At&t Bell Laboratories

American Telephone & Telegraph Co., At&t Bell Laboratories

Clinton D Gibler

Larry Allen Marcus

Cyrus F Ault

Frederick A Rosebrock

Perry K White

Coupling apparatus for a telephone handset comprises a handset-coupling cradle having a dome at one end thereof for locating the earpiece (receiver) of the handset, and sound ports at the other end of the cradle in the region where the mouthpiece (microphone) of the handset resides. The handset-coupling cradle is shaped to accommodate a variety of different handset styles. An inductive sensor is mounted within the dome and it responds to electromagnetic fields generated by the handset receiver. Such a sensor eliminates the need to closely couple the receiver to the apparatus. A low acoustic impedance loudspeaker is mounted beneath the sound ports for acoustically coupling signals to the handset's microphone. Such a loudspeaker eliminates the need to closely couple the microphone to the apparatus.

Coupling apparatus for telephone handsets

A high-speed fiber optic star configuration network uses a processor at the network hub to monitor and control network activity. The hub and the individual nodes of the network cooperate to calibrate node transmitter power levels and node receiver sensitivities. A token passing protocol is used to allocate network access. The token passing is monitored at the hub to detect lost tokens or a babbling bus. The hub processor has the capability to initiate tokens or restore lost tokens and to shut off the transmitter of a node which remains connected to the bus for an excessive period of time. In one embodiment, the circuit elements of the hub are duplicated to provide two separate paths through the hub.

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Indianapolis, IN, United States of America

Clinton D Gibler