Transmission equipment

Claim 2

Data transmission equipment for handling data in digital form in time division multiplex manner, which includes an equipment rack with a member of insulating material which carries a common bus structure and has connection arrangements whereby a number of circuit units can be connected in so as to make contact with the bus structure, wherein : (a) the equipment also includes a control unit fitted to one of the connection arrangements associated with the bus structure; (b) the bus structure carries a number of parallel electrical circuit tracks each providing one of the bus conductors of the structure; (c) when the equipment is in use tributary units are fitted into some at least of the connection arrangements, such that communication is possible between the control unit and any fitted-in tributary units; (d) tributary units when present can be of different types providing different customer services, each such unit having its own address; (e) the control unit acts as an interface to the equipment for at least one high bit-rate incoming (outgoing trunk, such tributary units as are present providing interfaces for said customer services and customer lines; and (f) the control unit establishes connections as needed between channels on the high bit-rate trunk or trunks for which it is an interface and such tributary units as are present when the equipment is in use, connections between the control unit and such other units as are present being effected by messages sent over the bus structure, each of which is addressed with the address of the unit for which that message is destined.

Claim 3

Data transmission equipment, which includes a control unit and one or more tributary units, said units being interconnected by respective bus conductors of a common bus structure to which all of said units are connected, all transmission over the bus structure being digital, wherein : (a) the control unit provides an interface to the equipment for at least one high bit-rate incoming and outgoing trunk, while each said tributary unit provides an interface to one or more digital highways of lower or equal bit rate, or to one or more analogue channels, which highways include highways to subscriber stations; (b) the bus conductors which interconnect the control unit and the tributary units are allocated time slots for connections between a said high bit-rate trunk and respective ones of said highways or channels, wherein such a connection can be allotted one or more of said time slots dependent on the bandwidth required, which allocation is effected under the control of the control unit; (c) said tributary units can deal with different customer services, which may require different bandwidths; and (d) the control unit includes memory means in which details of the current allotments of time slots and bus conductors to the customer services of the tributary units are stored.

Claim 4

Data transmission equipment, which includes a control unit and one or more tributary units, said units being interconnected by respective bus conductors of a common bus structure to which all of said units are connected, all transmission over the bus structure being digital, wherein : (a) the control unit provides an interface to the equipment for at least one high bit-rate incoming and outgoing trunk, while each said tributary unit provides an interface to one or more digital highways of lower or equal bit rate, or to one or more analogue channels, which highways include highways to subscriber stations; (b) the bus conductors which interconnect the control unit and the tributary units are allocated time slots for connections between a said high bit-rate trunk and respective ones of said highways or channels, wherein such a connection can be allotted one or more of said time slots dependent on the bandwidth required, which allocation is effected under the control of the control unit; (c) said tributary units can deal with different customer services, which may require different bandwidths; and (d) the control unit includes memory means in which details of the current allotments of time slots and bus conductors to the customer services of the tributary units are stored.

Claim 5

Equipment as claimed in claim 2, in which the common bus structure includes a printed circuit board which carries a number of tracks each of which provides one of the bus conductors of the structure, and in which the control unit and the tributary units each include at least one printed circuit card set substantially at right angles to the common bus structure.

Claim 6

Equipment as claimed in claim 3, in which the bus structure's board is at the back of an equipment rack with guides for the reception of said cards, and in which each said card has a plug connector at its inner end receiveable in a socket connector on the board.

Claim 7

Data transmission equipment for handling data in digital form in time division multiplex manner, which includes a control unit and one or more tributary units, said units being interconnected by a common bus structure to which those units are connected, all transmission and signalling over the bus conductors of the bus structure being digital, wherein : (a) the common bus structure includes a circuit board which carries a number of parallel electrical circuit tracks each of which provides one of the bus conductors of the structure; (b) the control unit and each of the tributary units each includes at least one printed circuit board set substantially at right angles to the common bus structure and connector-coupled thereto; (c) the control unit acts as an interface for at least one high bit-rate incoming/outgoing trunk to the equipment while each said tributary unit provides an interface to one or more highways of lower bit-rate, which lower bit-rate highways include highways to subscriber stations, or to analogue channels; (d) the bus conductors of the bus structure which interconnect the control unit and the tributary units are allotted TDM time slots for connections between a said high bit-rate trunk and respective ones of said highways or channels, wherein such a connection can be allotted one or more said time slots dependent on the bandwidth required, which time slot allotment is effected under the control of the control unit; (e) said tributary units can deal with different customer services which may need different bandwidths; (f) the control unit includes memory means in which details of the current allotments of said time slots and the bus conductors on the bus structure to the said customer services are stored; and (g) the control unit controls the establishment of connections extending between TDM channels on a said high bit-rate trunk and TDM channels on lower bit-rate highways.

