Method and apparatus for providing broadband access conferencing services

• US 20040252675A1
• Filed: 11/26/2003
• Published: 12/16/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/1997
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: SBC Properties, L.P.
• Inventors: Lund, Arnold M.
• Application Number:
  US10/724,351
• Publication Number:
  US 20040252675A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/5671 Support of voice
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/567 Multimedia conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/15 Conference systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 11/0478 Provisions for broadband connections

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing broadband conferencing services is provided. The method includes the steps of establishing a voice channel over a circuit switched telephone network and a virtual data channel over a packet data network between at least two parties. The apparatus includes a telephone line and a digital data line sharing a single subscriber loop in addition to means for establishing a virtual data channel over a packet data network. Further, an advanced intelligent network telephone network having a first database of customer premise equipment and a second database having data addresses associated with the customer premise equipment is disclosed.

Claims

1. A method of providing a broadband conferencing service comprising the steps of:

receiving a telephone call from a calling party at a telephony network;

establishing a voice channel over the telephony network between a called party and the calling party; and

,

automatically establishing a separate, parallel virtual data channel between the called party and the calling party over a packet data network,

wherein a voice communication between the called party and the calling party is carried over the voice channel of the telephony network and a data communication between the called party and the calling party is carried over the separate virtual data channel of the packet data network.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of establishing a virtual data channel further comprises:

determining a configuration of CPE for the calling party;

determining a configuration of CPE for the called party; and

,

establishing the virtual data channel between the calling party and the called party if the configuration of CPE for the calling party is compatible with the configuration of CPE for the called party.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of launching an application over the virtual data channel, the application capable of interacting with both the calling party and the called party.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the calling party sending data to the called party over the virtual data channel.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the steps of determining the configuration of the calling party'"'"'s CPE and the called party'"'"'s CPE comprise interrogating a database having configuration information to determine if the calling party'"'"'s and called party'"'"'s CPEs have compatible broadband access capabilities.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of establishing a voice channel and a virtual data channel with at least one additional party, wherein the voice channel is established over the telephony network and the virtual channel is established over the packet data network.

6. (Canceled)

8-20. -20. (Canceled)

21. A method of providing a broadband conferencing service comprising:

receiving a telephone call from a calling party at a telephony network;

establishing a voice channel over the telephony network between a called party and the calling party;

automatically establishing a virtual data channel between the called party and the calling party on a packet data network after a voice conversation begins over the voice channel, wherein the voice channel and the virtual data channel operate in parallel to provide a synchronized voice and data transmission between the calling party and the called party.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein automatically establishing the virtual data channel further comprises establishing the virtual data channel between the calling party and the called party if a configuration of customer premise equipment CPE for the calling party is compatible with a configuration of CPE for the called party.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising launching an application over the virtual data channel between the calling party and the called party, the application capable of interacting with both the calling and called parties.

24. The method of claim 21, further comprising transmitting video signals over the virtual data channel in parallel with transmitting a voice conversation over the voice channel.

25. The method of claim 21, further comprising establishing the voice channel and the virtual data channel with at least one additional party, wherein the voice channel is established over the telephony network and the virtual data channel is established over the data network.

26. A method of providing broadband access services allowing a voice and data communication between at least two parties comprises:

receiving a telephone call from a calling party over a subscriber loop in communication with a telephony network;

establishing a voice channel from the calling party to the called party over the telephony network via the subscriber loop;

automatically, and in response to receiving the telephone call, determining a data address for the calling party on a data network and a data address for a called party on the data network; and

establishing a virtual data channel from the calling party to the called party over the data network via the subscriber loop, wherein the voice channel carries voice information and the virtual data channel carries non-voice information concurrently over the subscriber loop.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the data address for the called party and the data address for the calling party comprise internet protocol IP addresses.

28. The method of claim 27, further comprising the step of the calling party transmitting data over the virtual data channel using an asynchronous transfer mode ATM transmission protocol.

29. The method of claim 26, further comprising adding an additional party to the voice and data communication between the calling party and the called party.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein adding the additional party comprises:

connecting the additional party to the virtual data channel by transmitting a data address for the additional party to each of the calling and called parties and transmitting the data addresses of the calling and called parties to the additional party, wherein all parties share information over the virtual data channel concurrently with communications over the voice channel.