Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Switching a message which includes an address header
Reexamination Certificate
1997-05-21
2001-02-13
Pham, Chi H. (Department: 2731)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Switching a message which includes an address header
C370S352000, C370S355000, C379S215010, C379S093010, C379S093210
Reexamination Certificate
active
06188688
ABSTRACT:
RELATED INVENTIONS
IBM application Ser. No. 08/861,295 entitled “A Method and Apparatus for Receiving Conventional Telephone Calls While Connected to the Internet” filed May 21, 1997.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates in general to a communications system establishing additional communications without disrupting any existing communications. In specific, this invention describes a method and apparatus for placing calls on a telephone network while connected to a data transmission device or data service provider and without disrupting existing data communications.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
With the explosive growth of the Internet, multitudes of users are connecting to the Internet through their phone lines. While many businesses allow for dedicated phone lines to their computers and different dedicated lines for voice communications, many smaller businesses and home users cannot afford the expense of a dedicated phone line. If a user chooses to use their voice phone line for their Internet communications, while the person is logged on to the Internet (or any other form of data communications) the phone will ring busy if anyone tries to call the phone number being used for the outgoing connection. This can be problematic since access to online services and online providers often results in intervals of long duration in which the user is logged on to the communication provider. This means long intervals where the phone line will ring busy if someone is trying to reach the user over a conventional telephone. In addition, using the existing technologies, someone desiring to place a call while logged on to a data network would cause the data portion of the line to time-out due to inactivity while the user toggled to the other session using 3-way calling or similar technology.
In theory, this is solved by ‘call waiting’ in that a user who is talking on the phone will hear a tone if someone else is trying to reach them. This is not the case where the initial usage is with a data service provider which sends and receives all messages as tones. Since the data service will receive the ‘call waiting’ tone as part of the message, most applications will terminate with fatal or unrecoverable errors if a ‘call waiting’ interrupt comes in while a data communication session is established causing the workstation to hang-up on the call with the data service provider. While this may allow the user to receive incoming calls, it is not desirable to force the user off the data communications session to be notified of the incoming call. The user should have a choice as to whether they are going to receive the incoming call without disconnecting them from the data communications network to which they are connected.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to allow a user logged onto a data network over a conventional telephone network to place additional outgoing calls without being forced off of their data network.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to allow concurrent conversations of the newly established outgoing call and voice and/or data over the existing data communications physical transport (telephone wire or wireless path).
It is yet a further objective of the present invention to allow the user to do a multitude of additional telephone functions such as making an outbound call, transferring or forwarding a call, alternating between the calls, and conferencing the calls.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method and system of allowing communication over an existing telephone line (such as a public switched telephone network or PSTN or any voice switch) using a data communications provider and known transmission media, such as traditional analog or digital phone lines or cellular transmission, while enabling a user receiving the communications to be notified if an incoming caller is attempting to reach the user or to establish additional connections over the same physical link. The method comprises the establishment of three channels, the original data service channel, a channel which will be referred to for purposes of this invention as a control channel, and a voice quality channel for incoming and outgoing voice switch calls. All of the channels are routed to a ‘black box’ which could be implemented as a portion of the central office switch or independent of the switch. This ‘black box’ provides a multiplexer/demultiplexer function which allows the user to receive the messages from the caller interspersed with the information being received from the data service provider. This is extremely interesting with respect to the Internet and the Internet service providers. It allows multiplexing of voice, data, video or other information using ATM or IP with RSVP protocols. This results in the ability to merge the PSTN with packet switch technology in a manner controlled by the end user of the workstation or sending terminal.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5608786 (1997-03-01), Gordon
patent: 5625677 (1997-04-01), Feiertag et al.
patent: 5764736 (1998-06-01), Schachar et al.
patent: 5805587 (1998-09-01), Norris et al.
patent: 5838682 (1998-11-01), Dekelbaum et al.
patent: 5982774 (1999-11-01), Foladare et al.
Doubet Marcia L.
Duong Frank
International Business Machines - Corporation
Pham Chi H.
Ray-Yarletts Jeanine S.
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