DIALING INTERVAL TRANSMISSION GATING ARRANGEMENT

Abstract: A trunk circuit in a customer premisses communication system is adapted for controlling transmission during the MF digit signaling interval when the station dialed MF signals which are converted to pulsed digit signaling. The stations MF signals are detected by the MF receiver (102-1) and a processor (101) is informed of such detection. An outward transmission circuit (106) and an inward transmission circuit (108) are inserted in the four-wire portion of the CO line. These circuits are controlled by the processor (101) in the customer premises communication system such that the outward transmission circuit (106) is opened immediately upon seizure of the line by the calling station and remains open during the entire dialing interval. The inward transmission circuit (108) is opened concurrently with the operation of the digit outpulsing relay (ILC) and remains operated on a digit by digit basis.

Description: DIALING INTERVAL TRANSMISSION GATING ARRANGEMENT Field of the Invention This invention relates to a trunk circuit interposable between a rotary dial pulse generating local switching network and a central office line, the trunk circuit having a first bidirectional transmission path communciating with said local switching network and a second bidirectional transmission path communicating with the central office line and a pair of unidirectional transmission paths connecting said first and second bidirectional transmission paths. Background of the Invention The introduction of telephone sets equipped with keypads for generating multifrequency ac tone signals representing the digits of called telephone numbers requires that compatible receiving equipment be installed at the local switching network (PBX) or at the central office. Some of the more modern local switching networks of the type disclosed, for example, in U. S. Patent 4,150,259, are equipped to receive either multifrequency tone or rotary dial signals from telephone sets. Many central offices, however, are not yet wholly or even partially equipped to receive such multif equency tone signals and, in such cases, conversion apparatus must be employed at the local switching network to convert the tone signals generated at a telephone set to the older and more common type of rotary dial pulses capable of being received at the central office. When the central office is equipped to receive such multifrequency tone signals as well as conventional rotary dial signals, the usual arrangement provides for automatically connecting a multifrequency tone receiver to the line at the central office shortly after the arrival of the multifrequency tone signal at the central office. In such a case, rotary dial pulses should not also be received as this would cause multiple OMPI registration of the same digit. Under certain circumstances, the telephone administration may offer a customer served by a central office that is capable of receiving either multifrequency tone or rotary dial signals, the option of transmitting either type of signal to the central office. Under these circumstances, a customer equipped with one of the more modern switching networks, which can serve multifrequency telephone sets, may desixe to have the local switching network transmit dial pulses to the central office because the telephone administration may impose lower charges for receiving the conventional rotary dial pulses than for multifrequency tone signals. Under these circumstances, the conversion apparatus at the customer's local switching network must make sure that multifrequency tone signals generated at the telephone set . are completely converted to rotary dial pulse signals and that the multifrequency tone signals are not effectively transmitted to the central office. In the past, this was accomplished by providing a faster operating conversion apparatus at the customer's local switching network than is provided at the central office. The tones generated by the telephone set must not only be detected at the local switching network and converted to dial pulses, but the transmission path from the telephone set to the central office must be interrupted during the continuance of the multifrequency tone signaling so that multiple digit registration will not occur at the central office receiving apparatus. For example, assume the tones for the digit four are generated by a telephone set and that the customer's local conversion apparatus recognizes these tones and translates them into a sequence of four rotary dial pulses as by opening and closing (pulsing) the transmission line to the central office four times. If the transmission path from the telephone set to the central office were allowed to remain intact, the central office would receive four bursts of tones during the rotary dial pulsing. O v WI However, the interruption of the transmission path between the telephone set and the central office poses another problem since there are situations during the dialing interval where it is mandatory for the calling subscriber to hear call progress tones from the central office. One example of this necessity is where the subscriber dials an access code and must wait to hear a second dial tone from the central office or some intermediate switching office before dialing the remainder of the digits. If the transmission path is allowed to remain intact during the rotary dial pulsing by the conversion apparatus, the transitions from make to break and vice versa will create large amplitude pulses that may not only mutilate the multifrequency tone signals simultaneously being received, but at the telephone set, these pulses produce clicks which are annoyingly loud and may distrub the telephone set user. It is necessary, therefore, to inhibit the transmission path