TELEPHONE OUTLET WITH PACKET TELEPHONY ADAPTER, AND A NETWORK USING SAME
An outlet for a Local Area Network (LAN), containing an integrated adapter that converts VoIP to and from analog telephony, and a standard telephone jack (e.g. RJ-11 in North America) for connecting an ordinary analog (POTS) telephone set. Such an outlet allows using analog telephone sets in a VoIP environment, eliminating the need for an IP telephone set or external adapter. The outlet may also include a hub that allows connecting both an analog telephone set via an adapter, as well as retaining the data network connection, which may be accessed by a network jack. The invention may also be applied to a telephone line-based data networking system. In such an environment, the data networking circuitry as well as the VoIP/POTS adapters are integrated into a telephone outlet, providing for regular analog service, VoIP telephony service using an analog telephone set, and data networking as well. In such a configuration, the outlet requires two standard telephone jacks and a data-networking jack. Outlets according to the invention can be used to retrofit existing LAN and in-building telephone wiring, as well as original equipment in new installation.
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This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/683,731, filed on Jan. 7, 2010. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/683,731 is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/001,057, filed on Dec. 2, 2004 and which is now U.S. Pat. No. 7,769,030. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/001,057 is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/469,576, filed on Feb. 12, 2004 and which is now U.S. Pat. No. 7,542,554. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/469,576 is a national-stage filing of International Patent Application No. PCT/IL01/00954, filed on Oct. 15, 2001. International Patent Application No. PCT/IL01/00954 claims priority from Israel Patent Application No. 144158, filed on Jul. 5, 2001. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/683,731, U.S. Pat. No. 7,769,030, U.S. Pat. No. 7,542,554, International Patent Application No. PCT/IL01/00954, and Israel Patent Application No. 144158 are incorporated herein by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention relates to the field of packet telephony, and, more specifically, to the use of packet telephony within a Local Area Network (LAN) over wiring simultaneously used for analog telephony.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Analog Telephone NetworkAnalog telephony, popularly known as “Plain Old Telephone Service” (“POTS”) has been in existence for over 100 years, and is well-designed and well-engineered for the transmission and switching of voice signals in the 3-4 KHz portion (or “band”) of the audio spectrum. The familiar POTS network supports real-time, low-latency, high-reliability, moderate-fidelity voice telephony, and is capable of establishing a session between two end-points, each using an analog telephone set.
The terms “computer” and “personal computer” (“PC”) as used herein include workstations and other data terminal equipment (DTE) with interfaces for connection to a local area network. The term “telephone set” as used herein includes any device which can connect to a Public Switch Telephone Network (“PSTN”) using analog telephone signals, non-limiting examples of which are fax machines, automatic telephone answering machines, and dial-up modems.
OutletsThe term “outlet” herein denotes an electro-mechanical device, which enables connection to wiring installed within a building. Outlets are permanently connected to the wiring, and allow easy connection of external units as required to such wiring, commonly by means of an integrated, built-in connector. The outlet is normally mechanically attached to, or mounted in, the wall. Non-limiting examples of common outlets include: telephone outlets for connecting telephone sets; CATV outlets for connecting television sets, VCR's, and the like; and electrical outlets for connecting power to electrical appliances.
LAN EnvironmentA development associated with the Internet is packet telephony. Packet telephony involves the use of a packet based network (commonly using the Internet Protocol, or IP) for communicating telephonic and related data, which may include sound, images, motion pictures, multimedia and any combinations thereof, in addition to voice content. In place of a pair of telephones connected by switched telephone lines as in analog telephony, packet telephony typically involves the use of an IP-telephone at one or both ends of the telephony link, with the telephonic information transferred over a packet network using packet switching and packet routing techniques, as exemplified by the Internet.
Recently, a solution for combining both telephony and data communications into a single network is offered by the Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) approach. In this technique, telephone signals are digitized and carried as data across the LAN. Such systems are known in the art.
Although
In order to employ VoIP in network 10, specific IP telephones 17a, 17b, and 17c must be used. Such telephones are expensive, require connection to a power outlet (or other power supply) and are not yet common in the marketplace. This factor has encouraged the availability of adapters for bridging between IP networks and PSTN equipment. Specifically, adapters enabling the usage of POTS telephone sets in an IP environment are available in the market, allowing the use of common and low-price legacy POTS telephone sets to be used in a VoIP environment.
Although network 20 facilitates the employment of common, low-cost standard legacy POTS telephone sets, adapters 21a, 21b, and 21c are necessary, making installation and maintenance complex, and requiring additional equipment, connections, and cables (e.g. cables 22). Furthermore, such adapters require a power connection, further complicating installation, use, and maintenance.
Furthermore, although
In-home telephone service usually employs two or four wires, to which telephone sets are connected via telephone outlets.
