Nortel Networks Corporation

Rockstar Consortium US LP

Robert Joly

Kris W Kramer

Kenneth J Liang

Peter L Blatherwick

Robert Star

Robert S Morley

Larry John David

Paul Provencal

William Allan

Kenneth M Orford

Dariusz Otreba

Chris C Forrester

A packetised data network includes IP telephones (ITs) and a network intelligence (NI). All of the keys of each IT are 'soft' keys (i.e., they have no fixed function). The NI associates a configuration data structure with the IT which correlates the keys with functions, and, based on this, may control the display of the IT to indicate the current function of certain of the soft keys. Some of the functions are requests for data services at the telephone (e.g., video or programmed audio over the internet). When a user requests such a service with a key press, the NI sets up the service between the data source and the telephone. This may require associating a new configuration data structure with the keys of the IT. The IT user may activate multiple data services through the NI.

Telephony and data network services at a telephone

In order to compensate for rate mismatches between near end (receiving) and far end (transmitting) devices, intelligent jitter buffer management is implemented by apparatus comprising: a data interface for receiving frames from a data network; a jitter buffer for temporarily storing said frames; a detector for detecting frames which satisfy a criteria; and a buffer manager for controlling the frames stored in said jitter buffer based on the condition of said buffer and on frames which satisfy said criteria. The criteria can include silence frames or frames received with errors. The condition can include a high water mark (high threshold), and a low water mark (low threshold). If the far end transmitter transmits at a faster rate than the near end receiver, the jitter buffer will eventually become full beyond the high water mark, in which case frame(s) which satisfy the criteria will be deleted. If the far end transmitter transmits at a slower rate than the near end receiver, the jitter buffer will eventually become depleted below the low water mark, in which case silence frame(s) will be inserted after received silence frames.

Jitter buffer management

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Nepean, Canada

Robert Joly