inward from t.he central office interface, trunk circuit, to the voice switching network during the outpulsing operation and to restore this path as soon as possible upon conclusion of outpulsing so that the station user may receive call progress tones from the central office. Summary of the Invention The foregoing problems are solved by this invention in which a processor generates control signals in response to digit signals from a multifrequency receiver (known per se) responding to the appearance of multifrequency tone signals on the first bidirectional transmission path, and the trunk circuit in response to the control signals disables both of the unidirectional transmission paths the duration of a first predetermined interval of time, then restores in response to further control signals one of the unidirectional paths before the expiration of the first interval of time, but not during the rotary dial pulsing of a digit, and then restores in response to additional control signals the other of the unidirectional paths after the completion of a third predetermined interval of time after the expiration of the first predetermined interval of time. Brief Description of the Drawing The principles of our invention as well as additional objects and features thereof will be more fully appreciated from a review of the illustrative embodiment shown in the drawing in which: FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a portion of a switching system using our invention, FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of the arrangement of the hybrid circuits and transmission control gates, FIG. 3 is a timing chart showing the interrelationship of the various dial pulses and signal. Detailed Description FIG. 1 schematically shows a part of a communication system architecture that is relevant to this invention. A Central Office hereinafter called a CO, PBX, or other communication system interface such as interface 103-1 provides access to the local communication system for Central Office (CO) trunks or lines which use loop start signaling. Signaling to the central office or PBX utilizes a loop closure relay 1LC which establishes DC continuity in the tip T and ring R loop to the CO when the relay is operated. Contacts lLC-1 also serves to interrupt the DC path when the relay is unoperated. The presence of DC is used to signal the office of an active or off hook state at the communication system interface. Rotary dial pulsing into the office is performed by repetitively interrupting the DC path to generate a train of break pulses. Transformer 109 in conjunction with hybrid 107 provides isolation between the loop and system electronics and converts the two^-wire tip and ring CO line circuit to a four-wire circuit within the system. Transmission gates 106 and 108 provide amplification and transmission gating. O Hybrid 105 recombines the two directions of transmission into an unbalanced twoτ-wire circuit 114. Station interface 104 provides access to the communication system for a local system telephone station set such as station set 1 (not shown) . Transformer 112 provides isolation and conversion between the balanced and unbalanced circuits. Station hybrids 110 and 111 are, for purposes of this discussion, identical with hybrids 105 and 107 respectively. Station interface inward and outward transmission circuits 121 and 120 provide amplification, but, unlike the CO interface, they contain no transmission gates. MF receivers 102τ-l to 102^-n are service circuits which detect and decode MF signals on any network access line 113-1 to 113^-n. Link type space division switching network 100 is used to establish bidirectional transmission paths between system interfaces and service circuits. Crosspoint switches provide access for network horizontals 113-, 114-, 115^-, to links 1 through N. Two or more horizontals may be connected together through the switching network by closing the appropriate crosspoint switches under control of processor 101 to assign them to a common link. Control for loop closure relays 1LC, outward transmission circuit , inward transmission circuit, and for the network crosspoints LC emanates from common control circuitry such as processor 101. Processor 101 also receives, for interpretation, digits collected by the MF receiver. Processor 101 communicates with other elements of the system via common paths, shown in dotted form. System Operation When a calling subscriber goes off-hook on a CO line call the processor operates, in the well-known manner to connect the station via interface circuit, an available CO interface circuit and an available MF receiver to a selected link of the local switching network. The MF receiver acts to accept any MF dialed digits and to pass the information to processor 101. Before the first digit is dialed the CO trunk must be "requested" to provide dial tone and a dial pulse (or MF) register. The local communication system performs this function by closing loop relay ILC under control of processor 101. The state of inward transmission gate 108 in the CO interface is not critical prior to the seizure of the CO register. At the on-hook to off-hook transition of the loop relay, inward transmission circuit 108 is closed also under control of processor 101 so that dial tone may be received by the local station user. Outward transmission circuit 106 is opened so that station MF dialing tones are inhibited from reaching the CO. After an arbitrary interval, the first MF digit is dialed from the station. At the onset of the tone burst the digit is recognized by the locally attached MF receiver and processor 101 and outpulsing begins. Loop closure relay ILC in the selected line interface circuit is pulsed open and closed a number of times corresponding to the digit being dialed. Turning to FIG. 