Method and apparatus for providing a broadband, wireless, communications network

• US 6,647,015 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2001
• Issued: 11/11/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Transpacific Platinumeric, LLC
• Original Assignee: Sarnoff Corporation (SRI International, Inc.)
• Inventors: Malkemes, Robert Conrad, Miiller, Henry Sedwick
• Primary Examiner(s): Kizou, Hassan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tsegaye, Saba
• Application Number:
  US09/772,505
• Publication Number:
  US 20010055351A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,015 Days
• Field of Search: 370/401, 370/310.1, 370/310, 370/329, 370/277, 370/278, 370/285, 375/222
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/0845 per branch equalization, e.g. by an FIR-filter or RAKE receiver per antenna branch rake receivers as such H04B1/7115
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0068 by puncturing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0071 Use of interleaving interleaving per se H03M13/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/06 using space diversity

Abstract

Method and apparatus for providing a broadband, wireless network comprising residential communications gateway that accepts all incoming communications signals and securely broadcasts those signals throughout a residence. Each communications appliance within the residence is outfitted with a receiver that decodes the broadcast signals and couples the signals to the input terminals of the associated communications appliance. The system is completely “plug-and-play” such that a user can quickly and easily utilize the gateway for many communications appliances.

Claims

1. Apparatus for providing a wireless local area network comprising:

a gateway for receiving a plurality of signals, selecting specific signals from said plurality of signals and transmitting the selected signals through at least one antenna, wherein said gateway comprises a gateway firewall for providing a firewall and for encryption of the transmitted signals; and

a receiver comprising at least two antennas, a spatial diversity combiner, a tuner coupled to each antenna, an analog-to-digital converter coupled to each tuner, a timing recovery circuit coupled to each analog to digital converter, a spatial equalizer for each digitized signal, a combiner for combining the output signals from each of the spatial equalizers, a temporal equalizer for supressing inter-symbol interference from the combined signal, a symbol sampler for sampling the symbols, and a tap controller for adjusting the tap weights of the spatial equalizers and the temporal equalizers, wherein said receiver receives said transmitted signals and converts said transmitted signals into a format that is compatible with a network appliance.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said plurality of signals comprise one or more signals selected from a group comprising analog cable television, digital cable television, plain old telephone signals, Digital Subscriber Line signals, satellite television signals, over-the-air television signals and any combination thereof.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising a transmitter coupled to said network appliance for transmitting a signal selection signal to said gateway.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said transmitter produces signals in the 5.15 to 5.25 GHz band.

5. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein said transmitter produces QPSK modulated signals.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said gateway comprises a transceiver for transmitting said selected signals and for receiving control signals from said network appliances.

7. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein said transceiver comprises a spatial diversity combiner and a plurality of antennas.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 further comprising an appliance specific procesor for processing the symbols to form an appliance compliant signal.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said gateway transmits signals in the 5.725 to 5.825 GHz band.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said gateway transmits 20 to 40 Mbits/sec in 6 MHz channels.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein said gateway is capable of transmitting approximately 50 channels.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said gateway transmits 256-ary signals.

13. Apparatus for providing a wireless local area network comprising:

a plurality of tuner modules;

a plurality of demodulators coupled to said tuner modules;

at least one decoder coupled to said plurality of demodulators;

a gateway firewall coupled to said at least one decoder for providing a firewall and for encrypting a forward signal;

a transmitter portion for modulating and transmitting the forward signal; and

a receiver portion coupled to said gateway firewall for receiving commands from a network appliance to request one of said plurality of tuner modules to select a particular channel for transmission as the forward signal.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein said plurality of tuner modules comprise one or more of the following tuners:

a VHF tuner;

a UHF tuner;

a cable channel tuner; and

a DSB tuner.

15. The apparatus of claim 13 further comprising:

a reconfigurable ATM adaptation level 2 circuit coupled to an xDSL stream and to said gateway firewall.

16. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein said transmitter portion comprises:

an encoder;

an M-ary modulator; and

a transmitter.

17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein said M-ary modulator is a 256-ary modulator.

18. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein said receiver is a QPSK receiver.

19. A method of providing a wireless local area network comprising:

receiving a channel selection signal from a network appliance;

selecting a channel of information from a plurality of channels in response to said channel selection signal;

demodulating and decoding a signal in said selected channel;

coupling said signal to a gateway firewall for providing a firewall service;

encoding said signal from said gateway firewall and modulating said signal to produce an M-ary signal; and

transmitting said M-ary signal to said network appliance.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

demodulating and decoding said M-ary signal to display information to a user.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein said M-ary signal receiving step further comprises:

receiving said M-ary signal at said network appliance; and

demodulating and decoding said M-ary signal to display information to a user.

22. The method of claim 19 wherein said M-ary signal is transmitter in the 5.725 to 5.825 GHz band.

23. The method of claim 19 wherein said M-ary signal carries 20 to 40 Mbits/sec a in 6 MHz channel.

24. The method of claim 19 wherein said channel selection signal is carried in the 5.15 to 5.25 GHz band.

25. The method of claim 19 wherein said channel selection signal comprises QPSK modulated signals.

26. The method of claim 19 wherein said M-ary signal is a 256 ary signal.