Patent ID: 7155000

Claim:
Process for controlling the access of various appliances of an installation to one and the same telephone line, these appliances being hooked up to the said line in parallel so as to communicate after having successfully performed a line seizure operation, wherein the process provides for levels of priority as regards access of the appliances to the line in the installation, and wherein it comprises a line/appliance interface device associated with each appliance making possible: the dispatching to the telephone line, on the request of an appliance performing a line seizure operation, to the other appliances of the installation, of an off-hook signal representative of the priority level allocated to the requesting appliance, when this level is higher than that of at least one other appliance of the installation, this signal being dispatched on the occasion of the line seizure operation and for the duration of the connection of the appliance to the line which ensues therefrom, if no other off-hook signal representative of an even higher priority level is dispatched by another appliance of the installation; and the disconnection of the line or the maintaining of the line in the disconnected state for any appliance of the installation which receives from the telephone line an off-hook signal representative of an appliance allocated a higher priority level than it in the installation.