3, the relationship of the timed pulses can be seen. Top line (1) shows the MF digits being sent by the local station, while line (2) shows the signals for the pulsing relay. Line (3) shows the signals for the inward transmission gate while line (4) shows the signals for the outward transmission gate. At the start of the first pulse train, before the first break pulse, the inward transmission gate is opened. This prevents clicks caused by the relay operation from being received by the station and by the local MF receiver. Inward transmission remains disabled for a period of time t2 into the interdigital period following the outpulsing of the digit. This serves to guard against transients generated by the CO switching equipment which may occur after a digit is received. If the time tl between the end of a pulsed digit and the occurrence of a new MF digit is less than this guard interval (t2) then the inward transmission is not restored at all between outpulsed digits. This is shown for digits one and two. For proper operation, a prescribed period of time must elapse before the start of the outpulsing of the second digit. If the second MF digit is received in less than this minimum interdigital interval the second MF digit is buffered by the common control circuit. In principal, several MF digits may be buffered and queued for outpulsing. In the situation shown for the last digit, time t3 between the end of outpulsing of the prior digit and the occurrence of a new MF digit exceeds the guard interval tl thereby resulting in inward transmission being temporarily restored (as shown by pulse 301 line (3) FIG. 3) prior to the outpulsing of the last digit during time t4. Presumably, the pause in the MF stream represents an attempt by the station user to obtain a call progress indication from the CO and the inward transmission is restored so that the call progress tones may be heard. A typical interdigital time might be 600 msec while a suitable guard interval might be one second. Outward transmission (as shown on line (4) FIG. 3) remains disabled during the entire dialing sequence beginning with the seizure of the CO line since there is no sure way to anticipate when the station user may press a button on the MF dial. At the end of dialing, outward transmission is restored under control of processor 101. The end of dialing is signaled to the common control circuit in one of three ways. The most rapid way for the station user to signal the end of dialing and have outward transmission restored is to dial the special symbol "#". To protect against the case where the station user is untrained in the use of the special symbol, outward transmission is restored automatically at the end of a timeout interval t4. The timing period for automatic OMPI restoration of outward transmission begins on the reception of the last MF digit, and is independent of pending outpulsing operations. The assumption is that the station user will not pause for that long in his/her dialing until the entire number is dialed. A sophisticated strategy might count the number of digits that have been dialed by the station user. If, for instance, a local -call requires seven digits than long timeout could be required prior to the dialing of the seventh digit. A shorter timing period could be used following the seventh digit. Suitable timeout periods might be 10 seconds for the long case and five for the short. Since the restoration of outward transmission is identified with the end of dialing it is also possible for the communication system to remove the MF receiver from the conference configuration with the station and CO interfaces. This frees the receiver to be used by other callers. In FIG. 2 there is shown one implementation of the transmission gates for inward and outward transmission control. As can be seen transmission arrives from the CO and is provided to the network by a two-wire circuit 116 and 114, respectively. Note that while only one wire of the two-wire circuits is shown this is commonly referred to as the unbalanced condition. Hybrids 105 and 107 serve to separate the unbalanced two-^wire circuit into an unbalanced four<-wire circuit where outward transmission is directed through outward transmission circuit 106 while inward transmission is directed through inward transmission circuit 108. On the two-wire portions of the circuit 114 and 116, transmission is bidirectional. Amplifier 204 of hybrid 107 delivers signal power into the central office loop. Resistor 2R12 provides in office the terminating impedance for the central office loop. Amplifier 204 also provides a phase inversion. Resistors 2R9 and 2R10 sum the input from outward transmission circuit 106 together with the inverted JIlE OMP version of the signal from amplifier 204 so as to cancel the signal and prevent it from being transmitted back toward inward transmission circuit 108. This is the well known hybrid function. Resistor 2R10 also serves the purpose of providing a signal from the CO to inward transmission circuit 108. It should be understood that hybrid 107 is one of many hybrids well known in the art which serves to convert unbalanced two-wire operation to unbalanced fourr wire operation where one leg of the fourr-wire circuit contains transmission in one direction while the other leg provides transmission in the opposite direction. Hybrid 105 provides a current to the- local network in proportion to the signal received from inward transmission circuit 108. At the same time, hybrid 105 receives a voltage signal from the network and provides that signal via resistor 2R2 to the input of outward transmission circuit 106. Resistors 2R2 and 2R3 serve as the summing resistors in conjunction with the phases-inversion of amplifier 208 to prevent signals arriving from inward transmission circuit 108 from