Abstract: A method and system of operating a wireless local area network station adapted to transmit and receive a signal within a communication cell. The method includes the steps of establishing a carrier detect threshold level, establishing a defer threshold level, and transmitting a signal when the signal level detected by the network station is above the defer threshold level. Additionally, the method further includes the step of receiving a signal transmission intended for the network station when the power of the received signal transmission is above the carrier detect threshold level.

Abstract: An optical switch includes an optical router portion for distributing multi-wavelength optical signals received at input ports of the switch, an optical combiner portion for supplying multi-wavelength signals at the output ports of the switch, and optical fibers for interconnecting the optical router portion and optical combiner portion. Selected ones of the interconnecting optical fibers include wavelength-selective elements, such as fiber gratings, which are capable of transmitting or reflecting individual channels within the multi-wavelength optical signal so that a selected channel of a particular wavelength can be routed from any of the input ports to any of the output ports of the switch. In one exemplary embodiment, the optical router portion includes a plurality of input optical couplers, wherein each input optical coupler is associated with a corresponding input port of the optical switch.

Abstract: A resource port that provides a host processor the facility to request, share and access the resources of data communication equipment (DCE), including the memory and I/O registers of the DCE controller. In one embodiment the resource port has a controller request line to provide the host with a facility to request access to the controller resources, and an interface circuit to provide the facility to index all the resources of the DCE. The interface circuit compensates for any disparity between the widths of the controller address bus and the host processor address bus, and between the widths of the host processor data bus and the controller data bus.

Abstract: A router uses the destination address of its incoming packets to decide the proper outgoing interfaces by searching among all of the stored prefixes for the prefix which has the longest match when compared to the destination address in the packet. Prefix trees are employed to represent the set of prefixes to be searched and high-speed, longest prefix matches are performed. An efficient data structure compresses any prefix tree structure so that the number of memory accesses needed to find the longest prefix for any address depends only on the length of the prefix rather than on the number of stored prefixes. Illustratively, only four, 64-bit memory accesses are required to find the longest prefix match for each IPv4 address in the worst case, while only 3 Mbytes are required to store a 128K-entry routing table.

Abstract: A Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) receiver removes the pilot signal from the received signal. The pilot signal is defined by its multipath parameters (amplitudes, phase shift and delays) and its signature sequence. Since this information is known at the user's receiver terminal (i.e., handset), the pilot signals of the interfering multipath components of the baseband received signal are detected and removed prior to demodulation of the desired multipath component. The pilot signal may be cancelled prior to or following the data accumulation stage. The pilot signal cancellation can be switched on and off depending on the detected path signal level.

Abstract: A telecommunications protection unit includes a voltage unit having an electrically insulating base configured to house a diode module assembly and a voltage limiting cell therein. The voltage limiting cell and diode module assembly are retained within the housing by a bus clip. The housing includes structure for preventing damage to the voltage limiting cell and diode module assembly during placement of the bus clip thereon. The diode module assembly is a one-piece article including a bus bar and several diodes and terminals which can be used by itself or in a voltage unit to provide desired electrical effects and facilitate assembly of an electrical system such as a telecommunications protection unit.

Abstract: An electrical connector (e.g., a plug or receptacle for a plug) has multiple conductors that carry two or more transmission paths, where each transmission path uses (at least) two conductors to carry a balanced signal. A portion of the like conductors of one type are grouped together and separated from a portion of like conductors of another type. For example, in one embodiment, the electrical connector is a plug having contacts used to terminate a multi-wire cable carrying up to four voice or data signal transmission paths and having four pairs of TIP-RING contacts, where a portion of the four TIP contacts are grouped together and a portion of the four RING contacts are grouped together and separated from the group of TIP contacts. In this way, electromagnetic (e.g., capacitive and/or inductive) coupling between like conductors (e.g., from TIP contact to TIP contact) will be generated that opposes electromagnetic coupling between unlike conductors (e.g.

Abstract: A device for housing electronic components that produce heat and must be cooled. The device includes a housing having at least one vertical wall that has an interior surface and a corresponding exterior surface. Rows of vains are disposed on the interior surface of the wall. Each row of vains contains a plurality of parallel vains having the same general dimensions. Adjacent rows of vains are not aligned. As a result, the vains on one internal row do not lay in the same line as vains from adjacent internal rows. External vains are disposed on the exterior surface of the wall, opposite the internal vains. The external vains correspond in position and number with the internal vains. Heat absorbed by the internal vains is transferred to the external vains by conduction, wherein the external vains dissipate the absorbed heat to the surrounding environment with an efficiency that is made possible by the configuration of the vains.