Claim 8

Data transmission equipment for handling data in digital form in time division multiplex manner, which includes a control unit and one or more tributary units, said units being interconnected by a common bus structure to which those units are connected, all transmission and signalling over the bus conductors of the bus structure being digital, wherein : (a) the common bus structure includes a circuit board which carries a number of parallel electrical circuit tracks each of which provides one of the bus conductors of the structure; (b) the control unit and each of the tributary units each includes at least one printed circuit board set substantially at right angles to the common bus structure and connector-coupled thereto; (c) the control unit acts as an interface for at least one high bit-rate incoming/outgoing trunk to the equipment while each said tributary unit provides an interface to one or more highways of lower bit-rate, which lower bit-rate highways include highways to subscriber stations, or to analogue channels; (d) the bus conductors of the bus structure which interconnect the control unit and the tributary units are allotted TDM time slots for connections between a said high bit-rate trunk and respective ones of said highways or channels, wherein such a connection can be allotted one or more said time slots dependent on the bandwidth required, which time slot allotment is effected under the control of the control unit; (e) said tributary units can deal with different customer services which may need different bandwidths; (f) the control unit includes memory means in which details of the current allotments of said time slots and the bus conductors on the bus structure to the said customer services are stored; and (g) the control unit controls the establishment of connections extending between TDM channels on a said high bit-rate trunk and TDM channels on lower bit-rate highways.

Claim 9

Equipment as claimed in claim 5, and which includes a backplane structure mounted behind and parallel to said circuit board, for providing access from the rear to the said circuit board.

Claim 10

Data transmission equipment, which includes a multiplex controller to which is connected at least one high bit-rate (e.g. 2048kbit/s) trunk to and from remote equipment, a plurality of tributary units each of which gives access to lower bit-rate (e.g. 64kbit/s) highways, or to higher bit rate highways, or to analogue channels, which highways or channels may include highways to subscribers' equipment, a common bus structure having a set of electrical conductors forming highways for communications data and signalling data, and connections from said controller and said tributary units to the bus structure so that the highways thereof interconnect the controller and the tributary units, wherein the controller controls the extraction from the bit stream of a said high bit rate trunk of the respective communications data and its routing to the appropriate ones of the digital highways or analogue channels of the tributary units, wherein said routing is effected by the allocation of respective time slots on the highways of the bus structure and in the tributary units to the highways or channels thereof, wherein the controller includes storage means in which details of said time slot allocations are stored, wherein the controller and the tributary units are modules which are fitted into an equipment rack whose backplane carries said bus structure with the said modules connector-coupled to the bus structure, and wherein a said tributary unit can be fitted into any one of a number of different positions in the rack, the time slot allocation being effected under the control of the multiplex controller.

Claim 11

Data transmission equipment, which includes a multiplex controller to which is connected at least one high bit-rate (e.g. 2048kbit/s) trunk to and from remote equipment, a plurality of tributary units each of which gives access to lower bit-rate (e.g. 64kbit/s) highways, or to higher bit rate highways, or to analogue channels, which highways or channels may include highways to subscribers' equipment, a common bus structure having a set of electrical conductors forming highways for communications data and signalling data, and connections from said controller and said tributary units to the bus structure so that the highways thereof interconnect the controller and the tributary units, wherein the controller controls the extraction from the bit stream of a said high bit rate trunk of the respective communications data and its routing to the appropriate ones of the digital highways or analogue channels of the tributary units, wherein said routing is effected by the allocation of respective time slots on the highways of the bus structure and in the tributary units to the highways or channels thereof, wherein the controller includes storage means in which details of said time slot allocations are stored, wherein the controller and the tributary units are modules which are fitted into an equipment rack whose backplane carries said bus structure with the said modules connector-coupled to the bus structure, and wherein a said tributary unit can be fitted into any one of a number of different positions in the rack, the time slot allocation being effected under the control of the multiplex controller.

