13918results about "Selection arrangements" patented technology

The present invention provides a system for operating a power line communications system that employs surface wave communications and conducted communications. The system is comprised of a plurality of network elements, which may take the form of repeaters, communication interface devices, backhaul devices, medium voltage transducers, distribution points, aggregation points, and others. In one embodiment, surface waves are communicated over the medium voltage power lines and the conducted communications are communicated via the low voltage power lines to and from customer premises.

The present invention describes a system and method for communicating voice and data over a packet-switched network that is adapted to coexist and communicate with a legacy PSTN. The system permits packet switching of voice calls and data calls through a data network from and to any of a LEC, a customer facility or a direct IP connection on the data network. The system includes soft switch sites, gateway sites, a data network, a provisioning component, a network event component and a network management component. The system interfaces with customer facilities (e.g., a PBX), carrier facilities (e.g., a LEC) and legacy signaling networks (e.g., SS7) to handle calls between any combination of on-network and off-network callers. The soft switch sites provide the core call processing for the voice network architecture. The soft switch sites manage the gateway sites in a preferred embodiment, using a protocol such as the Internet Protocol Device Control (IPDC) protocol to request the set-up and tear-down of calls. The gateway sites originate and terminate calls between calling parties and called parties through the data network. The gateway sites include network access devices to provide access to network resources. The data network connects one or more of the soft switch sites to one or more of the gateway sites. The provisioning and network event component collects call events recorded at the soft switch sites. The network management component includes a network operations center (NOC) for centralized network management.

A device and method for providing power line communications via an underground residential distribution power system is provided. One embodiment of the present invention includes a medium voltage interface device that may include a first port configured to communicate over the power line and a network interface. A first amplifier may form part of a first communication path between the first port and the network interface and be configured to amplify data signals transmitted via the first port. In addition, a second amplifier may form part of a second communication path between the first port and the network interface and be configured to amplify data signals received via the first port. In addition, the embodiment may include a diplexer forming part of the first communication path between the first amplifier and the first port and forming part of the second communication path between the second amplifier and the first port. The device may include an electro-optic converter coupled to the network interface to convert between electrical and optic data signals, wherein the network interface is configured to communicate via one or more fiber optic conductors.