Distributed telecommunications switching system

A distributed personal communications services system, comprising:

• a plurality of delivery units for providing wireline and wireless communication interfaces to a plurality of wireless subscribers in order to transmit and receive call traffic information and call control information to and from said wireless subscribers, each delivery unit distributed throughout the system to provide local switching of call traffic information to and from said wireless subscribers according to destination and service requirements within said call control information;
• a service unit for providing centralized control, management, and maintenance of each delivery unit to direct where and how each delivery unit is to deliver said call traffic information in response to said call control information;
• a fiber optic ring for providing a communication path between each delivery unit and other delivery units and between said service unit and each delivery unit, each delivery unit including an add/drop multiplexer for interfacing with said fiber optic ring in order to process and communicate call traffic and call control information through asynchronous transfer mode cells;
• and
• a plurality of radio frequency transceivers associated with each delivery unit for transmitting and receiving said call traffic and call control information to and from said wireless subscribers, each delivery unit receiving said call traffic information from a corresponding originating radio frequency transceiver and delivering said call traffic information to an appropriate destination radio frequency transceiver as directed by said service unit in response to said call control information.

A distributed telecommunication switching system, comprising:

• a plurality of delivery units each operable to provide at least one of a plurality of telecommunication services, each of said plurality of delivery units being distributed throughout the system and operable to provide a switching function for information to other delivery units according to a telecommunication service associated with said information and according to destination requirements of said information;
• a service unit operable to provide control, management, and maintenance functions for each of said plurality of delivery units, said service unit operable to direct how each of said plurality of delivery units is to perform said plurality of telecommunication services said service unit providing said control, management, and maintenance functions independently and separately from said switching function provided by said delivery units;
• and
• a fiber optic ring operable to provide a communication path for said plurality of delivery units and said service unit.