Patent ID: 6292482
Filing Date: 2001-09-18
Classification: H04L,H04M,H04Q

Abstract:
A communication system coupled to a wide area communication network comprising a plurality of network resources, the communication system providing voice and data communications to a plurality of users in an office and comprising:at least a first packet bus coupled to one or more packet-based devices and adapted for transferring packetized data to and from the system, wherein data are transmitted over the first packet bus in packets;at least one time division multiplex (TDM) bus coupled to one or more telephony devices and selectively coupled to the first packet bus and the wide area communication network, wherein data are transmitted over the TDM bus in frames, each of the frames having a plurality of slots for transmitting data;a processor;a switch/multiplexer coupled to the processor and the TDM bus, wherein the switch multiplexer selectively couples data to and from particular slots of particular frames;wherein the processor selectively controls voice communications from the one or more telephony devices over the TDM bus and packet-based communications over the first packet bus, wherein voice communications that stay in a circuit-switched from in the system occur over the TDM bus and the wide area communication network, and wherein packet-based communications are protocol-processed and selectively coupled to the wide area communication network via the TDM bus.