, and head end
110
or, more specifically, a data point-of-presence (POP)
120
that is connected to head-end station
110
. Relative to Internet service, POP
120
may be an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that is connected to the Internet. Information flows between POP
120
and cable modem
220
in IP packets that, while flowing through cable
100
, are modulated onto a carrier.
Telephony service is provided also through cable modem
220
, head-end station
110
, and POP
120
, by carrying the service also through IP packets that flow through cable
110
. Thus, modem
220
is more than just a cable modem because it is adapted to handle telephone signals, and POP
120
is more than just an ISP because it is adapted to be connected to local switch
140
of the PSTN, through packet gateway
130
, which converts between the analog signals of switch
140
and the IP packets signals of POP
120
.
FIG. 2
depicts the structure of cable modem
220
, essentially as illustrated in the aforementioned 6,236,653 patent. Viewed macroscopically, it includes Internet module
700
and a telephony module
600
. In module
700
, tuner
760
receives signals in the frequency band devoted to IP packet communication and applies its received signal to demodulator
735
, which demodulates the received signal to recover a sequence of received TCP/IP or UDP/IP frames and applies them to framer
730
. The latter provides a stream of packets to CPU
725
, which is a stored-program controller with associated memory
705
. CPU
725
provides timing, synchronization and error handling controls to framer
730
. CPU
725
also provides IP packets to PC
150
via interface
745
. In the upstream direction, packets from PC
150
are applied to framer
730
via interface
745
and CPU
725
, and thence to transmitter
740
, which provides error correction/detection coding such as Reed-Solomon coding and forms a modulated intermediate frequency (IF) carrier signal. The IF signal is applied to radio frequency (RF) modulator
750
, which up-modulates its input signal to the proper frequency bands and forwards the modulated signal to cable
100
. Thus, a path is provided for IP packets to flow back and forth between PC
150
and POP
120
.
Telephony module
600
comprises a controller that is composed of digital signal processor (DSP)
620
and associated memory
625
. The module further comprises analogdigital converter
610
, and subscriber-line-interface-circuit (SLIC)
605
. The controller performs all of the necessary control telephony functions, converter
610
provides the interface between the digital signals of DSP
620
and the analog signals of SLIC
605
and telephone
160
, and SLIC
605
provides the tip/ring interface to telephone
160
, such as the ability to sense off-hook, provide loop current, provide dial tone, detect dialing (pulse or DTMF), provide a ringing signal, etc. DSP
620
is coupled to CPU
725
to provide a two-way communication path of digitized telephony signals (IP packets) between telephone
160
and cable
100
.
Perusing U.S. Pat. No. 6,236,653 may provide additional insights.
The above described arrangement provides telephony service for telephone
160
, digital communication (Internet) service for PC
150
(which has computing capability as well as audio and video capability), and entertainment programming service for TV
170
(which also has audio and video capability)—but all of these services are independent, and do not commingle. We realized that an advance in the art can be attained by allowing these to commingle.
In a related art, U.S. Pat. No. 5,566,231 describes an arrangement for enhancing a customer premises message-recoding device. The enhanced recording device has the ability to store caller ID information arriving from the telephone network in association with the incoming call that is recorded, as well the ability to ascertain the call duration and other information. This information is stored in association with the stored message. Through a remote controller that connects to the enhanced recording device through an IR link, a user can retrieve the stored messages and the stored associated information. To display the retrieved information, the conventional cable-TV connection between the set-top box and the TV monitor is looped through the enhanced recorder, and the retrieved information is displayed on the TV monitor though a video interface connector that is connected to the TV monitor.
What the 5,566,231 patent suggests is the notion of storing caller ID and other data that is provided by the telecommunication network in association with an incoming call that is recorded, so that thereafter, the information is retrieved by a user and displayed by the user on a TV monitor. However, the patent does not teach how the incoming information is modified to a format suitable for a television monitor, or how the video interface connector interacts with the cable from the set-top box to inject its signal so that it may be displayed on the TV monitor. Moreover, the arrangement is not interactive, in the sense that the enhanced recording device stores information, but the user can only retrieve it. The user cannot control the call progress, or any other interaction with the telecommunication network, based on real time information obtained from the TV monitor.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An advance in the art is realized in an environment where a cable provides programming information to a television monitor as well as telephony service. In the disclosed method, call progress information of a telephone call is displayed on the television monitor, and means are included in the arrangement for sending control information upstream over the cable in connection with the call progress, for example to obtain additional information. Thus, when call progress information comes from a the cable's head end, a determination is made as to whether it is sufficient, and if not, a query is forwarded upstream to the head end. The head end obtains information that is respons
Basore David L.
Bosik Barry S.
Rahman Moshiur
AT&T Corp.
Brendzel Henry
Woo Stella
LandOfFree
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