Claim 12

Equipment as claimed in claim 7, in which the bus conductors include for data n pairs of busses each of which include separate transmit and receive highways as seen by the said control unit.

Claim 13

Equipment as claimed in claim 8, in which time slot allocation is effected by sending a message via the said bus conductors at a said allocated time slot to the tributary unit to which that time slot is allocated, and in which said message includes the address of the tributary unit for which it is destined, the appropriate tributary unit responding to its own address.

Claim 14

Equipment as claimed claim 9, in which the bus structure includes one or more bus conductors which are not connected to the control unit, and in which such one or more bus conductors are each connected to two or more tributary units, being used for communications between tributary units.

Claim 15

Equipment as claimed in claim 7, wherein connection to the said units are made at the outer ends of those units, i.e. at the front of the rack.

Claim 16

Data transmission equipment for handling data in digital form in time division multiplex manner, which includes a control unit which includes connection processing means, one or more tributary units, at least one additional processing unit which serves all of said tributary units, and a common bus structure to which all of said units are connected so that said units are interconnected, wherein (a) the control unit acts as an interface for at least one high bit-rate incoming/outgoing trunk to the equipment while each said tributary unit acts as an interface to one or more other data highways, which other highways may include lower bit-rate highways giving access to subscriber stations or analogue channels; (b) the or each said additional processing unit handles data appropriate to connections to be set up or set up via the equipment, which data is additional to the intelligence content of said connections; (c) the or each said additional processing unit effects said handling by monitoring the bus structure to ascertain the data or other information thereon relating to the connection (d) the or each said additional processing unit responds to the results of its said monitoring to generate further data or other information which is applied to the bus structure in a manner appropriate to the connection to which it relates; and (e) the or each said additional processing unit effects said monitoring and generation under the control of its own software.

Claim 17

Data transmission equipment for handling data in digital form in time division multiplex manner, which includes a control unit which includes connection processing means, one or more tributary units, at least one additional processing unit which serves all of said tributary units, and a common bus structure to which all of said units are connected so that said units are interconnected, wherein (a) the control unit acts as an interface for at least one high bit-rate incoming/outgoing trunk to the equipment while each said tributary unit acts as an interface to one or more other data highways, which other highways may include lower bit-rate highways giving access to subscriber stations or analogue channels; (b) the or each said additional processing unit handles data appropriate to connections to be set up or set up via the equipment, which data is additional to the intelligence content of said connections; (c) the or each said additional processing unit effects said handling by monitoring the bus structure to ascertain the data or other information thereon relating to the connection (d) the or each said additional processing unit responds to the results of its said monitoring to generate further data or other information which is applied to the bus structure in a manner appropriate to the connection to which it relates; and (e) the or each said additional processing unit effects said monitoring and generation under the control of its own software.

Claim 18

Equipment as claimed in claim 12, wherein the additional processing unit, or one of said units, handles signalling relating to the connections through the equipment.

Claim 19

Equipment as claimed in claim 12, wherein the additional processing unit, or one of said units, handles tone generation for the calls and also handles the recognition of tones already present on the bus structure.

Claim 20

Equipment as claimed in claim 12, wherein there are two additional processing units, wherein the first of said additional processing units handles signalling relating to the connections through the equipment, and wherein the second of said additional processing units handle tone generation for the calls and also handles the recognition of tones already present on the bus structure.

Claim 21

Equipment as claimed in claim 12, wherein the characteristics of the tributary units are set up by the transmission of information appropriate to those units from a network management source.

Claim 22

Equipment as claimed in claim 16, and which includes two channels for the connection of said messages from the control unit to the other cards, one of which is a high bit-rate full duplex channel using two separate buses on the bus structure and the second of which is a relatively low bit-rate half duplex channel using one bus on the bus structure.

Claim 23

A data transmission system which includes a plurality of equipments each as claimed in claim 17, wherein one of said equipments is a master equipment and the other or others are slave equipments, wherein messages for all said equipments are routed to the master equipment from which they are routed to the slave equipments, and wherein messages in the reverse direction are similar sent in the reverse direction.