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Bell Telephone Laboratories

Ronald G Cornell

John Garfield Williams

Walter T Hartwell

Dale E Haben

Bently A Crane

A message storage system (104) deletes leading silence from messages to be stored therein. Voice messages are converted to digital signals and stored as data blocks in a digital memory (601). Voice signals are detected in messages to be stored and a voice present signal is generated during periods of time when voice signals are detected. The memory is set to a starting location after the storage of each group of four data blocks of a message until a voice present signal is generated, thereby deleting leading data blocks which do not contain voice signals.

Arrangement for deleting leading message portions

A message storage system (104) cooperates with a plurality of telephone switching offices (102, 122) to provide a variety of voice storage services to subscribing customers served by the switching offices. Control signals and voice messages are delivered to the message storage system in analog form and converted to digital signals. A processor circuit (111)interprets the control signals and sends work lists to a plurality of microprocessor controlled message controllers (113a through 113n) which in turn each control a plurality of disc transports (114a through 114n), a time multiplex switch (115), and a larger plurality of buffer circuits (116) wherein the messages in digital signal form are speed buffered for storage in the disc transports. The message controllers control the flow of digital data words between the buffer circuits and the disc transports via the time multiplex switch to provide highly efficient mass storage and retrieval of messages.

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Glen Ellyn, IL, United States of America

Ronald G Cornell