Bandwidth transfer switching system
OwnerGeorge Mattathilinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A bandwidth transfer switching system (100) connecting various customer devices (12a-g), including local area networks (44), from customer premises (42) through a local loop (50) to a telco central office (50), to deliver switched circuit traffic to central office switches (60) and data packet traffic to wide area networks (64), such as the Internet. Access concentrators (104, 140) are employed at the customer premises (42), remote concentrators (106, 140) and optional relay nodes (160, 140) are employed in the local loop (50), and transfer switches (108, 140) are employed in the central office (56). Copper wire lines (166) and fiber optic lines (168) are used to handle typical protocols such as POTS, E1/T1/xDSL, and SONET between the various transfer nodes (140).
Claims22
An improved communications system of the type in which:
- a public switched telephone network has communications devices of both circuit switched and packet transfer types at a plurality of customer premises which intercommunicate via at least one telco central office with communications devices of respective like types;
- the improvement comprising an access network including an access concentrator located at a first said customer premises, a remote concentrator located between said first said customer premises and a first said telco central office, and a transfer switch located at said first said telco central office;
- wherein said access concentrator is suitable for:
- accepting both switched signals from said circuit switched types of said communications devices and packet signals from said packet transfer types of said communications devices;
- and
- communicating both of said switched signals and said packet signals as a terminating node signal over a first internal interface to said remote concentrator;
- and wherein said remote concentrator is suitable for:
- accepting said terminating node signal from said access concentrator;
- and
- communicating said terminating node signal as a distributor node signal over a second internal interface to said transfer switch;
- and wherein said transfer switch is suitable for:
- accepting said distributor node signal from said remote concentrator;
- separating said switched signals from said distributor node signal for transmission onward to instances of said circuit switched types of said communications devices at another said customer premises than said first said customer premises;
- and
- separating said packet signals from said distributor node signal for routing onward to instances of said packet transfer types of said communications devices at another said customer premises than said first said customer premises.
A method for bandwidth transfer on a public telecommunications network wherein communications devices using switched signals and packet signals are located at a plurality of customer premises and intercommunicate via at least one telco central office, the method comprising the steps of:
- (1) accepting at least one customer signal from the communications devices into an access concentrator, wherein each said customer signal is a member of the set consisting of the switched signals and the packet signals;
- (2) integrating all said customer signals received at said access concentrator into a terminating node signal;
- (3) communicating said terminating node signal to a remote concentrator across a first internal interface;
- (4) accepting at least one said terminating node signal at said remote concentrator;
- (5) integrating all said terminating node signals received at said remote concentrator into a distributor node signal;
- (6) communicating said distributor node signal to a transfer switch across a second internal interface;
- (7) accepting at least one said distributor node signal at said transfer switch;
- (8) separating all said switched signals from said distributor node signal and transmitting said switched signals onward to instances of said circuit switched types of said communications devices at another said customer premises than said first said customer premises;
- and
- (9) separating all said packet signals from said distributor node signal and routing said packet signals onward to instances of said packet transfer types of said communications devices at another said customer premises than said first said customer premises.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.