Patent ID: 6389009
Filing Date: 2002-05-14
Classification: H04L,H04M,H04Q

Abstract:
In 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 having at least a first packet bus coupled to a plurality of packet-based devices, at least one time division multiplexed bus (TDM) coupled to a plurality of telephony devices and selectively coupled to the first packet bus and the wide area communication network, a processor and a switch/multiplexer coupled to the processor and the TDM bus, a method for providing voice and data communications comprising the steps of:transferring packetized data to and from the system with one or more of the packet-based devices, wherein data are transmitted over the first packet bus in packets; transmitting data over the TDM bus in frames, each of the frames having a plurality of slots for transmitting data, wherein the data transmitted over the TDM bus includes data for voice communications from one or more of the plurality of telephony devices; protocol processing at least certain data transmitted over the first packet bus in packets and selectively providing the protocol-processed data to the TDM bus; wherein the switch/multiplexer selectively controls the providing of 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 form 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.