Patent ID: 7197138

Claim:
A programmable safe cut ring system, comprising: a subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC) coupled to a telephone unit, the SLIC being configured to activate an off-hook detected signal upon detecting that the telephone unit is in an off-hook condition; a ring relay for routing a ring signal to the SLIC, the ring relay having a control terminal used to control the state of the ring relay; a central processing unit (CPU); and a coder/decoder (CODEC) that includes: a set of input terminals, wherein a selected one of the input terminals is coupled to receive the off-hook detected signal; a set of output terminals, wherein a selected one of the output terminals is coupled to the control terminal of the ring relay; a control register configured to store configuration information provided by the CPU; and a hardware cut ring current (HCRC) circuit coupled to the set of input terminals, the set of output terminals, and the control register, wherein the HCRC circuit is configured to activate a ring cut signal on the selected one of the output terminals upon detecting the off-hook detect signal on the selected one of the input terminals in response to the configuration information stored by the control register.