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:
Jul. 02, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 10, 1997
Peter F. Foley, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
Broadcom Homenetworking, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
Existing (already installed) plain old telephone service (POTS) wiring at a customer premises is used as the wiring infrastructure for a local area network and additionally continues to provide ordinary POTS services at the customer premises. The network signals associated with the local area network and the POTS signals delivering POTS services coexist on the POTS wiring at the customer premises using frequency division multiplexing. In additional to POTS service, the subscriber loop also provides access to xDSL (digital subscriber line) signals associated with a wide area network (WAN). Thus three distinct networks (the PSTN associated with POTS, xDSL and the LAN)) coexist on a single wiring infrastructure. A virtual gateway provides for communication between each of the distinct networks without breaking the electrical continuity of the POTS wiring at the customer premises and thus maintaining lifeline POTS services, without the installation of a new dedicated active (needing AC current) Gateway device, and without the need to pull new cable to implement the premises LAN.