Telephonic communications – Terminal – Housing or housing component
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-09
2001-09-18
Tsang, Fan (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Terminal
Housing or housing component
Reexamination Certificate
active
06292564
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the testing of telephone lines, in general, and to the testing of such lines as used in voice and data transmission for both personal and business users, in particular.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advent of deregulation in the telephone industry has come the need to determine whether a problem on a line is external to a structure (and, therefore, the obligation of the telephone company to correct) or internal to the structure (and, thusly, the responsibility of the end-user to deal with). Network interface devices developed to address this concern commonly employ anywhere from 1 to 200 modular jacks as test access ports, depending upon whether the monitoring is of a line that may be present in a residence, or at a business location. Whether or not the modular jack is of an RJ 11 type carrying 2 conductors, or whether it is of an RJ 45 type carrying 8 or 9 conductors, and whether or not the network interface devices additionally incorporate such other features as surge suppression or lightning, over-current or over-voltage suppression controls, the ever increasing competition in the telephone industry requires that the costs associated with these devices be kept as low as possible. These costs include, not only the manufacturing costs of the units, but the installation costs, as well, in addition to the costs connected with their actual use in testing the problem on the line.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One area of investigation—leading to the present invention—for keeping these various costs low deals with the modular jacks employed, themselves. More specifically, at present, these modular jacks are provided as two separate pieces, the jack and its cover, which then must be fitted together. Besides the labor cost associated with joining the pieces, this type of manufacture militates against the savings inherent if the manufacture and fitting were automated. Secondly, testing has shown that during thermal cycling—even over as little a temperature change as 30° occurring during a typical day—the coupling between the installed cover and its underlying jack can range between a snug fit and a very loose one, impairing the degree of securement desired. Analysis has indicated that this results from the different temperature coefficients of expansion between the hard plastic jack and the rubberized polymer material employed for the cover. As a result, frequently, a service technician accidently drops the cover when accessing the jack, and has to search for it in the grass and/or leaves present at an outdoor location for the network interface device—thereby, unnecessarily adding to the labor costs of testing a line. Moreover, even in those circumstances where the cover does not separate from the jack, the typical operation is for the technician to hold the cover open with one hand, accessing the test port with his electrical plugs and tools with the other hand, all the while balancing the test equipment against his, or her, body; this, too, ultimately adds to the time spent in testing the cause of the on-line problem, adding to the costs of responding to, and servicing the customer's complaints. Were all this not enough, another oftentimes overlooked expense for the telephone company is present and to be factored in—namely, the inventory control and re-ordering requirements needed for the two separate items of the jack and its cover.
While an obvious answer might be the simple “doing away with” of the cover, field use has shown the need for the cover when the network interface device is used outdoors, or in other harsh environments, where otherwise exposing the modular jack to dust, rain, and the other elements causes problems up to, and including the short-circuiting of the telephone line, and the loss of all connections. To prevent this from happening—and even though all these other costs incidental to the modular jack are present—the continuing use of a cover to protect and seal the modular jack is necessary.
As will become clear from the following description, these problems of the prior art are addressed by the modular jack of the present invention for use with telephone and data equipment testing. As will be seen, the jack of the invention includes a housing incorporating a plurality of contact wires for completing an electrical circuit when receiving a plug inserted through an opening in the housing, along with a cover sealing the opening when the plug is not inserted, as in the prior art. However, in accordance with the invention, the cover is fabricated as an integral part of the housing—and not separate from it—, and further is of the same substantial composition as the housing to exhibit substantially the same thermal coefficient of expansion. In making the cover an integral part of the housing (so as to capture it, and so that the cover is not lost during testing), a hinge is provided to join the cover and housing together and, preferably, a spring type hinge.
In one embodiment of the invention to be described, the integral cover will be seen to extend outwardly of the housing in sealing its opening when the technician's plug is not inserted, to be rotated further outwardly and away from the opening when the cover is first manually lifted, for the insertion of the electrical plug. In a second embodiment, the cover will be seen to extend inwardly of the opening, sealing it when the plug is not inserted, and to be rotated further inwardly of the opening as the cover is automatically lifted through the insertion of the plug into the housing. With both the housing and the cover in these two embodiments formed of a hard plastic material, the same thermal coefficients of expansion are present, so that the cover does not loosen with temperature cycling during environmental use. By having the cover integral with the housing, the covers cannot get lost in the field—which saves the replacement cost of the cover and the time to obtain replacements for it, and extends the overall life of the modular jack itself. By further fabricating the housing and cover of a hard plastic material, and as an integral part, further savings inherent in an automation manufacture and assembly follows, in further keeping costs low. Thus, obviously, with only one part to deal with, inventory control is simplified, and the cost of ordering eased.
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Cowan Douglas L.
Kay Jason A.
Kerr David S.
Pawlenko Ivan
Avaya Technology Corp.
Putt Nora J
Tsang Fan
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