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:
Jan. 21, 1997
Filed:
Oct. 10, 1995
Robert P Madonna, West Barnstable, MA (US);
Siegmar K Eschholz, Monument Beach, MA (US);
John T Lynch, Buzzards Bay, MA (US);
Excel, Inc., Hyannis, MA (US);
Abstract
A programmable telecommunications switch has automatic backup of line cards to provide complete redundancy. The switch has I/O cards which terminate the external telecommunications spans. Each I/O card passes the data from its spans to a line card. When the line card fails, the I/O card switches the data onto an I/O bus which is connected to a standby I/O card. The standby I/O card switches a standby line card into connection with the I/O bus such that the data stream is then serviced by the standby line card. The failed line card may then be removed and replaced. All I/O cards are attached to the I/O bus such that redundancy for all active line cards using the same signalling protocol is provided with a single standby line card. With multiple I/O busses, standby I/O cards and standby line cards, multiple redundancy is possible. Finally, the failure of a single line module of a line card may be handled by switching only the span serviced by that module to a standby line card. Spans from different I/O cards may be serviced by different line modules of a single standby line card, and may be all connected to the same standby line card by the same bus.