Subscriber RF telephone system for providing multiple speech and/or data signals simultaneously over either a single or a plurality of RF channels

A system for processing a given plural number of information signals received simultaneously over telephone company trunk lines for simultaneous transmission, comprising

• separate conversion means for respective connection to said trunk lines for converting the information signals received over said trunk lines into digital signal samples;
• a plurality of transmit channel circuits, each of which is assigned to a different given radio frequency (RF) channel and each of which includes
• a given plural number of separate signal compression means for simultaneously compressing the digital signal samples respectively derived from separate ones of the conversion means to provide said given number of separate compressed signals;
• channel control means connected to the compression means for sequentially combining the compressed signals into a single transmit channel bit stream, with each of the respective compressed signals occupying a repetitive sequential slot position in the transmit channel bit stream associated with a predetermined one of the separate compression means;
• transmitter means for providing a transmit channel signal for transmission over the given RF channel in response to the transmit channel bit stream;
• an exchange for coupling the respective separate conversion means to indicated ones of the separate compression means;
• remote-connection processor means for coupling to said trunk lines and responsive to an incoming call request signal received over one of said trunk lines by providing a slot assignment signal indicating which transmit channel circuit and which one of the separate compression means in the indicated transmit channel circuit the exchange is to connect to the one of the separate conversion means connected to said one trunk line and thereby assigning to said one trunk line the indicated transmit channel circuit and the slot in the transmit channel bit stream associated with the one of the separate compression means that is so connected by the exchange means, wherein the remote-connection processor means maintains a memory of which slots are so assigned for each of the plurality of the transmit channel circuits and consults said memory upon receipt of a said incoming call request and then provides a said slot assignment signal that effects a said connection to a given transmit channel circuit in which not all of the time slots are assigned to another trunk line and to a compression means therein associated with one of the slots that is not assigned to another trunk line;
• and
• call processor means connected to the remote-connection processor means and responsive to a said slot assignment signal for causing the exchange to complete the connection indicated by said slot assignment signal.