being reflected back to outward transmission circuit 106. The , operation of hybrid 105 in conjunction with amplifier 207 of inward transmission circuit 108 is constructed to take advantage of the interface properties of the monobus interface circuit known in the art. Outward transmission circuit 106 serves to blcok or amplify outward direct transmission under control of a signal on lead OTGC which signal is provided from the common control circuit such as processors 101 shown in FIG. 1. For purposes of discussion it will be assumed that when outward transmission gate 201 is turned on, communication transmission will flow through outward transmission circuit 106 and conversely when outward transmission gate 201 is turned off, transmission will be inhibited. Inward transmission circuit 108 operates in the same manner as does outward transmission circuit 106 and is operable to block or amplify transmission from the CO to the network under control of signals on lead ITGC from processor 101. Elements 202 and 206 of the transmission gates are p^channel junction field effect transistors (FETs) . The FETs are used in this configuration as a bi^- state device having an on condition with substantially zero resistance between the drain and source leads. When the FET is off, there is a substantially infinite impedance between the drain and source leads. To achieve the off condition of the outward transmission gate, the signal on the control lead such as control lead OTGC is made more positive than the peak positive signal voltage coming from hybrid 105. This signal must be greater by at least the value of the pinchτoff voltage of the FET. To turn the outward transmission gate on the signal on lead OTGC must be equal to the voltage on the source lead which in the implementation shown is ground due to the properties of operational amplifier 203. Conclusion it should be understood that the implementation shown is but one of many and in fact the outward transmission gates 202 and 205 could be loop closure devices, such as relay contacts, driven from processor 101 or from any other common control circuit or local control circuit or processor and that hybrid 105 need not be present if the local switching network were to be four-wire operation throughout. It should be noted, of course, that one skilled in the art may rearrange and utilize our invention, without departing from the spirit and scope of what we claimed. The transmission gates in the transmission circuit may be used to control stability of the hybrid circuits when they are in the unconnected state. This may become important in some situations to prevent crosstalk and high amplitude oscillations.

Claims: AMENDED CLAIMS (received by the International Bureau on 13 November 1980 (13.11.80)) 1. A trunk circuit interposable between a rotary dial pulse generating local switching network (100) and a central office line (Line 1) , the trunk circuit having a first bidirectional transmission path (114) communicating with said local switching network (100) and a second bidirectional transmission path (116) communicating with the central office line (Line 1) and a pair of unidirectional transmission paths (106, 108) connecting said first and second bidirectional transmission paths CHARACTERIZED IN THAT a processor (101) generates control signals in response to digit signals from a multifrequency receiver (known per se) responding to the appearance of multifrequency tone signals on the first bidirectional transmission path; the trunk circuit (103-1) in response to the control signals disables both of the unidirectional transmission paths (106, 108) the duration of a first predetermined interval of time, then restores in response to further control signals one of the unidirectional paths before the expiration of the first interval of time, but not during the rotary dial pulsing qf a digit, and then restores in response to additional control signals the other of the unidirectional paths after the completion of a third predetermined interval of time after the expiration of the first predetermined interval of time. 2. A trunk circuit in accordance with claim 1 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT the trunk circuit further comprises: an outward transmission circuit (106) ; an inward transmission circuit (108) ; and a transformer, the output side thereof being connected to the second bidirectional transmission path (116) and theinput side thereof being connected to the two wire part of a first hybrid (107) ; the four-wire parts of the first hybrid (107) being connected to the pair of unidirectional transmission paths; and wherein the outward transmission circuit (106) is inserted in one of the pair of unidirectional transmission paths; and the inward transmission circuit (108) is inserted in the other one of the pair of unidirectional paths; and a second hybrid (105) the four-wire parts being connected to the pair of unidirectional transmission paths, and the two wire part being connected to the first bidirectional transmission path (114) . 3. (Amended) A trunk circuit in accordance with claim CHARACTERIZED IN THAT the trunk circuit further comprises : a loop closure device (lLC-1) connected in the second bidirectional path to the central office (Line 1) for providing open and closed conditions of the second bidirectional path. 4. A trunk circuit in accordance with claim 2 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT the outward transmission circuit and the inward transmission circuit include a field effect transistor (FET) and an amplifier, each of the FETs open and close the respective transmission circuit.

Inventors: BERKOWITZ P, QUINN T, TRIMBLE D, WANG T
Applicants: WESTERN ELECTRIC CO, WESTERN ELECTRIC CO INC
Application year: 1980
Main classification: H04Q1
IPC codes: H04Q1