High quality multimedia communications `
AssigneeAT&T Corp.
InventorsSANJAY AGRAHARAM, VIJAY K. BHAGAVATH, JOSEPH GOLAN, MICHAEL W. HODIC, RAM S. RAMAMURTHY
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of providing high quality multimedia communications between end users uses an ATM-ADSL access system, which provides 6 megabits per second downstream and 640 kilobits per second upstream multimedia signal in conjunction with a multicasting feature. An end user can receive multiple video/audio streams downstream while the end user's video/audio is transmitted upstream to the multicast network and is multicast to the end points.
Claims21
A method for providing multimedia communications including audio, video, and data communications, comprising:
- receiving multimedia communications from a first party in a multimedia communications device using a first bandwidth;
- and
- transmitting multimedia communications from the multimedia communications device to the first party at a second bandwidth greater than the first bandwidth.
A method of creating a first multimedia call between at least two parties, comprising:
- connecting the at least two parties to a multicast services node in a multicast network;
- and
- receiving multimedia communications from the at least two parties at a first bandwidth and multicasting the multimedia communications to each of the at least two parties at a second bandwidth greater than the first bandwidth.
An apparatus providing multimedia communications to subscribers of a multimedia service, comprising:
- a multimedia communications device for receiving multimedia communications from the subscribers and for multicasting the multimedia communications to the subscribers;
- and
- connectors coupled to communications devices of the subscribers and the controller, the connectors allowing transmission of the multimedia communications from the subscribers at a first bandwidth and reception of the multimedia communications by the subscribers at a second bandwidth equal to or greater than the first bandwidth.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.