Patent ID: 7397791

Claim:
A network for coupling a plurality of analog telephone sets to a plurality of digitized telephone channels, said network comprising: a first wire pair at least in part outside of a building and comprising at least two conductors, said first wire pair being connected to concurrently carry a first analog service signal in a first analog service signal frequency band and a first serial digital data signal using frequency domain multiplexing, wherein the first digital data signal is carried bi-directionally in a first digital data signal frequency band distinct from the first analog service signal frequency band, the first digital data signal carrying first and second time-domain multiplexed digitized telephone channels; a second wire pair at least in part in a wall of the building and comprising at least two conductors, said second wire pair concurrently carrying a second analog service signal in a second analog service signal frequency band and a second serial digital data signal using frequency domain multiplexing, wherein the second digital data signal is carried bi-directionally in a second digital data frequency band distinct from the second analog service frequency band, the second digital data signal carrying the second digitized telephone channel; a first device coupled between said first and second wire pairs and constructed to pass the second digitized telephone channel between said first and second wire pairs, said first device being further connectable to a first analog telephone device for coupling the first digitized telephone channel, converted to analog telephony form, to the first analog telephone device; and a second device coupled to said second wire pair, said second device being further connectable to a second telephone device for coupling the second digitized telephone channel, converted to analog telephony form, to the second analog telephone device.