The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 23, 1988
Filed:
Aug. 28, 1987
Elliott Baral, Chicago, IL (US);
Jonathan D Dharmapalan, Red Bank, NJ (US);
Travis H Gordon, Madison, NJ (US);
Ross M Richardson, Sea Bright, NJ (US);
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
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.