Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.

Ping Li

Jeffrey P Davis

Timothy D Gunn

Raghu N Sharma

Sidhartha Maitra

Ashish A Thanawala

Steve Young

A personal communications system enables the operator to simultaneously transmit voice and data communication to a remote site. The personal communications system is equipped with two telephone line interfaces to allow connection between two remote sites. The connection between the first remote site and the second remote site may operate in an analog voice mode, a digital data communications mode, and a voice over data communications mode. A switch between analog voice mode and digital data communications mode and analog voice mode and voice over data communications mode is performed using switching tones, including calling tones, answer tones, and DTMF tones. Hardware and software switches are also used to program the modems in the personal communication systems for originating and answering modes.

Method and apparatus for mode switching in a voice over data

The voice over data component of a personal communications system enables the operator to simultaneously transmit voice and data communication to a remote site. This voice over data function dynamically allocates data bandwidth over the telephone line depending on the demands of the voice grade digitized signal. The user may enter voice over data mode from a data transfer mode by lifting the handset of the telephone connected to the modem. The off-hook condition is sensed and software sends a supervisory packet to the remote site to invoke voice-over-data mode. The remote telephone will simulate a ring to alert the remote user, and the local telephone will simulate a ringback to inform the caller that the remote unit is responding.

Digital simultaneous voice and data mode switching control

A personal communications system is described which includes components of software and hardware operating in conjunction with a personal computer. The user interface control software operates on a personal computer, preferably within the Microsoft Windows.RTM. environment. The software control system communicates with hardware components linked to the software through the personal computer serial communications port. The hardware components include telephone communication equipment, digital signal processors, and hardware to enable voice, fax and data communication with a remote site connected through a standard telephone line. The functions of the hardware components are controlled by control software operating within the hardware component and from the software components operating within the personal computer. The major functions of the system are a telephone function, a voice mail function, a fax manager function, a multi-media mail function, a show and tell function, a terminal function and an address book function. The telephone function allows the present system to operate, from the users perspective, as a conventional telephone using either hands-free, headset or handset operation. The telephone function is more sophisticated than a standard telephone in that the present system converts the voice into a digital signal which can be processed with echo cancellation, compressed, stored as digital data for later retrieval and transmitted as digital voice data concurrent with the transfer of digital information data.

Voice over video communication system

Method and apparatus for a hands-free speaker phone

Computer-based multifunction personal communication system

A personal communications system is described which includes components of software and hardware operating in conjunction with a personal computer. The user interface control software operates on a personal computer, preferably within the Microsoft Windows.RTM. environment. The software control system communicates with hardware components linked to the software through the personal computer serial communications port. The hardware components include telephone communication equipment, digital signal processors, and hardware to enable voice, fax and data communication with a remote site connected through a standard telephone line. The functions of the hardware components are controlled by control software operating within the hardware component and from the software components operating within the personal computer. The major functions of the system are a telephone function, a voice mail function, a fax manager function, a multi-media mail function, a show and tell function, a terminal function and an address book function. The telephone function allows the present system to operate, from the users perspective, as a conventional telephone using either hands-free, headset or handset operation. The telephone function is more sophisticated than a standard telephone in hat the present system converts the voice into a digital signal which can be processed with echo cancellation, compressed, stored as digital data for later retrieval and transmitted as digital voice data concurrent with the transfer of digital information data.

Modem resistant to cellular dropouts

A personal communications system enables the operator to simultaneously transmit voice and data communication to a remote site. The personal communications system is equipped with two telephone line interfaces to allow connection between two remote sites. The connection between the first remote site and the local site may operate in a voice over data communications mode to simultaneously send compressed voice and data. A digital transmission protocol which is consistent with current packet standards is used to create an independent channel through use of a modified supervisory packet for negotiating communication parameters, including the speech compression algorithm, the speech compression ratio, the communication multiplex scheme, and other operations needed for control of remote hardware interfaces.

Voice over data modem with selectable voice compression

A personal communications system is described which includes components of software and hardware operating in conjunction with a personal computer. The user interface control software operates on a personal computer, preferably within the Microsoft Windows.RTM. environment. The software control system communicates with hardware components linked to the software through the personal computer serial communications port. The hardware components include telephone communication equipment, digital signal processors, and hardware to enable voice, fax and data communication with a remote site connected through a standard-telephone line. The functions of the hardware components are controlled by control software operating within the hardware component and from the software components operating within the personal computer. The major functions of the system are a telephone function, a voice mail function, a fax manager function, a multi-media mail function, a show and tell function, a terminal function and an address book function. The telephone function allows the present system to operate, from the users perspective, as a conventional telephone using either hands-free, headset or handset operation. The telephone function is more sophisticated than a standard telephone in that the present system converts the voice into a digital signal which can be processed with echo cancellation, compressed, stored as digital data for later retrieval and transmitted as digital voice data concurrent with the transfer of digital information data.

Digital simultaneous voice and data modem

Method of controlling a personal communication system

Communication method between a personal computer and communication module

The present invention includes software and hardware components to enable digital data communication over standard telephone lines. The present invention converts analog voice signals to digital data, compresses that data and places the compressed speech data into packets for transfer over the telephone lines to a remote site. A voice control digital signal processor (DSP) operates to use one of a plurality of speech compression algorithms which produce a scaleable amount of compression. The rate of compression is inversely proportional to the quality of the speech the compression algorithm is able to reproduce. The higher the compression, the lower the reproduction quality. The selection of the rate of compression is dependant on such factors as the speed or data bandwidth on the communications connection between the two sites, the data demand between the sites and amount of silence detected in the speech signal. The voice compression rate is dynamically changed as the aforementioned factors change. A negotiation handshake protocol is described which enables the two sites to negotiate the compression rate based on such factors.

Dynamic selection of compression rate for a voice compression algorithm

Ringdown and ringback signalling for a computer-based multifunction

A personal communications system is described which includes components of software and hardware operating in conjunction with a personal computer. The user interface control software operates on a personal computer, preferably within the Microsoft Windows.RTM. environment. The software control system communicates with hardware components linked to the software through the personal computer serial communications port. The hardware components include telephone communication equipment, digital signal processors, and hardware to enable voice, fax and data communication with a remote site connected through a standard telephone line. The functions of the hardware components are controlled by control software operating within the hardware component and from the software components operating within the personal computer. The major functions of the system are a telephone function, a voice mail function, a fax manager function, a multimedia mail function, a show and tell function, a terminal function and an address book function. The telephone function allows the present system to operate, from the users perspective, as a conventional telephone using either hands-free, headset or handset operation. The telephone function is more sophisticated than a standard telephone in that the present system converts the voice into a digital signal which can be processed with echo cancellation, compressed, stored as digital data for later retrieval and transmitted as digital voice data concurrent with the transfer of digital information data.

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New Brighton, MN, United States of America

Ping Li