“Plug and play” telephone system
First Claim
1. An apparatus for use in an endpoint of a system, the apparatus comprising:
- circuitry for a) transmitting a request message to other endpoints of the system, and b) detecting an idle message frame as confirmation of such transmitted request message;
wherein the request message is formatted to comprise an address portion and a message portion, and wherein the message portion conveys data representative of a request for use of a particular system resource.
15 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A distributed processing telephone system for providing “plug-and-play” capability. In particular, a key telephone system comprises a plurality of telephone sets. Each telephone set is coupled to at least one common communications channel, or telephone line, and includes at least one tunable RF modem. There is no key service unit (KSU). That is, the system is KSU-less. Resources of the telephone system are allocated using a peer-to-peer protocol. For example, as each telephone set is newly added to the system, the new telephone set adaptively determines its own allocation of resources, e.g., intercom numbers, etc. During operation, each telephone set requests the appropriate resources from its peers.
31 Citations
28 Claims
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1. An apparatus for use in an endpoint of a system, the apparatus comprising:
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circuitry for a) transmitting a request message to other endpoints of the system, and b) detecting an idle message frame as confirmation of such transmitted request message;
wherein the request message is formatted to comprise an address portion and a message portion, and wherein the message portion conveys data representative of a request for use of a particular system resource. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system comprising:
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a plurality of telephone sets, each telephone set coupled to a communications medium for the exchange of request messages, and where each telephone set confirms its request message upon detection of an idle frame; and
wherein each request message is formatted to comprise an address portion and a message portion, and wherein the message portion conveys data representative of a request for use of a particular system resource. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. Apparatus for use in an endpoint of a system, the apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry for forming messages for transmission in accordance with a protocol for governing the exchange of the messages with other endpoints, where the protocol requires a plurality of message access frames, each message access frame including a plurality of time-slots and where an address of the endpoint is associated with one of the time-slots, the processing circuitry not transmitting a formed message until its corresponding time-slot is detected as idle and where the processing circuitry detects confirmation of the formed message upon detection of an idle message access frame after the transmission of the formed message. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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18. A method for use in an endpoint of a system, the method comprising the steps of:
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transmitting a request message to other endpoints of the system; and
detecting an idle message frame as confirmation of such request message;
wherein the request message is formatted to comprise an address portion and a message portion, and wherein the message portion conveys data representative of a request for use of a particular system resource. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. A method for use in an endpoint of a system, the method comprising the steps of:
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detecting a plurality of message access frames, each message access frame comprising a plurality of time-slots;
transmitting a message in a time-slot that is associated with the endpoint only if the time-slot is idle; and
receiving a confirmation of the message by subsequent detection of an idle message access frame. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification