Voice-data access concentrator for node in an expandable telecommunications system

[0002] 1. Field of the Invention

[0003] The present invention relates generally to the field of telecommunications and, more specifically, to a programmable telecommunications switch which is operable as a node in an expandable telecommunications system and includes an interface for conducting telecommunications over the Internet.

[0004] 2. Discussion of the Related Art

[0005] With the goal of providing telecommunication services at lower prices than those charged by long distance carriers, competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and government-controlled telephone companies, an effort is underway to use the Internet to carry voice traffic which has traditionally been carried by the public switched telephone network (PSTN). This type of application or service is often referred to as “voice over IP” (VoIP) where “IP” refers to Internet protocol.

[0006] Several important considerations arise in connection with the development of VoIP including determining how much, if any, of a communication path from a given subscriber to another should be provided by the PSTN and how much should be provided by the Internet. In other words, should a subscriber's communication device interface directly with the Internet (meaning that subscribers must be equipped with “Internet telephones,” PCs which include telephone functionality or the like), or should the PSTN be used to connect subscribers (who would continue to use conventional telephone sets) to the Internet through a gateway or similar device. Of course, other scenarios are possible as well, and it is likely that a mixed or hybrid infrastructure will exist for a long time because of the prohibitive cost of constructing or replacing networks as well as replacing subscriber equipment.

[0007] Another consideration is how to provide supplementary or enhanced services to subscribers who will not want to sacrifice call forwarding, call-waiting, voicemail, conference calling and other existing services merely to obtain lower cost Internet-based phone service. Further, there is great need for system flexibility to allow rapid, inexpensive development and introduction of new services, largely because such new services provide large revenue growth potential for most carriers.

[0008] A third consideration is system capacity and scalability. Because of the difficulty in accurately forecasting both the demand for additional telecommunication bandwidth and the rate at which subscribers will migrate to Internet-based telephony, it is extremely important that any system be capable of rapid, large-scale expansion without significant disruption of service and without forcing large initial investment for capacity that may not be needed for a long time.

[0009] In brief summary, the present invention provides a programmable telecommunication switch, operable as a node in an expandable telecommunications system, as a standalone switch, or as a gateway. The programmable switch includes an interface, sometimes referred to as a voice/data concentrator card, for conducting VoIP communications. One side of the interface connects to the Internet or other packet-based network, while the other side of the interface connects with the switch's internal bus structure over which the interface and other circuitry within the switch may communicate.

[0010] The present invention permits a CLEC, system integrator or other customer to introduce VoIP capability as either an addition to an existing network (e.g., PSTN) or through the construction of a new network as desired. In either case, the present invention allows the introduction of VoIP capability in the locations and amounts needed to satisfy demand. Future growth in demand for such capacity is flexibly accommodated by simply including additional interfaces within the switch or adding additional nodes as the case may be. If desired, multiple interfaces may be concentrated in a single node whose VoIP capability is fully accessible by the other nodes of the expandable telecommunications system. Similar considerations apply to using the present invention to provide communications based on protocols other than IP.

[0011] In addition, traditional telephony services and functions, including both supplementary services (conferencing, call waiting, voicemail, etc.) and network signalling (tone detection, tone generation, etc.), as well as new services, may be provided within the same programmable switch which includes a VoIP capability or within other nodes that are part of the same expandable telecommunications system.

[0012] The invention description below refers to the accompanying drawings, of which:

[0013] FIG. 1 is block diagram of a programmable telecommunication switch which is operable as a standalone device, a node in an expandable telecommunications system or as a gateway, and which is constructed in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention; and

[0014] FIGS. 2A-2C together form a block diagram of the voice/data access concentrator card of FIG. 1 in further detail in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention.

[0015] FIG. 1 shows the major functional components of a preferred embodiment of a programmable telecommunications switch 2 in which the present invention may be implemented. Circuit-based network/line interfaces 4, which may represent links to a public switched telephone network (PSTN) or private circuit-based/circuit-switched network (or both), are provided by a series of line card input/output (IO) cards 20. If desired, a redundant IO card 22 and redundant IO bus 24 may optionally be included.

[0016] One or more digital network (T1, E1 or J1) or analog trunk/line line cards 26 communicate with IO cards 20 over line card (LC) IO lines 28. Line cards 26 are also connected in communicating relationship with redundant switching buses 30aand 30b. Again, if desired, one or more redundant line cards 32 may be provided, such redundant line cards arranged to communicate with a redundant IO card 22 over redundant LC IO lines 34.

[0017] If desired, diverse, programmable communications services such as tone detection and generation, sub-rate switching, conferencing, voice recorded announcements, call progress analysis, speech recognition, ADPCM compression, interactive voice response (IVR) and many others may be provided by one or more multifunction digital signal processing (MFDSP) cards 36 and optional redundant cards.

[0018] If desired, a Signalling System No. 7 (SS7) card 38 supports communications over network/line interfaces 4 using the SS7 protocol. As noted above with respect to other types of cards, one or more optional redundant SS7 cards 38 may be provided within switch 2.

[0019] One or more voice/data access concentrator (VDAC) cards 48 (which may include an optional n+1 VDAC card) are connected in communicating relationship with switching buses 30aand 30b. VDAC cards 48 provide packet-based network interfaces 50 for connection with the Internet (not shown) or other packet-based networks whose communication protocols are supported by cards 48.

[0020] It should be understood that by providing other types of cards within switch 2, other communication protocols such as ISDN, DS3, SONET, ATM or others may also be supported by switch 2.