Abstract: An electrical insulator for providing insulation between electrical contacts includes an injection molded housing. The housing includes a plurality of apertures adapted to receive the electrical contacts. Electrical contacts are inserted into the apertures and are installed utilizing ultrasonic welding.

Abstract: Various modem designs are described, along with systems that use the modem designs for communicating data between a large number of remote locations and one or more central locations preferably over CATV. One aspect features a modem having a transmitter which uses a state machine and digital waveform signals stored in a memory to create a modulated signal. Another aspect features a modem having a receiver which uses a digital correlator including an SRAM for detecting a bipolar phase shift keyed signal. Still another aspect features a modem comprising an oscillator circuit having a feedback loop, wherein the feedback loop utilizes a downlink signal, and a protection circuit which prevents a malfunction in the modem from causing system-wide shutdown.

Abstract: A display rerouting apparatus reroutes a displayed image from an image source in a display module for providing a redirected angular visibility for the displayed image. In an illustrative embodiment, the display rerouting apparatus includes a base panel having a rectangular opening or widow for positioning atop of a display module in communication equipment, a rear panel having a one-way reflective mirror positioned in a rectangular opening in this rear panel, and a front panel having a two-way reflective mirror positioned in a rectangular opening in this front panel. Both the rear and front panels are respectively hingeably attached at their lower edges to the rear and front edges of the base panel for facilitating the use of the rerouting apparatus on different types of communication. In operation, the image from the display module is projected through the base of the apparatus onto the two-way reflective mirror.

Abstract: A switched power amplifier circuit employs non-linear amplifier stages including MOSFET transistors. The transistors each have source, gate, drain and backgate terminals. An input Rf signal is applied to the gate terminals and the source (or drain) terminals are connected to a load. The transistors are operated as switches by selectively applying clock signals to the backgate terminals to activate desired transistors, thus causing the transistors to turn on and allow current to flow through the load to generate power. The power to the load is increased by turning on multiple transistors at any given time.

Abstract: In a call center (100) of a business, if it is determined (314-318 or 320) during the handling of a call involving a party who is a customer of the business that the party is at risk of being lost as a customer to the business, an identifier of the party, such as ANI, is captured (300) and stored (322) along with an "at risk" indication. The determination may be made either automatically by detecting (314-318) that the party terminated the call while on hold, or manually (320) by the agent handling the call or a service observer whereupon the agent or observer pressed an "at risk" feature button (112) on their terminal (105, 110).

Abstract: A call center for routing of a call from a user to one of a plurality of agent stations of an organization, comprises: an interactive graphical display of information relating to the organization, the display for showing status information of at least one agent station; a device for enabling a user to select an agent station from the display; and, a device for effecting a communications link between the caller and the agent station. Further included is a device for receiving information about the organization and updating the graphical display of information.

Abstract: An electrostatic discharge ground path for a fuse installable in a fuse holder includes an area of metallization on at least one insulating surface of the fuse extending from an exposed surface of the fuse to a contact area within the fuse holder.

Abstract: A low voltage CMOS input buffer protection circuit that is used to protect an input buffer from any high voltage signal (e.g., 5 V) that may appear along a signal bus. The protection circuit is also "hot-pluggable", meaning that the protection circuit will not draw any current when not powered (i.e., when VDD is not present). The circuit includes a CMOS transmission gate and utilizes on-chip generated reference voltages to provide the necessary protection.

Abstract: The invention is a photodetector device and a lightguide circuit incorporating the device. The photodetector device includes a semiconductor region for absorbing light which is incident on an edge surface of the device. The region above the absorbing region is narrow at the edge and fans out in the direction of light propagation in the device.

Abstract: A component design tool extracts a parameter associated with a component defined in a model of a physical system. The design tool discretizes the component and generates a matrix representative of a specified parameter. By subdividing the matrix into a hierarchy of submatrices and iteratively compressing and blending the submatrices, the design tool produces a compressed matrix. The compressed matrix is efficiently solved using iterative techniques. From the solution of the matrix, the design tool calculates the specified parameter.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for determining estimates of the perceived noise masking level of audio signals as a function of frequency. By developing a randomness metric related to the euclidian distance between (i) actual frequency components amplitude and phase for each block of sampled values of the signal and (ii) predicted values for these components based on values in prior blocks, it is possible to form a tonality index which provides more detailed information useful in forming the noise masking function. Application of these techniques is illustrated in a coding and decoding context for audio recording or transmission. The noise spectrum is shaped based on a noise threshold and a tonality measure for each critical frequency-band (bark).