Intelligent voice converter

• US 6,567,419 B1
• Filed: 09/11/2000
• Issued: 05/20/2003
• 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): Rao, Seema S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Harper, Kevin C.
• Application Number:
  US09/658,802
• Time in Patent Office: 981 Days
• Field of Search: 370/351-352, 370/356, 370/431, 370/433, 370/464-466, 370/468, 379/93.01, 379/900, 710/5-6, 710/8, 710/11-12, 710/20-21, 710/72, 375/222, 712/28
• US Class Current: 370/466
• 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 voice transcoding method for scheduling resources in a system having a plurality of full duplex DSP resources, each full-duplex DSP resource having a half-duplex upstream resource for transcoding voice data from a VOIP format to a PSTN format and a half-duplex downstream resource for transcoding voice data from a PSTN format to a VOIP format, said method comprising the acts of:

maintaining an upstream resource availability table indicating which upstream resources are available to be scheduled, wherein the upstream resource availability is independent of downstream resource availability;

receiving a request from a requesting application for upstream resource transcoding service;

utilizing the upstream resource availability table to identify an available upstream resource;

scheduling the available upstream resource to provide requested transcoding service;

modifying the upstream resource availability table to indicate that the available upstream resource is a scheduled upstream resource and thus unavailable for scheduling;

routing voice data in VOIP format to a scheduled upstream resource for transcoding;

routing transcoded voice data in PSTN format from the scheduled upstream resource to the requesting application;

subsequent to completion of requested transcoding service, modifying the upstream resource availability table to indicate that the scheduled upstream resource is now an available upstream resource.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the acts of:

maintaining an downstream resource availability table indicating which downstream resources are available to be scheduled, wherein the downstream resource availability is independent of upstream resource availability;

receiving a request from a requesting application for downstream resource transcoding service;

utilizing the downstream resource availability table to identify an available downstream resource;

scheduling the available downstream resource to provide requested transcoding service;

modifying the downstream resource availability table to indicate that the available downstream resource is a scheduled downstream resource and thus unavailable for scheduling;

routing voice data in PSTN format to a scheduled downstream resource for transcoding;

routing transcoded voice data in VOIP format from the scheduled downstream resource to the requesting application;

subsequent to completion of requested transcoding service, modifying the downstream resource availability table to indicate that the scheduled downstream resource is now an available downstream resource.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the acts of:

buffering upstream data prior to routing to the upstream resource to compensate for network latency.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the acts of:

receiving requests from the requesting application via a TCP/IP port; and

routing voice data via a UDP port.

5. A voice transcoding system for scheduling resources, the system comprising:

a plurality of full duplex DSP resources, each full-duplex DSP resource having a half-duplex upstream resource for transcoding voice data from a VOIP format to a PSTN format and a half-duplex downstream resource for transcoding voice data from a PSTN format to a VOIP format;

an upstream resource manager configured to schedule upstream half-duplex resources independent of downstream half duplex resource availability; and

a downstream resource manager configured to schedule downstream resources independent of upstream resource availability.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising an upstream resource availability table, wherein the upstream resource availability table indicates which upstream half-duplex resources are available to be scheduled.

7. The system of claim 5, further comprising an downstream resource availability table, wherein the downstream resource availability table indicates which downstream half-duplex resources are available to be scheduled.

8. The system of claim 5, further comprising a buffer, wherein the buffer is configured to compensate for network latency.