Method and apparatus for providing broadband access conferencing services

• US 6,370,137 B1
• Filed: 08/02/1999
• Issued: 04/09/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AT&T Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Ameritech Corp. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lund, Arnold M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Olms, Douglas
• Assistant Examiner(s): HOM, SHICK C
• Application Number:
  US09/366,031
• Time in Patent Office: 981 Days
• Field of Search: 370/260, 370/261, 370/264, 370/265, 370/270, 370/351, 370/352, 370/353, 370/354, 370/355, 370/356, 370/458, 370/460, 370/262, 370/263, 370/399, 370/432, 370/468, 379/201, 379/202, 379/205
• 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 a system 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:

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, 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; and

transmitting video signals over the virtual data channel in parallel with transmitting a voice conversation over the voice channel.

2. 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 a calling party on a packet data network, 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; and

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 by interrogating a database having configuration information for both the calling party'"'"'s and called party'"'"'s CPE.

3. The method of claim 2, 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.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein interrogating the database having configuration information comprises accessing a service control point SCP in an advanced intelligent network and wherein the database is located at the SCP.

5. The method of claim 2, 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.

6. A method of providing broadband access services allowing a voice and data communication between at least two parties comprising the steps of:

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

determining a data address for the calling party on a data network and a data address for a called party on the data network;

establishing a voice channel over the telephony network via the subscriber loop; and

establishing a virtual data channel between the calling party and the called party over the data network via the subscriber loop, wherein the voice channel and the virtual data channel concurrently operate over the subscriber loop, and

wherein the data addresses for the called party and the calling party are determined by a service control point SCP looking up data addresses associated with the telephone numbers of the called and calling party in a database.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the data addresses are internet protocol IP addresses.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of the calling party transmitting data over the virtual data channel using an asynchronous transfer mode ATM transmission protocol.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising adding an additional party to the voice and data communication between the calling party and the called party.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein adding the additional party comprises:

connecting the additional party to the virtual data channel by transmitting the 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.

11. A system for supporting broadband access services comprising:

a telephone line and a digital data line sharing a subscriber loop; and

a telephone network in communication with the subscriber loop, the telephone network comprising;

a telephone network element having a list of telephone numbers and a list of data addresses associated with the list of telephone numbers; and

means for establishing a virtual data channel between customer premise equipment CPE of at least two parties over a packet data network, the means for establishing the virtual data channel in communication with the telephone network element and responsive to voice calls received at the telephone network.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the digital data line is an asymmetric digital subscriber line ADSL.