Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for providing redundancy for telecommunication switches. A primary telecom switch has an active processing board and a passive I/O board for communicating with external sources, such as a control network and bearer traffic network. A redundant secondary telecom switch has an active processing board and a passive I/O board for communicating with a control network, and is connected to the I/O board of the primary switch through a redundancy connection for communicating with the bearer traffic network. According to the invention, the secondary telecom switch assumes the role of the primary telecom switch in the event that the primary processing board becomes unavailable. The secondary telecom switch then communicates with the bearer traffic network as the master switch through the redundancy connection and the I/O board of the primary switch, thus avoiding the necessity for reconnections and reconfiguration.

Abstract: A system and method are disclosed for the licensing and managing media resources in a converged services platform. A novel central pool of resource points representing a licensed level of media resource capability is created, the central pool for the storage of all default and any additional licensed resource points represented by the converged services platform, where portions of the central pool are dynamically allocated to one or more media resource cards.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for providing conferencing services in a converged services platform operable to perform a variety of enhanced telecommunications services. The advanced conferencing algorithm embodying the invention incorporates techniques in each of four signal processing categories including noise gating, echo suppression, automatic gain control and DTMF clamping are employed to produce a high perceptual quality conference output for a conference of several hundred participants, and which is computationally cost effective.

Abstract: A media resources card for use with a converged services platform. The media resources card, which includes one or more arrays of digital signal processors (DSPs), s operable to perform a variety of communication services including recording and playback of voice recorded announcements. A caching arrangement is provided in which a given recording (file) may have either a persistence level or timer expiration attribute or both.

Abstract: The switch has a passive section and an active section or tray that may be docked to the passive section. The passive section contains only the physical interfaces to the switch's external data and telephony networks and power input. It is not intended to be a field replaceable unit and is therefore intended to be mounted in a rack system with all of the power and communications cables attached thereto. The telephony and data ports are routed from the passive section to the active section via connectors on the two sections as well as to a redundancy connector on the passive section that may be physically connected by a cable to a slave unit in a redundant application. The active section or tray contains all of the active components of the switch and is inserted via guides into the passive section. The tray is considered a field replaceable unit and can be inserted into and extracted from the passive section while the system is powered up and operational.

Abstract: This invention relates to a supplementary services layer (SSL) application in the switching node for the development and execution of subscriber-based supplementary services. The SSL communicates with the L4 application through an L4-L5 interface. Therefore, a system operator may configure the switching node to execute supplementary services without intervention from a host application and without modification to the current L4 application. The SSL also communicates with the L5 application in order for that application to integrate supplementary services without further modifications. The SSL comprises a Database Interface Service, a Service Object Manager (SOM) and one or more instances of a Supplementary Service Object (SSO). The database interface service provides connection to an external database which stores each subscriber's profile. Each SSO instance implements one or more supplementary services for a call. The SOM exercises overall control over these SSO instances.

Abstract: A call progress analysis system is provided which is generic to any telecommunications system with which it is used due to configurable detection parameters. A signal on a channel of the telecommunications system is detected in intervals of changing frequency composition and compared to stored pattern descriptors, each of which defines a different call progress signal. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, a frequency mask is computed that is specific to a user-defined call progress analysis class. This frequency mask is used to make the DSP receiver ignore frequencies that are not part of any call progress pattern in a particular class. The frequency mask can be used in a frequency detection mode or an energy detection mode. In either mode, the detector can be customized for each channel.

Abstract: Apparatus operable as a standalone, open programmable switch, a node an expandable telecommunications system, or a gateway includes a voice/data access concentrator (VDAC) card for providing voice over IP (Internet protocol) capability. The VDAC card includes an array of digital signal processors (DSPs) which may be programmed to perform desired protocol conversions between circuit-based protocols, such as T1, E1 or J1, and packet-based protocols, such as IP. The apparatus is scalable and may readily incorporate other cards which provide both subscriber supplementary services and network signalling as required to meet the needs of a particular application.

Abstract: The present invention is a universal application program interface (API) utilizing a generic message format for performing call control processing and capable of being customized to meet telecommunications application and network signaling protocol requirements. The generic message formats have programmable fields for transmitting commands, status, and data between the host application and the switch. The present invention further provides the switch the ability to perform switching functions between ports associated with distinct protocols without supervision from the host application. The universal API of the present invention may be implemented to achieve communications internal to the switch as well. For example, the generic messages of the universal API may be used to support communications between any software layer within the switch.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is provided for upgrading software, or a portion thereof, on a continuously running system, while the system is operating. A base set of software is built which contains a reserved memory area in its memory architecture. Upgrade source files are built into the reserved memory area. The upgrade images are extracted out and converted into loadable upgrade images. A header indicates where the upgrade is to be downloaded in the system and also identifies the location in the reserved memory area at which the upgrade is to be stored in the relevant component of the system. The upgrade is downloaded into the respective reserved memory area in the memory storage devices in the respective components in the system. The downloads can be performed while the system is operating because the reserved memory area does not contain live code. The upgrades are activated or deactivated using a jump instruction sequence.

Abstract: The principle object of the present invention, is to provide flexibility in the routing functions performed in the switching system. Another object is to provide a router that can be centralized in a host computer or distributed among various switching nodes. The router is easily programmable by the system operator to provide different routing algorithms for various calls. The router can be used in a system with a single switching node. However, it is particularly adopted for use in a multiple-switching-node system, either as a central, host resident unit, or as a distributed router resident on the switching nodes. A router embodying the invention uses router tables that are readily configurable by the system operator to route calls based on predefined routing criterion in the incoming or outgoing call.

Abstract: A telecommunications switching node that includes at least one resource interface card which serves as an interface for connection to external call processing resources. The interface card communicates with the line cards in the switching node directly over the system buses, i.e. without passing through the CPU\matrix card and it uses two line card ports to connect to all external resources. The resource interface card also communicates with line cards that are connected to the system buses in other switching nodes in an expanded switching network. Its resources are thus available to ports in the other nodes when those nodes have available ports that are not occupied with other tasks. For communications with the latter ports, the resource interface card transmits information through the CPU/matrix cards on its switching node and on the nodes where the communicating ports reside.

Abstract: The system includes switching nodes with multiple ports for node-host communication, each port thereby connects the switching nodes to one or more hosts. One of the ports in a switching node is designated as a primary or master port and it connects the switching node to a default host. The default host controls all ports in the switching node and because applications on the default port are given the highest priority during switching node processing, the default host is useful for applications that require instant response from the switch. The other ports in the switching node are secondary ports and they connect the switching node to one or more secondary hosts simultaneously. The applications on the secondary hosts are given a lower priority than the default host's application. Therefore, the secondary hosts are useful for applications that do not require instant response from the switching nodes.

Abstract: A telecommunications switch includes a plurality of digital signal processing modules resident on a communications services card, wherein each module includes its own time slot interchange (TSI). Significantly, this allows each digital signal processing module to simultaneously receive all information transmitted from the line cards. In addition, since each digital signal processing module includes its own dedicated TSI and each of these TSIs is connected in parallel to the same TDM bus, one or more TSIs may simultaneously output data onto the TDM bus during a time slot. Advantageously, this allows multiple TSIs to be assigned to the same transmit time slot and mux transmit time slots at the bit level. For example, if a first TSI on the digital signal processing module needs only three bits of an eight bit time slot, and a second TSI needs five or less bits, then both TSIs can be assigned to transmit during the same time slot.

Abstract: An injector/ejector mechanism for a printed circuit card of the type that has front, rear and opposite side edges, a face plate at the front edge and a connector at the rear edge of the card in which slides on chassis card guides adjacent to the side edges of the cards to a home position in a chassis which connects that connector to a mating connector on a motherboard in the chassis. The mechanism includes a dog having spaced-apart first and second lobes, and a pivot pivotally connecting the dog to the card adjacent to the front edge thereof whereby the dog can pivot parallel to the card. The dog is pivotable between a first position wherein the first dog lobe overhangs the card side edge and engages a first surface of the card guide when the card is not in its home position and a second position wherein the second lobe overhangs the card side edge and engages a second surface of the card guide behind the first surface when the card is in its home position.

Abstract: The system separates the common administrative functions from the supervisory host applications. Each administrative function is performed by a separate administrative process that is dedicated to that function and is accessible by all the supervisory application. Thus when a supervisory process requires performance of an administrative function, it invokes operation of the corresponding administrative process. With this arrangement, only a single copy of each administrative process needs to be maintained. All communications between the administrative processes, the switching platform and/or the supervisory applications are routed through a gateway process. The gateway process then forwards the message to the appropriate process or switch and later returns the any reply results to the requesting process or application.

Abstract: A telecommunications protocol development environment which enables a user to define a separate finite state machine for each port or channel provided by a programmable telecommunications switch. Protocols for various telecommunications applications and software layers may be developed.

Abstract: A telephone switching system comprises a plurality of switching nodes interconnected by a call-switching network. The switching nodes are also linked by a host network to one or more hosts that exercise supervisory control over the nodes. The hosts communicate directly with one or more of the nodes, termed "switching nodes", by means of virtual connections over the host network. The other switching nodes, termed "slave nodes", are assigned to host nodes. The hosts communicate indirectly with the slave nodes by way of switching nodes to which they are assigned. Communications between a host and a slave node thus comprise messages (a) over the host network between the slave node and the switching node to which the slave node is assigned and (b) by way of a virtual connection between the switching node and the host.

Abstract: A redundancy arrangement for use in connection with a programmable telecommunications switch or other device. An active hardware device, such as an ISDN packet engine card, is paired with a substantially identically configured standby device. During operation, the active device, in addition to performing all of its normal functions, also advises the standby device of all events which have an effect on the operational state of the active device. By ensuring that the standby device processes the same events in the same sequence as the active device, the standby device's operational state continuously tracks that of the active device. Should the active device malfunction or be taken out of service, the standby device becomes active without significant interruption or loss of service.

Abstract: An open, high speed, high bandwidth digital communication network for connecting multiple programmable telecommunications switches to form a large capacity, non-blocking switching system. Each network switching node includes circuitry for transmitting and receiving variable-length, packetized information over the network, thus enabling each node to receive information from or transmit information to all other nodes. The network may carry any type of information present in the system including voice, data, video, multimedia, control, configuration and maintenance, and the bandwidth of the network may be divided or shared across various information types. Devices such as voice processing resources may also interface with the network, thereby gaining direct access to all information passing through the network. Also provided are methods and packet structures for communicating information over the network.