Abstract: An optical communication system and methods are disclosed wherein the receiving source uses an array sensor to recover data from a transmitted optical beam and to evaluate alignment accuracy with the transmitted beam. The array sensor uses the principles of geometric invariance to determine the accuracy of alignment. The sensor may relay the recovered information to a system controller or other suitable device, which can then reposition the receiver so that it is properly aligned with the transmitter. The system and methods advantageously provide for a more compact and robust communication system wherein a single receiving element can be used for both data recovery and alignment evaluation functions.

Abstract: A noise filter technique estimates noise in speech that has been processed by Call Multiplication Equipment. The received signal has speech frames and interspersed fill-noise frames inserted at a satellite signal receiving station. The filtering technique removes the fill-noise from the signal. The remaining speech frames are analyzed such that the speech frames having the lowest power values are used to create a histogram of power/frequency. This histogram contains information from which the noise-in-speech power spectrum is derived.

Abstract: A method is described for electronically recording messages after the called telephone goes off-hook. The method may be physically implemented by an apparatus in the home or office, or by a system installed in a service provider central office. When a call is received, the telephone receiver is taken off the hook and the caller is asked if they would like to leave an electronic message. If the caller decides to leave an electronic message, the record function is initiated by the answering party via a record button physically provided on the system, by a keystroke sequence on the telephone station set keypad, or by voice command. The message speech is sampled, each sample is processed to extract speech information, each extracted signal is encoded, and then each encoded signal is stored in memory.

Abstract: A portable satellite phone is integrated into a communication system. The portable satellite phone forms a highly directed beam toward a satellite and adaptively maintains a beam to track the satellite as the portable satellite phone and/or the satellite moves relative to each other. A communication system based on the portable satellite phones may link a portable satellite phone with either another portable satellite phone or a ground based communication system connected to conventional telephone stations. The portable satellite phone includes a steering information detector or both a steering information detector and a proximity detector. The steering information detector has a bearing sensor, an attitude sensor and GPS signal receivers for position detection. The portable satellite phone also includes a database that contains the positional information of all potential communication satellites. The proximity detector detects objects that may interfere with the antenna beam.

Abstract: An improved system is realized with an arrangement which takes advantage of affiliations that allow concentration of billing. In situations where a party is willing to serve as a financial surrogate for some subscribers of a services provider, savings can be realized by sending the bills for charges accrued by those subscribers ("affiliated subscribers") directly to such a surrogate. The surrogate pays the bills of the affiliated subscribers and may make its own arrangement with the affiliated subscribers to be appropriately compensated. The disclosed method and arrangement employs an affiliation database file to provide information as to who is a financial surrogate for others. Data which affiliates particular subscribers to particular financial surrogates may be under control of the services provider or under control of the financial surrogates. The billing process utilizes the information that identifies financial surrogates and the information about the affiliations of affiliated subscribers.

Abstract: A cellular network includes a mobile switching center and a network of cells through which one or more mobile stations can move. Each of the cells is managed by a base station, while a plurality of base stations are controlled by a control processor within the mobile switching center. Spare stations are introduced at strategic locations in the cellular network. As mobile stations move through the network of cells communicating with various base stations and spare stations the mobile switching center receives reports from spare stations relating to the status of various parameters characterizing conditions within the network of cells. The mobile switching center determines the position and velocity of mobile stations moving through the network of cells based on incoming reports. The assignment of a call associated with a mobile station can be changed from a base station to a spare station, and can then be changed from the spare station to another base station if the base station fails or becomes overloaded.

Abstract: The invention is an improved retrieval system and method. Many pattern recognition tasks, including estimation, classification, and the finding of similar objects, make use of linear models. For example, many text retrieval systems represent queries as linear functions, and retrieve documents whose vector representation has a high dot product with the query. The fundamental operation in such tasks is the computation of the dot product between a query vector and a large database of instance vectors. Often instance vectors which have high dot products with the query are of interest. The invention relates to a random sampling based retrieval system that can identify, for any given query vector, those instance vectors which have large dot products, while avoiding explicit computation of all dot products.

Abstract: A videophone with selective privacy control of a caller's transmitted image. The videophone has a shutter in front of the lens, and an actuator for moving the shutter to selectively cover or uncover the lens at the option of the local caller. A video indicator also may be included, which separately indicates that the shutter is open. The video indicator (which may be an LED) may be located adjacent the lens so that it is visible when the shutter is open, and is covered by the shutter when the shutter is closed. Alternatively, the videophone makes use of a visual signal (such as an icon) which is displayed when the shutter is closed, separately or in combination with a video indicator which indicates that the shutter is open.

Abstract: A method for use in completing a caller's telephone call that is placed to the telephone number of a called party, comprises the steps of receiving the caller's call, in response to which selecting a meet-me system from among a plurality of meet-me systems. The method further comprises the steps of routing the caller's call to the selected meet-me system, and, routing a call originated by said called party to this selected meet-me system so as to connect to the caller's call at the selected meet-me system. Thereafter, the method includes the step of transmitting appropriate instructions associated with a plurality of available features to the called party so as to allow the called party to select at least one of the available features.