[0021] Control of the operations of switch 2, as well as the actual switching functions, are performed by either a CPU/matrix card or nodal switch 44a. If a CPU/matrix card is used, switch 2 may operate essentially as a standalone device (i.e., as opposed to operating as a switching node in an expandable telecommunications system, described below) or as a gateway between PSTN network/line interfaces 4 and packet-switched network interfaces 50. In that case, the CPU/matrix card 44amay be connected to a host interface 42athrough which communications with an external host device (not shown) are effected. Typically, but not necessarily, the overall operations of switch 2 are controlled by an application program running on the host device.

[0022] Alternatively, if a nodal switch is used, switch 2 may operate as a node in an expandable telecommunications system, an example of which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,163 which is hereby incorporated by reference. In such an embodiment, the nodal switch 44ais preferably connected with a ring IO card 40athrough which communications with an inter-nodal network 12aare effected. Inter-nodal network 12ais preferably implemented with one or more fiber optic rings. Inter-nodal network 12bis a redundant set of one or more fiber optic rings. The nodal switch 44amay also communicate with an external host via host interface 42a.

[0023] Regardless of whether a CPU/matrix card or a nodal switch is selected, a matching standby CPU/matrix card or nodal switch 44bmay optionally be provided and accompanied by the appropriate host interface 42bor ring IO card 40b(or both). In such a configuration, a link 46 is provided for direct communication between active and standby devices 44aand 44b.

[0024] Details of the construction and operation of an exemplary CPU/matrix card, as well as switching buses 30aand 30b, may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,349,579 which is hereby incorporated by reference. Similarly, details of the construction and operation of an exemplary nodal switch may be found in the above-referenced U.S. Pat. No. 5,544,163.

[0025] FIG. 2 is a detailed block diagram of VDAC card 48 shown in FIG. 1. An ethernet switch 54 provides dual network interfaces 50 which are capable of operating at 100 Mbit/sec. Ethernet switch 54 is interfaced with a CPU 52, which is preferably a Motorola MC860, that controls overall operation of VDAC card 48. CPU 52 communicates over dual HDLC buses which are part of switching buses 30aand 30b.

[0026] A local control map 56, which is under the control of CPU 52, operates in conjunction with a time division multiplex (TDM) bus switch 58, to time switch data (timeslots) between switching buses 30aand 30band VDAC card 48. Timeslots which is are received from buses 30aand 30b, via TDM bus switch 58, are passed to PCM memory 60 and then to PCM/module switch 62, whose operation is controlled by module control map 64.

[0027] As the timeslots are passed through switch 62, they are routed to one of eight Texas Instruments TI320C549 Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) 80a-80don one of four VoIP daughter cards (each is denoted by a dashed line box). Each daughter card includes eight DSPs [and their] 80a-80d, each with its own external SRAM 81a-81d. The DSPs are memory mapped into the address space of a Motorola MC850 processor 74a-74d, used to control the operation of the daughter card, which has its own local SDRAM 78a-78dand flash memory (not shown). Each processor 74a-74dhas a 10 Mbit/sec full duplex [ethernet]Ethernet pipe to [ethernet]Ethernet switch 54 which allows for communication among all of the daughter cards, CPU 52 and the external IP network.

[0028] CPU 52 is also connected in communicating relationship with external bus arbitration logic 66, external bus buffers 68, SDRAM 70 and flash memory 72.

[0029] In general, VDAC card 48 functions to provide internetworking between packet-switched or packet-based communication protocols (e.g., IP) that are typically used to effect communications over network interfaces 50, and circuit-switched or circuit-based communication protocols (i.e., T1, E1 or J1) that are typically used to effect communications over network/line interfaces 4 (FIG. 1). DSPs 74a-74d, along with their related circuitry, operate to perform the necessary steps, including packetizing and depacketizing, digital processing of data and the like, to convert from one protocol to another. For example, by loading appropriate software into memories 70 and 72, CPU 52 may simultaneously run H.323, H.225 (Q.931) and H.245 protocols or a variety of other protocols chosen to meet the needs of a particular application, thereby enabling. VDAC card 48 to support communications which use any of those protocols. Such protocol software may be obtained from commercial sources, one such source for H.323 software being RAD-Vision Inc. of Mahwah, N.J.

[0030] With reference to FIGS. 1 and 2A-2C, an example of the protocol conversion that may be performed will now be described. Assure that one or more T1 spans are connected to circuit-based network/line interfaces 4. Further assume that packet-based network interfaces 50 are connected to the Internet for the purpose of providing VoIP service within switch 2. As timeslots (e.g., PCM data) which are destined for the Internet arrive at T1 line cards 26 (or smart line cards 32), they are transmitted over switching buses 30aand 30bto TDM bus switch 58 on VDAC card 48. TDM bus switch 58 time switches those time slots to PCM memory 60, from which they pass through PCM/module switch 62 and then to designated areas of DSP external SRAM 81a-81d. Once stored in SRAM 81a-81d, the timeslots are available for processing by the respective one of DSPs [74a-74d] 80a-80dthat has access to such SRAM. Such processing may typically include packetization of the timeslots as data within IP packets, which packets are then passed via the processor 74a-74dthrough the [ethernet] Ethernet buses 82a-82dto [ethernet] Ethernet switch 54 for transmission to the Internet.

[0031] It will be understood by those skilled in the art that VDAC card 48 may also perform a protocol conversion which is essentially the reverse of the process just described, that is, receiving Internet packets containing timeslots at ethernet switch 54, depacketizing the timeslots, and passing those timeslots via TDM bus switch 58 to switching buses 30aand 30b, over which such timeslots may be passed to line cards 26, MFDSP cards 36, SS7 cards 38 CPU/matrix cards or nodal switches 44aand 44b.

[0032] The foregoing description has been limited to a specific embodiment of this invention. It will be apparent, however, that variations and modifications may be made to the invention, with the attainment of some or all of the advantages of the invention. Therefore, it is the object of the appended claims to cover all such variations and modifications as come within the true spirit and scope of the invention.