Abstract: A telecommunications system provides telephone services to subscriber locations over dedicated optical fibers which extend in a “star” configuration from a telephone central office. A transmultiplexer installed at the central office is connected between a digital switch and the optical fibers. The transmultiplexer has a plurality of FDM ports, each of which is connected to a respective one of the optical fibers. The transmultiplexer is connected by one or more TDM ports to the digital switch. Preferably, the transmultiplexer provides a concentrating function whereby the number of subscriber lines served by the transmultiplexer is greater than the total voice-grade channel capacity of the connection between the transmultiplexer and the digital switch.

Abstract: A transmultiplexer is connected between digital facilities and analog facilities for translating information between TDM and FDM formats on the digital and analog facilities, respectively. Information in the TDM format is representative of a plurality of digital telephone signal channels and information in the FDM format is representative of a plurality of analog telephone signal channels. The total capacity of the digital facilities is smaller than the total capacity of the analog facilities. Any one of the digital channels can be selectively coupled to any one of the analog channels. The transmultiplexer is installed at a telephone central office facility as an interface between a cable telephony transmission system and a digital telephone switch. A host computer controls both the transmultiplexer and the digital telephone switch.

Abstract: A system for voice distribution amongst a plurality of telephone subscriber locations operating on a broadband cable network wherein RF transmitting and RF receiving channels for carrying voice and signalling information are established at the subscriber locations and coupled with the broad band network and a central switch is also coupled with the broadband network and enables each RF transmitting channel to be selectively coupled to any of the RF receiving channels. Phase correction pilot tones having a known phase relationship are generated at the telephone subscriber locations and transmitted in one or more phase correction pilot tone channels separate from the RF transmitting channels to the central switch. At the switch, the phase correction pilot tones are recovered and the phases of the pilot tones are used to correct the phases of the transmitting channels.

Abstract: A system for voice and video distribution amongst a plurality of telephone subscriber locations operating on a broadband cable network. The subscriber locations are adapted to establish RF transmitting and receiving channels for carrying voice and signalling information and each further includes a tunable video signal generator and a tunable video signal receiver for coupling video signals to and from subscriber location video RF broadband channels of the cable network. A central switch is also coupled to the cable network and enables each RF transmitting channel to be selectively coupled to any of the RF receiving channels and also enables a particular subscriber location video RF broadband channel to be assigned to a subscriber location.

Abstract: A system for voice distribution amongst a plurality of telephone subscriber locations operating on a broadband cable network wherein RF transmitting and RF receiving channels for carrying voice and signalling information are established at the subscriber locations and coupled with the broad band network and a central switch is also coupled with the broadband network and enables each RF transmitting channel to be selectively coupled to any of the RF receiving channels.

Abstract: A station controller for use with a centrex exchange in which the controller provides lamping signal control for the lamps of telephone stations forming multi-station pick-up groups and wherein the controller further provides cable pair information for use in establishing and updating an equipment port/cable pair/telephone station correlation table in the centrex exchange.

Abstract: A telephone system employing a centrex exchange having multi-station pick-up groups wherein a station controller means is situated between the exchange and the centrex telephone stations and provides lamp control of the secondary stations of the pick-up groups, and wherein the centrex exchange provides control of the call transfer from the primary stations of the pick-up groups to the respective secondary stations.

Abstract: A distributed, digital voice/data communications and switching system for connecting stations which may provide voice-only transmission, data only or voice and data. The system comprises one or more physical nodes, each serving (in an exemplary case) up to about 30 ports (i.e., station interfaces); nodes may be geographically distributed on the user's premises or one or more nodes may be collected together at a common location. The nodes are interconnected via a hierarchical network configuration formed of at least two, generally three, and perhaps even four interlocking networks. The first network is a slotted ring (the "regional" ring) employing coaxial cable to connect the nodes; it carries all control messages transmitted among the nodes, as well as the users' data traffic, using a frame which circulates continuously at about 20 Mbps. The second network is a "star" arrangement carrying PCM-encoded digitized voice traffic; at the hub of the star, in one of the nodes, is a digital voice switch.