Telephone line sharing apparatus

Claim 1

A telephone line sharing apparatus for enabling a plurality of telecommunications devices to share a plurality of single-subscriber telephone lines provided by a public telephone network, said apparatus comprising: (a) a plurality of input ports, each of said input ports comprising means for connecting said input port to one of said single-subscriber telephone lines; (b) a plurality of output ports, each of said output ports comprising means for connecting said output port to one of said telecommunications devices, said plurality of output ports being greater than said plurality of input ports; (c) first detecting means for detecting a first ringing signal, generated by said public telephone network, for a first incoming telephone call on a first one of said single-subscriber telephone lines connected to a first one of said input ports; (d) first switching means for establishing, in response to said detecting of said first tinging signal, a first connection from said first input port to at least a first one of said output ports for transmitting said first ringing signal to at least a first one of said telecommunications devices connected to said first output port; (e) second detecting means for detecting a second ringing signal generated by said public telephone network, for a second incoming telephone call on a second one of said single-subscriber telephone lines connected to a second one of said input ports; (f) second switching means for establishing, in response to said detecting of said second tinging signal, a second connection from said second input port to at least a second one of said output ports for transmitting said second ringing signal to at least a second one of said telecommunications devices connected to said second output port; (g) third detecting means for detecting an off-hook condition on a third one of said telecommunications devices connected to a third one of said output ports and for detecting the availabilities of said first telephone line and said second telephone line for transmitting an outgoing telephone call; and (h) third switching means for establishing, in response to said detecting of said off-hook condition and said availabilities, a third connection from said third output port to either said first input port or said second input port for transmitting said outgoing telephone call from said third telecommunications device on an available one of said first telephone line and said second telephone line.