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

John J Driscoll

Gregory S DeWitt

Richard J Basso

Robert A Trygar

John L Shepherd

David W Kelly

Laurence E Burley

Methods and arrangements for associating control messages received in the D-channel of an integrated services digital network (ISDN) line with the call control process to which the message relates are disclosed. With ISDN, a single control channel, called the D-channel, can be used concurrently to control a plurality of calls. As each call is initiated, a call control process and data structure including the unique identity of the call, are created. The data structures associated with the same D-channel are linked together. When a control message including a given identity is received, the data structures associated with the D-channel conveying the message are searched in sequence until a data structure having the given identity is found. The contents of this data structure are used to access the control process associated therewith. When the search reveals no matching identity and the message is a call setup message, a new process and data structure are created.

Switching system control arrangements

Methods and arrangements for properly associating an alerting message from an ISDN user terminal with the control process associated with the message are disclosed. Each call, in a disclosed switching network, is associated with a call control process and data structure. When an external request for a call is received, a data structure including a predetermined broadcast Terminal Endpoint Identifier (TEI) and a call reference value selected by the network, is created. Further, a message including the broadcast TEI and the selected call reference value is sent to a user terminal. The user terminal responds with an alerting message including the selected call reference value and a TEI unique to that terminal (not the broadcast TEI). The switching network searches the data structures until a data structure is located which includes the call reference value of the received message and the broadcast TEI. The TEI of the located data structure is then changed to the TEI of the received message so that further messages can uniquely identify the user terminal engaged in the call.

Growing community of inventors

Naperville, IL, United States of America

John J Driscoll