The junction box 34 is used to separate the in-home circuitry from the PSTN and is used as a test facility for troubleshooting as well as for new wiring in the home. A plurality of telephones may connect to telephone lines 5 via a plurality of telephone outlets 35a, 35b, 35c, and 35d. Each outlet has a connector (often referred to as a “jack”), denoted in
Network 40 is normally configured into a serial or “daisy-chained” topology, wherein the wiring is connected from one outlet to the next in a linear manner, but other topologies such as star, tree, or any arbitrary topology may also be used. Regardless of the topology, however, the telephone wiring system within a residence always uses wired media: two or four copper wires along with one or more outlets which provide direct access to these wires for connecting to telephone sets.
It is often desirable to simultaneously use existing telephone wiring simultaneously for both telephony and data networking. In this way, establishing a new local area network in a home or other building is simplified, because there is no need to install additional wiring. U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,402 to Crane (hereinafter referred to as “Crane”) teaches a Local Area Network over standard two-wire telephone lines, but does not simultaneously support telephony.
As another example, relevant prior-art in this field is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,443 to Dichter (hereinafter referred to as “Dichter”). Dichter suggests a method and apparatus for applying a frequency domain/division multiplexing (FDM) technique for residential telephone wiring, enabling the simultaneous carrying of telephony and data communication signals. The available bandwidth over the wiring is split into a low-frequency band capable of carrying an analog telephony signal, and a high-frequency band capable of carrying data communication signals. In such a mechanism, telephony is not affected, while a data communication capability is provided over existing telephone wiring within a home.
The concept of frequency domain/division multiplexing (FDM) is well-known in the art, and provides means of splitting the bandwidth carried by a wire into a low-frequency band capable of carrying an analog telephony signal and a high-frequency band capable of carrying data communication or other signals. Such a mechanism is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,448 to Reichert et al. (hereinafter referred to as “Reichert”). Also widely used are xDSL systems, primarily Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop (ADSL) systems.
In addition to illustrating a residential telephone system,
In order to eliminate the need for IP telephones 17a, 17b, and 17c, and to permit using analog telephone sets 22a, 22b, and 22c instead, adapters 21a, 21b, and 21c (
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a means for allowing the use of analog (POTS) telephone sets in LAN/VoIP environments without requiring additional external devices and allowing easy installation, operation, and maintenance This goal is met by the present invention.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe present invention makes it easy and convenient to use analog (“POTS”) telephone sets in a packet telephony environment, including, but not limited to, IP telephony via VoIP technology. The invention provides an outlet for a Local Area Network (LAN), with an integrated analog/VoIP adapter. The outlet has a standard analog telephone jack (e.g. RJ-11 in North America) allowing an analog telephone set to be directly connected to, and used with, a packet telephony system.
In a first embodiment, an outlet according to the present invention is used with an ordinary LAN environment, such as Ethernet 10BaseT (IEEE802.3). The outlet allows connecting analog telephone sets to the LAN via the integrated analog/VoIP adapter, supports analog telephony over the LAN media, and can also support a standard network data connection using an integrated multi-port unit (e.g. hub, switch, or router). For standard network data connections, the outlet also includes a data networking jack (e.g. RJ-45 if 10BaseT or 100BaseTX is used) connected to a port.
In another embodiment, the outlet enables a LAN to be based on in-building telephone wiring, in a home or Small Office/Home Office (SoHo) environment. A packet-based LAN is implemented, and outlets according to the present invention serve as both telephone outlets and network outlets. This allows for direct and convenient connection of analog telephone sets to VoIP packet telephony over the data network. In such an arrangement, the regular analog telephony service remains unaffected, because the low-frequency analog portion of the spectrum is isolated by the FDM technique. As noted above, the outlet may also support a network data connection, using an integrated multi-port unit (e.g. hub, switch or router), and in this case also includes a data network jack (e.g. RJ-45 if 10BaseT or 100BaseTX is used) connected to a port.
Outlets according to the present invention can be installed as part of an original network installation, as a retrofit to an existing network, or to set up a network over existing telephone wiring.
The invention is herein described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The principles and operation of a network according to the present invention may be understood with reference to the drawings and the accompanying description. The drawings and descriptions are conceptual only. In actual practice, a single component can implement one or more functions; alternatively, each function can be implemented by a plurality of components and circuits. in the drawings and descriptions, identical reference numerals indicate those components that are common to different embodiments or configurations.
Network 80 offers the advantages of the VoIP technology, yet allows the use of common analog telephones, in the normal way of connecting an ordinary telephone, simply by plugging the telephone's standard connector into the jack 72 within the outlet.
