Excel, Inc.

Lucent Technologies Inc.

John T Lynch

Robert P Madonna

Mark P Hebert

Peter Higgins

Franz Weller

Robert H Squires

Siegmar K Eschholz

A method and apparatus for dynamic allocation of conferencing resources in a telecommunications system is provided. The method and apparatus provide for dynamic allocation of conferencing resources in two forms, first a predefined order of allocation of time slots for use in conferencing is described. This predefined order of allocation minimizes the risk that a conference will be interrupted if additional line cards are added to the system while the conference is in progress. The second form of dynamic allocation of resources involves locating and selecting the digital signal processing (DSP) resources to perform the conferencing function. For this allocation, the conference type is first identified. The conference will be determined to be a static, dynamic or critical conference by the CPU/Matrix card. Based upon this determination, the DSP circuit with the appropriate resources for that conference type is selected. For example, if the conference is determined to be dynamic, i.e., it is likely to change in size, then a DSP with additional available channels will preferably be selected. If a conference is critical, then the same type of DSP is selected, but further conferences are blocked from being added to that DSP. A static conference will be allocated to a DSP on a best-fit basis.

Method and apparatus for dynamic allocation of conferencing resources in a telecommunications system

Redundancy, expanded switching capacity and fault isolation arrangements for use with an expandable telecommunications system. An inter-nodal network connects a plurality of programmable switching nodes or other nodes. One or more additional inter-nodal networks may be provided across some or all of the ones. The bandwidth provided by the additional network(s) may be used to provide redundancy against failure of the primary network or the nodes, increased switching capacity or a combination of both. In addition, faults which occur either within a particular node or within an inter-nodal network may be effectively isolated and prevented from degrading system performance.

Redundancy, expanded switching capacity and fault isolation arrangements

A programmable telecommunications switch has automatic backup of line cards to provide complete redundancy. The switch has I/O cards which terminate the external telecommunications spans. Each I/O card passes the data from its spans to a line card. When the line card fails, the I/O card switches the data onto an I/O bus which is connected to a standby I/O card. The standby I/O card switches a standby line card into connection with the I/O bus such that the data stream is then serviced by the standby line card. The failed line card may then be removed and replaced. All I/O cards are attached to the I/O bus such that redundancy for all active line cards using the same signalling protocol is provided with a single standby line card. With multiple I/O busses, standby I/O cards and standby line cards, multiple redundancy is possible. Finally, the failure of a single line module of a line card may be handled by switching only the span serviced by that module to a standby line card. Spans from different I/O cards may be serviced by different line modules of a single standby line card, and may be all connected to the same standby line card by the same bus.

Telecommunications switch with improved redundancy

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East Sandwich, MA, United States of America

John T Lynch