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:
Dec. 28, 1999
Filed:
Oct. 16, 1996
Stephen Lewis, Napa, CA (US);
K Martin Stevenson, III, San Rafael, CA (US);
Farzad S Nabavi, Union City, CA (US);
Alcatel USA Sourcing, L.P., Plano, TX (US);
Abstract
A video telecommunications delivery network (10) provides video channels to a plurality of set top units (24). Each set top unit sends a video channel request to an associated cell multiplexing unit (20). If the video channel is available, the cell multiplexing unit (20) provides the video channel to the set top unit (22). If the requested video channel is not available, the cell multiplexing unit (20) passes the request to an associated cell routing unit (18). The cell routing unit (18) provides the requested video channel to the set top unit (22) according to availability. If unavailable, cell routing unit 18 provides the video channel request to a digital multicast bank (16). Digital multicast bank (16) delivers the requested video channel if available, otherwise the video channel request is routed to a video information provider (12) through an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch (14). The video information provider (12) delivers the requested video channel to the digital multi-cast bank (16) through the ATM switch (14) for ultimate delivery to a video subscriber at the set top box.