Abstract: Repair of a damaged portion of a cable sheath may be effected with the aid of a sheath repair kit comprised of an enclosure (10) and a volume of encapsulant (36). The enclosure (10) includes first and second members (12), both having an interior axially extending channel in communication with openings (20.sub.1 and 20.sub.2) in ends of the respective member to receive the damaged cable portion in the channel. The second member is shorter than the first member and has a cross-section smaller in area than that of the channel in the first member to enable receipt of the second member in the channel of the first member. In this way, the first and second members will capture the damaged portion of the cable, as well as a volume of the encapsulant (36) added to the channel of the first member to immerse the damaged cable portion.

Abstract: A method for estimating a real function that describes a phenomenon occurring in a space of any dimensionality. The function is estimated by taking a series of measurements of the phenomenon being described and using those measurements to construct an expansion that has a manageable number of terms. A reduction in the number of terms is achieved by using an approximation that is defined as an expansion on kernel functions, the kernel functions forming an inner product in Hilbert space. By finding the support vectors for the measurements one specifies the expansion functions. The number of terms in an estimation according to the present invention is generally much less than the number of observations of the real world phenomenon that is being estimated.

Abstract: A technique for representing behavioral patterns indicating fraudulent electronic cash transactions through micro-dynamic simulation of an electronic cash transaction system implementable using smart cards with embedded microcomputers. The electronic cash transaction system is stochastically modeled by four categories of agents corresponding to the participants in an electronic cash transaction economy. Some categories of agents are further subdivided into segments that have different characteristics, including the circle of other agents with whom they regularly conduct electronic cash transactions. Agents with counterfeit or fraudulent smart cards may form a segment in the simulation to allow the effects of the counterfeit or fraudulent electronic cash transactions in the complete system to be observed.

Abstract: A directory assistance method and system to provide directory assistance information to users at computer terminals without operator assistance. The directory assistance information is requested in a computer protocol and converted to a telephone protocol, then the retrieved from a telephone data base.

Abstract: As an utility conveyance (12), such as a pipe or cable is buried, its location is accurately determined by a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) Reading device (32) at the initial point of burial, and preferably, at successive lengths of the conveyance. A data logger (34) records the GPS location coordinates, as well as length measurement of the conveyance, to provide a permanent record of the location of the conveyance that is not require reference to any physical landmarks to enable re-location.

Abstract: A method and system for determining the location of a subscriber of a two-way paging service includes a telephone network with a switched network and a paging service operatively connected thereto. The paging service includes a paging receiver for receiving a location parameter from a two-way pager of a subscriber of a paging network. The switched network includes a unit for generating a location message to a caller when the caller queries the network for the subscriber location.

Abstract: A communication system includes a network switch coupled through a telephone line uniquely associated with each customer for budgeted telephone calling time and amount, either pre-paid or post-paid, the budgeted amount being recorded in the system for calling purposes. A server is coupled to the switch for automated control of the budgeted telephone calls and costs. The server includes a control processor having access to databases for recorded budgeted amounts and call routing. A voice response unit is coupled to the processor and sends messages to the calling customer at the beginning of each budget telephone call indicating remaining budgeted telephone calling time and amount available to the calling purposes. The processor debits the customer account by an amount reflecting the call costs as the call proceeds. A voice message advises the calling customer when the available time and costs for the budgeted telephone call will terminate.

Abstract: Hidden Markov models (HMMs) rely on high-dimensional feature vectors to summarize the short-time properties of speech correlations between features that can arise when the speech signal is non-stationary or corrupted by noise. These correlations are modeled using factor analysis, a statistical method for dimensionality reduction. Factor analysis is used to model acoustic correlation in automatic speech recognition by introducing a small number of parameters to model the covariance structure of a speech signal. The parameters are estimated by an Expectation Maximization (EM) technique that can be embedded in the training procedures for the HMMs, and then further adjusted using Minimum Classification Error (MCE) training, which demonstrates better discrimination and produces more accurate recognition models.

Abstract: A method is provided for allocating the bandwidth of a shared resource. The resource takes into account not only the explicit rates allocated to sources by upstream bottlenecks but also takes into account the original relative demands of the sources either in terms of the actual demand placed into the networks by the respective sources or in terms of some other parameter indicative of the demands of the source, such as a minimum rate necessary to provide useful service for the source.

Abstract: An improved client-server architecture of the present invention utilizes the advantages of known QOS networks to provide guaranteed quality of service, security, and a charge mechanism for handling requests initiated over a packet network, such as the Internet, for access to distributed media sources. Such media sources may be independent of the QOS network provider and may be located by browsing the Internet. A method of operating a client-server network enables the system level merger of the Internet and a guaranteed QOS network, such as the public switched telephone network, in order to provide the users with a complete information superhighway today. It will appear to the average user that the Internet and the QOS network are fused together.

Abstract: A communications system is provided which supports asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) communications. An ATM multiplexer is located at a customer's premises and connected to customer premises voice and data equipment. A central office ATM multiplexer is connected to various different networks in the existing network infrastructure. The central office ATM multiplexer is preferably connected to networks such as a low-speed packet-switched network, a public circuit-switched network, a private line network, and a high-speed packet-switched network. The ATM multiplexer located at the customer premises preferably supports dynamic bandwidth allocation. Additional features provided by the communications system include the ability to provide different voice encoding schemes for different users based on calling party or called party information.