Telephonic communications – With usage measurement – Call traffic recording or monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-07
2001-10-09
Smith, Creighton (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
With usage measurement
Call traffic recording or monitoring
C379S137000, C379S220010
Reexamination Certificate
active
06301343
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a trunk line exchange system in an international communication network, and particularly relates to a trunk line exchange system capable of executing re-distribution of the number of international transmission lines for respective regions in the international communication network.
This application is based on Patent Application No. Hei 9-221610 filed in Japan, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Background Art
Conventionally, in the international network which conducts the international exchange of the trunk lines, a fixed number of transmission lines are distributed so as to meet demand in each country (which is called a “region”, hereinafter). The number of transmission lines for a region is determined by calculating a ratio of average traffic to busy hour traffic for each region and a fixed number of communication lines are normally allocated for each region. Moreover, the number of transmission lines for each region is normally includes spare lines in order to preserve efficient call connections even during busy hours.
In addition to the above line-allocation, another measure for busy hours has been provided in the conventional system, in which, an alternative or detour route is registered in advance in an international trunk line exchange apparatus, and, when the traffic density to a region exceeds 100% causing a congested condition, the trunk switching is executed for the region through the alternative route using a trunk line exchange apparatus located in a third region. An example of such measure is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application, First Publication No. 7-221833.
In the above described conventional trunk line exchange system, there are some drawbacks, in addition to the costly spare lines for preventing deterioration of call connections in a congested condition, in that, as shown in
FIG. 4
, even if an activity ratio of a trunk line for a busy region is nearly 100%, lines in another region are inactive due to the time difference, which results in reducing the average employment efficiency of trunk lines in the whole trunk line exchange system, which may be designated a transmission resource.
When an alternative route is used during congested hours, since it is necessary to carry out a series of operations of recalling and searching the alternative route, that is, operations of calling and recalling to acquire a line to the destination and, if line is busy, operations are required to search and acquire an alternative line, the processing of the trunk line exchange system is increased which sometimes exceeds a capacity of the system or renders the system more restricted by addition of the processing to the normal processing during a busy period.
It is, therefore, the object of the present invention to provide a system capable of enabling the efficient utilization of the transmission resource and capable also of avoiding an exchange apparatus at any region from falling into congestion.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In order to attain the object of the present invention, the first embodiment of the present invention provides a line switching unit comprising line switching units disposed at a front position of a trunk line exchange apparatus facing toward the other trunk line exchange apparatus, wherein the number of transmission lines toward one region is increased or decreased by executing re-distribution of transmission lines to cope with the variation of the traffic conditions at the region by controlling opening and closing of said line switching units.
The second embodiment of the present invention provides a trunk line exchanging system which is modified from the first embodiment, wherein the system comprising:
region traffic managing means for managing the traffic of each region;
trunk line exchange means installed at each region for executing international trunk line exchange; and
interface means connected with both said trunk line switching means and said traffic managing means for receiving signals of at least one of the activity ratio at each region, and for sending signals to instruct closing of lines and switching of lines to both said region traffic managing means and with said trunk line exchange means, wherein the optimum number of lines to be allocated for each region is re-distributed based on the activity ratio of each region.
In the above second embodiment, said traffic managing means comprising:
a line switching means for switching each unit of transmission lines;
an interface means for receiving information in terms of the activity ratio of each region, exchanging control signals with the other interface means and the other traffic managing means for switching the transmission lines from a region to the other region, and, when the switching is pertinent, controlling line switch means to execute re-distribution.
According to the present invention, line switch means are disposed at a front position of a trunk line exchange apparatus facing toward the other trunk line exchange apparatus, and by controlling opening and closing of the line switch means, the number of lines for each region can be re-distributed in response to the traffic of each region and the system can be preferably prevented from falling into congestion.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4456788 (1984-06-01), Kline et al.
patent: 5359649 (1994-10-01), Rosu et al.
patent: 5459777 (1995-10-01), Bassa et al.
patent: 5825861 (1998-10-01), Hoy
patent: 5974126 (1999-10-01), Hollas et al.
patent: 6084955 (2000-07-01), Key et al.
patent: 61-287364 (1986-12-01), None
Japanese Office Action, dated Jan. 25, 2000, with English language translation of Japanese Examiner's comments.
McGuireWoods LLP
NEC Corporation
Smith Creighton
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