Home network for ordering and delivery of video on demand, telephone and other digital services

A gateway apparatus comprising:

• a host computer having a host bus;
• one or more local area network interface means for coupling said host computer to one or more local area networks than carry data between said gateway and one or more devices located within a customer premises;
• one or more external network receiver means coupled to said host bus for interfacing said host computer to one or more networks external to said customer premises by receiving analog signals and digitizing and compressing them and supplying the compressed data to said host computer or receiving and recovering video and other data in digital form which has been modulated onto a dowstream carrier for transmission to said customer premises and supplying the recovered digital data to said host computer;
• one or more external network transceiver means coupled to said host bus for interfacing said host computer to one or more networks external to said customer premises by receiving analog signals and digitizing and compressing them and supplying the compressed data to said host computer or receiving and recovering video and other data in digital form which has been modulated onto a dowstream carrier for transmission to said customer premises and supplying the recovered digital data to said host computer and include an upstream transmitter for receiving digital data from said host computer and transmitting it outbound on an external network;
• and
• wherein said host computer is programmed to implement an IP packetization process to receive data from said external network interface circuits and packetize it into internet protocol (IP) formatted packets, and programmed with a routing process to receive IP packets from said IP packetization process and encapsulate them into local area network packets and transmit them on the appropriate local area network via one or more of said local area network interfaces and for receiving local area network packets from devices coupled to said local area networks and stripping off the local area network packet headers and routing the encapsulated IP packets to the appropriate external network interface circuit for transmission over an external network, and an IP telephony and other processes to control said host computer to control line devices coupled to standard or DSL telephone lines or local area networks coupled to said gateway or line devices and other external network interface circuits coupled to said host computer via said host bus to implement IP telephony functions, and a management and control process for receiving requests for data from said devices coupled to said local area networks and sending digital control data to said external network interface circuits and/or line devices to control them to obtain said data.

A gateway apparatus comprising:

• a host bus;
• a plurality of expansion card connectors electrically coupled to said host bus;
• one or more expansion module printed circuit boards coupled to said host bus through one or more of said expansion card connectors, each expansion module including the appropriate circuitry to receive signals from an external network media comprised of either a hybrid fiber coaxial cable of a CATV system, a digital subscriber line local loop, an analog plain old telephone service line or a satellite dish, and to either recover digital data transmitted via said external network media or to receive analog signals transmitted via said external network media and generate digital data therefrom, and, depending upon the type of external network media to which each expansion module is coupled, to also transmit digital data modulated on a carrier signal out on said external network media;
• one or more network interface adapters for coupling said gateway to one or more local area networks which convey digital data throughout a customer premises;
• an
• a host computer having a central processing unit or microprocessor coupled to said host bus and programmed to perform at least a management and control process to receive requests tranmitted TRANSMITTED from users to said gateway via one or more of said local area networks for data or video or audio programs transmitted on a regularly scheduled or on-demand basis on one of said external network media and to react thereto by appropriately controlling said one or more expansion modules via data transmitted over said host bus to retrieve the requested data or video or audio program, and programmed to perform an IP packetization process to receive digital data from one or more of said expansion modules and said management and control process and encapsulate said data into an internet protocol packet addressed to the device on a local area network coupled to said gateway which requested said data, and programmed to perform a routing process to receive network packets containing internet protocol packets and to strip off the network packet header and to route said internet protocol packet to the appropriate expansion module for upstream transmission on a external network media and to receive internet protocol packets from one or more of said expansion modules or said IP packetization process and to look up the IP destination address and map it to a local area network address corresponding thereto and encapsulate the internet protocol packet in a local area network packet addressed to the device owning said IP destination address and route it to said device via the appropriate network adapter, and programmed with one or more IP telephony and/or PBX and/or other telephony enabled application programs to implement IP telephony and/or PBX functions through a TAPI dynamic linked library of programs which control said host computer to carry out standard and advanced telephony functions which can be invoked through a standard TAPI application programmatic interface and one or more telephony service provider programs and/or PBX expansion module programs which convert messages from one or more TAPI library programs to digital data sent over said host bus to one or more of said expansion modules to carry out one or more telephony functions.

A network adapter for coupling a conventional television to a local area network, comprising:

• a network interface circuit having an input coupled to a local area network and having an output at which digital data encoding a compressed video appears and functioning to receive local area network packets encapsulating internet protocol format packets but only outputting internet protocol format packets encapsulated in local area network packets addressed to this particular network interface circuit;
• means for receiving infrared or radio frequency commands and data from a wireless remote control or a wireless keyboard and for packetizing the data and commands into packets suitable for transmission over said local area network;
• an internet protocol video circuit coupled to said network interface circuit for receiving internet protocol format packets from said network interface circuit and determining if the packet contains video or graphics data and stripping off the internet protocol format header and outputting graphics data at a graphics data output and outputting video data at a video data output;
• a decompression circuit coupled to said video data output for decompressing the video data and outputting uncompressed video data in a YUV format at a first output and uncompressed audio data at second output;
• an audio processor means coupled to receive said uncompressed audio data and process it to convert it to an analog audio signal;
• a graphics circuit coupled to said graphics output for receiving graphics data and generating graphics data signals at a graphics output;
• means coupled to receive said uncompressed video data and said graphics data signals and process both said graphics data signals and said uncompressed video data into NTSC, PAL or SECAM or composite format analog video signal which can be displayed on a television if coupled to a video input of said television;
• and
• optionally, a video modulator for receiving said analog video signal and said analog audio signal and modulating them onto an radio frequency carrier at the frequency of a locally unused channel.