Intelligent voice converter

• US 7,327,696 B1
• Filed: 03/27/2003
• Issued: 02/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Yarlagadda, Madhu
• Primary Examiner(s): Harper; Kevin C.
• Application Number:
  US10/402,637
• Time in Patent Office: 1,776 Days
• Field of Search: 370352-356, 370400-401, 370/466, 370/276
• US Class Current: 370/276
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 11/0421 Circuit arrangements therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13034 A/D conversion, code compression/expansion
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13098 Mobile subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13107 Control equipment for a part of the connection, distributed control, co-processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13196 Connection circuit/link/trunk/junction, bridge, router, gateway
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13204 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13216 Code signals, frame structure
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/1332 Logic circuits
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13349 Network management
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13375 Electronic mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13378 Speech recognition, speech analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13389 LAN, internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 2213/13396 Signaling in general, in-band signalling
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 379/90 Internet, e.g. Internet phone, webphone, internet-based telephony

Abstract

A voice converter includes upstream and downstream resource managers for allocation half-duplex resources of a full duplex DSP transcoder. The resource managers schedule available upstream or downstream resources and provide transcoded voice data to requesting applications.

Claims

1. A method for scheduling a single full-duplex DSP having within upstream and downstream half-duplex resources, comprising the steps of:

scheduling a first user, requiring use of the half-duplex upstream resource, to have access to the half-duplex upstream resource for processing upstream data after a first buffer is full; and

scheduling a second user, requiring use of the downstream half-duplex resource, to concurrently access the downstream half-duplex resource for processing downstream data after a second buffer is full, so that independent data from the first and second users are concurrently processed by the single, full-duplex DSP.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising transcoding voice data from a VOIP format to a PSTN format in the scheduled half-duplex upstream resource.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising routing the transcoded voice data in PSTN format to the first user.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising transcoding voice data from a PSTN format to a VOIP format in the scheduled half-duplex downstream resource.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising routing the transcoded voice data in VOIP format to the second user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first user comprises a first application and the second user comprises a second application.

7. A method for scheduling a single full-duplex DSP having upstream and downstream half-duplex resources, the method comprising:

scheduling a first entity, requiring use of the upstream half-duplex resource, to have access to the upstream half-duplex resource;

scheduling a second entity, requiring use of the downstream half-duplex resource, to concurrently access the downstream half-duplex resource;

processing data for the first entity using the upstream half-duplex resource after a first buffer is full; and

processing data for the second entity using the downstream half-duplex resource after a second buffer is full,

wherein the first and second entities are not in communication with each other and the data processed from the first and second entities are concurrently processed by the single, full-duplex DSP.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein processing data for the first entity comprises transcoding voice data from a VOIP format to a PSTN format in the scheduled upstream half-duplex resource.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising routing the transcoded voice data in PSTN format to the first entity.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein processing data for the second entity comprises transcoding voice data from a PSTN format to a VOIP format in the scheduled downstream half-duplex resource.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising routing the transcoded voice data in VOIP format to the second user.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the first entity comprises a first application and the second entity comprises a second application.

13. A system for scheduling a single full-duplex DSP, the system comprising:

an upstream resource manager configured to schedule a first entity for an upstream half-duplex resource of the full-duplex DSP for processing upstream data after a first buffer is full; and

a downstream resource manager configured to schedule a second entity for a downstream half-duplex resource of the full-duplex DSP for processing downstream data after a second buffer is full,

wherein the first and second entities are not in direct communication with each other and data processed from the first and second entities are concurrently processed by the single, full-duplex DSP.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising an upstream resource availability table, wherein the upstream resource manager is configured to schedule the second entity based on upstream resource availability found in the upstream resource availability table.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising an downstream resource availability table, wherein the downstream resource manager is configured to schedule the second entity based on downstream resource availability found in the downstream resource availability table.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein upstream resource availability is independent of downstream resource availability.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the upstream half-duplex resource is configured to transcode data for the first entity from a VOIP format to a PSTN format.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the downstream half-duplex resource is configured to transcode data for the second entity from a PSTN format to a VOIP format.

19. A system for scheduling a full-duplex DSP, the system comprising:

an upstream resource manager configured to schedule one or more upstream entities for an upstream half-duplex resource of the full-duplex DSP for processing upstream data after a first buffer is full, wherein the upstream data is continuously provided to the upstream half-duplex resource at a rate sufficient to mask an upstream network data latency at the upstream half-duplex resource and to minimize the upstream half-duplex resource from improperly outputting a silence frame; and

a downstream resource manager configured to schedule one or more other downstream entities for a downstream half-duplex resource of the full-duplex DSP for processing downstream data after a second buffer is full, wherein the upstream and downstream entities are not in direct communication with each other and the upstream data and the downstream data are concurrently processed by the single, full-duplex DSP.