At&t Bell Laboratories

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

Travis H Gordon

Steven David Simon

Francis John Connell

Elliott Baral

Ross M Richardson

Jonathan D Dharmapalan

Robert Sorrentino

A system and a method for completing over a communication switching system a series of short duration calls directed to a common destination and initiated from a plurality of sources connected to a call queuing apparatus linked to the communication switching system. When the dedicated link from the call queuing apparatus to the communication switching system is in use, subsequent calls in the series are queued. Without relinquishing control of the link, these calls are thereafter connected to the communication switching system, preferably on a first-come first-serve basis. The invention allows the overhead of call setup, both cost and setup time, to be spread over the entire series of calls, as opposed to being borne by each call in the series.

Calling system for short duration data transactions

This invention relates to a dynamically shared facility network (DSFN) providing private network service to a plurality of customers using switched facilities of a common carrier network. A plurality of serving offices are connected via access links to customer telecommunications equipment. A pool of channels is dedicated to providing communications for private network service among these serving offices. In response to a request from a customer, connections are set up in the serving offices between access links and members of the pool of channels, in order to interconnect the serving links sought to be connected by the request. Where tandem connections between serving offices are necessary, connections are set up between members of the pool of channels. In case of failure of one or more channels, a new connection is automatically established. Advantageously, communication channels of the large communications facilities of a public switched network can be allocated to the DSFN, thus achieving economies of scale, and thus permitting use of the large and flexible switching systems of the public switched network to control and switch channels of the DSFN.

Dynamic shared facility system for private networks

A method and apparatus for setting up a digital broadcast call from a transmitting station to a group of receiving stations over a public switched network. A time slot interchange unit (TSIU) is used to replicate a signal, received from a transmitting station at an input port of the TSIU, to a group of output ports of the TSIU for transmission to a group of receiving stations. A data base, shared by a group of switching systems of the public switched network, includes data, activated during a preselected period of time, to translate each of two preselected numbers to one of two corresponding internal routing numbers of the switched network for accessing the input port and output ports of the TSIU, respectively. When the transmitting station dials the first preselected number and each of the receiving stations dials the second preselected number, the data base translates these numbers into the corresponding internal routing numbers for setting up a connection from the transmitting and receiving stations to the incoming port and the outgoing ports, respectively, of the TSIU. Advantageously, the broadcast circuit is made available to the broadcast conferees for a period of time limited by the active time of the translations in the data base.

Broadcast conferencing arrangement

A method and an arrangement are disclosed for providing a nationwide dial-a-view service in which a caller desiring a given viewing selection dials an '800' dial-a-view number for ordering that selection through the telephone networking arrangement. The arrangement includes local and toll switching offices for accessing a centralized database system for providing routing instructions advantageously to network services equipment which acknowledges the request and processes the request to cable television distribution equipment. The dialed '800' number is recognized as a dial-a-view request, and the database system provides the originating toll office with routing instructions for sending the request to the network service equipment. Automatic number identification of the caller is requested from the originating toll office and forwarded along with requested programming to the vendor equipment. The vendor equipment supplies the requested programming to the calling customer via an addressable decoder at the calling customer's television. The vendor equipment also perform customer order entitlement verification prior to supplying the calling customer with the requested programming.

Growing community of inventors

Madison, NJ, United States of America

Travis H Gordon