Data communication apparatus for use in a telephone system

Claim 1

A data communication system for use with the public telephone voice communication system including a plurality of telephone company central offices each with switching matrix means, inter-office trunk line means inter-coupling said switching matrix means of said central offices, a plurality of subscriber telephones associated with each central office, a subscriber loop plant having a plurality of subscriber loops connecting said telephones with said associated central office respectively, the data communication system comprising: data sources at the locations of said telephones respectively for providing date to be transmitted, data transmitters at the locations of said telephones respectively having inputs coupled to said data sources for receiving said data to be transmitted and having respective outputs for providing data signals representative of said data at frequencies above the standard telephone voice transmission frequency band of said telephone system, first bridge taps connected to said subscriber loops at the locations of said telephones respectively, first capacitors coupling said outputs of said transmitters to said first bridge taps respectively, thereby coupling said data signals to said subscriber loops respectively, second bridge taps connected to said subscriber loops respectively at said central offices, second capacitors coupled to said second bridge taps respectively, data receivers at the locations of said central offices having inputs coupled through said second capacitors to said second bridge taps respectively for receiving said data signals and having outputs for providing received data corresponding to said received data signals. low pass filters coupled between said second bridge taps respectively and said switching matrix means at said central offices for passing frequencies within said standard telephone voice transmission frequency band and for blocking frequencies of said data signals thereby preventing erroneous transmission of data through said switching matrix means between transmitters and receivers associated with the same central office but not associated with each other, data concentrator computers at the locations of said central offices respectively having inputs coupled to said outputs of said data receivers for processing said received data, a central monitoring station for receiving and distributing said processed data, and telephone lines coupling said data concentrator computers to said central monitoring station for conveying said processed data thereto.