Although outlets 70 and 75 so fax have been described as having a single analog telephone connection, it is understood that multiple analog telephone jacks 72 can be supported, wherein separate adapters 21 are used to interface to each telephone jack within the outlets. Similarly, multiple data networking interfaces 73 can be supported in each outlet 70, each connected to different port of hub 31 as shown in
Powering outlets 70 and 75, as well as the analog telephones (via adapter 21) can be implemented either locally by connecting a power supply to each outlet, or, preferably, via the network itself. In the latter case, commonly known as “Power over LAN”, the power can be carried to the outlet from a central location either by an additional wire pair, using the well-known phantom configuration, or by the FDM (Frequency Division/Domain Multiplexing) method. The latter commonly employs DC feeding, which is frequency-isolated from the data carried in the higher part of the spectrum.
In another embodiment, the invention is used in a data network over in-building telephone lines, where the analog telephony signals are carried in the low-frequency portion of the spectrum, and the data communication signals are carried in the high-frequency portion.
Thus, outlet 90 supports three types of interface: Regular analog telephony (via jack 92), data communications (via jack 93), and VoIP telephony (via jack 94). A subset of such functionalities can also be provided. For example, an outlet solely supporting VoIP telephony can be implemented, eliminating the need for LPF 37 and jack 92, as well as eliminating hub 41 and jack 93. In such a case, adapter 21 directly connects to DCE unit 39.
Network 100 of
Although outlets 90a and 90d are each described above as having a single PSTN/POTS telephone connection, it is understood that multiple PSTN/POTS telephone interfaces can be supported within a single outlet. Similarly, it is understood that multiple VoIP/POTS telephone interfaces can be supported via multiple adapters (such as adapter 21a) within an outlet. Similarly, multiple data network interfaces can be included within an outlet, each connected to different port of the respective hub (such as hub 41a).
Life-LineThe term “life-line” refers to the concept of the telephone as a basic and emergency service, whose functionality must be maintained. As such, it is required that malfunctions in any other system or service (e.g. electricity) will not degrade the telephone system capability. In practical terms, this means that as long as an operative telephone set is actively connected to the telephone exchange via uninterrupted two-wires, the telephone service will be maintained, even in the case of a failure of electrical power.
A major drawback of using VoIP technology according to hitherto-proposed schemes is that life-line capability is not supported, and any failure of the data network (e.g. power outage, or hub, DCE, or software failure) will result in loss of the IP-telephony based service. The absence of “life-line” capability with regard to analog telephone 22d may be seen in
In contrast, however, analog telephone 22a is connected to telephone line 5a/5b through a low-pass filter 37a. LPF 37a is a passive device of relatively high reliability and immunity to failure. Thus, analog telephone 22a retains life-line capability as part of the PSTN network. This also holds for analog telephone 22c. Thus, network 100 has partial life-line capability.
Although the invention has been so far demonstrated as relating to telephone wiring and telephone outlets, the invention can be similarly applied to any type of wired networking within a building, such as CATV or electrical power wiring.
Although the invention has been so far described as relating to IP-based data networks, the invention can be similarly applied to any type of packet data network. Furthermore, although packet networks are the most important for wide area networks, the invention is not restricted to packet networks only, and can be applied to any digital data network, where voice signals are digitized and carried in digital form.
Furthermore, although the invention has been described as relating to networks based on continuous electrical conducting media (telephone, CATV, or electrical power), and the relevant modem and associated circuitry are connected in parallel to the wiring infrastructure, the invention can be applied equally to the case wherein the wiring is not continuous, but is cut into discrete segments as disclosed in WO 00/07322 to the present inventor, which is incorporated by reference for all purposes as if fully set forth herein.
While the invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, it will be appreciated that many variations, modifications and other applications of the invention may be made.
Claims
1. A network for coupling a plurality of analog telephone devices to the Internet, the network comprising:
- a telephone wire pair at least in part in a wall within a building, said wire pair being connected for concurrently carrying an analog telephone signal carried in an analog telephone signal frequency band frequency multiplexed with a digital data signal carried in a digital data signal frequency band, the digital data signal containing digitized and packetized telephone data, the digital data signal frequency band being distinct from, and higher than, the analog telephone signal frequency band;
- a gateway connected between said telephone wire pair and the Internet, said gateway being operative to couple the digital data signal between the telephone wire pair and the Internet; and
- a first device housed within a single enclosure and connected to said telephone wire pair, said first device being connectable to a first analog telephone device and being operative to couple the analog telephone signal to the first analog telephone device,
- wherein the digitized and packetized telephone data is based on Voice over Internet Protocol, and said enclosure is attached to a wall of a building,
- wherein said enclosure is mounted in the wall of the building.
Type: Application
Filed: May 19, 2014
Publication Date: Sep 11, 2014
Applicant: Conversant Intellectual Property Management Incorporated (Ottawa)
Inventor: Yehuda BINDER (Hod Hasharon)
Application Number: 14/280,844
International Classification: H04M 7/00 (20060101);