Abstract: Data communications apparatus and methods employing a bidirectional low bandwidth channel and a unidirectional high bandwidth channel. A PC is coupled to an information source by a communications system which provides both a bidirectional low bandwidth channel between the PC and the information source and a high bandwidth channel in which the information source is the source and the PC is the sink. A component of the communications system termed the director responds to a message received in the low bandwidth channel by switching the information being sent from the information source to the PC to the high or low bandwidth channel as specified in the message. The message may come either from the PC or the information source. A graphical user interface at the PC provides the user with "buttons" to specify the bandwidth. The apparatus and methods may be advantageously employed to provide telecommuting services.

Abstract: Methods and arrangements for properly associating an alerting message from an ISDN user terminal with the control process associated with the message are disclosed. Each call, in a disclosed switching network, is associated with a call control process and data structure. When an external request for a call is received, a data structure including a predetermined broadcast Terminal Endpoint Identifier (TEI) and a call reference value selected by the network, is created. Further, a message including the broadcast TEI and the selected call reference value is sent to a user terminal. The user terminal responds with an alerting message including the selected call reference value and a TEI unique to that terminal (not the broadcast TEI). The switching network searches the data structures until a data structure is located which includes the call reference value of the received message and the broadcast TEI.