JP2998273B2 - Data communication device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a data communication apparatus, and more particularly to an improved processing function when a data transmission station receives a call from a third station during data communication between two stations. And a data communication device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art There is a communication system for transmitting and receiving image data between facsimile apparatuses and transmitting and receiving data by connecting an information processing apparatus including a personal computer via a telephone line. In such a communication system, a line connection request may be received from a third station to a data transmitting station during data communication between the two stations. A facsimile transmission apparatus and a data communication system have been proposed in which, when an interruption such as this line connection request is made, the current communication is immediately interrupted and switched to communication with a third station (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. Sho-59 (Kokai)). 64
-78575, JP-A-64-86660).

In these transmitting devices and communication systems, the line is disconnected when an interrupt signal is received from another device during data transmission, or when an operator gives an instruction to perform an arbitrary interrupt process. To interrupt data communication. Then, after executing a predetermined interrupt process, the data communication is automatically restarted.

A call waiting service provided by NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation) is known as the line connection request signal. In this call waiting service, when there is a line connection request from the third station, a call signal (call waiting signal) notifying the request is transmitted from the exchange. This call waiting signal has a predetermined intermittent interval of 400
Hz intermittent signal.

[0005] In addition, it is known that there are various paging signals depending on the type of exchange. For example, A
The call signal used in the TT service is 60 IP
This is a mixed signal of 480 Hz and 620 Hz output at M. Recently, there has been an example in which voice or music is used as a call signal and a hold signal when the call signal is answered.

[0006]

When a call waiting signal is received from a third station to notify that a line connection request has been made, noise may be included in data being transmitted due to the call waiting signal. For example, in facsimile communication, image information is transmitted using a frequency band of 0.3 to 3.4 kHz. Therefore, the frequency (400 Hz) of the call waiting signal falls within the occupied frequency band of the facsimile communication, and the transmission image information is disturbed by the call waiting signal.

If the current communication is continued without responding to the call from the third station, all the image information received while the call continues may be adversely affected by the call waiting signal.

[0008] When the apparatus and system described in the above-mentioned publications are used, the line is disconnected, so that such disturbance of information can be minimized. On the other hand, in any case, when an interrupt occurs, the current communication is stopped, which may cause a problem.

That is, once communication is interrupted,
In the meantime, a call may be received from another station to the previous communication partner station. Then, even if you redial, the line with the partner station will be blocked for a while. Thus, it may be better not to interrupt current communication unconditionally even if a call waiting signal is received.

[0010] However, in the conventional apparatus and method, even when the communication currently being executed is very urgent and the caller does not want to be interrupted, the communication is automatically interrupted. There is.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a data communication device which can determine whether to continue or interrupt the current communication in response to an incoming call from a third station during data transmission, according to the convenience of the operator.

[0012]

Means for Solving the Problems The above problems are solved,
The present invention for achieving the object includes: a notifying means for responding to a line connection request from a third station that has entered during data transmission, and notifying that the line connection request has been received ;
Finger to detect operator's instruction to interrupt communication
And a line connection request from the third station.
And the interruption instruction detecting means detects the operator's finger.
If no indication is detected, retransmission means for retransmitting at least data including the data transmitted at the time of receiving the line connection request is provided.

[0013]

According to the above feature, the line connection request (catch)
Phone signal) When a signal arrives, the operator
The data can be retransmitted according to the instruction. Sand
Data is considered to have been affected by the call waiting signal.
Is retransmitted, so that a good image can be transmitted to the communication partner .

[0014]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a hardware configuration of a facsimile apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, image information of a document read by a reading device 1 is encoded and decoded by a coding / decoding unit 2.
And stored in the image information memory 3. The stored image information is sequentially transmitted to a line via a network control unit (NCU) 4.

On the other hand, upon reception, the image information taken in from the line is temporarily stored in the image information memory 3, decoded by the encoding / decoding unit 2, and printed out by the printing device 5. The operation panel 6 includes a keyboard and a display device, and is used for inputting various instructions and displaying processing results. The above elements are controlled by the CPU 8 in accordance with the programs and management data stored in the management memory 7.

Next, the function of this embodiment will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the main functions of the present embodiment. In the figure, the exchange 9 has a facsimile apparatus 10 having the above configuration and a facsimile apparatus 11, which is a partner station thereof,
And a third station 12 is connected. In addition, it goes without saying that a large number of data communication devices such as telephones and facsimile devices are connected to the exchange 9.

Now, it is assumed that the image information is being transmitted to the facsimile apparatus 11 using the facsimile apparatus 10 as a transmitting station.
Therefore, hereinafter, the facsimile apparatus 10 is called a transmitting station, and the facsimile apparatus 11 is called a receiving station. When a line connection request from the third station 12 to the transmitting station 10 is received during the image communication between the transmitting station 10 and the receiving station 11, the exchange 9 outputs a call waiting signal to the transmitting station 10. Network control unit 4
The call waiting signal input to (NCU) is recognized by the call waiting detection unit 13 as a call waiting signal. The call waiting signal is 400H as described above.
z is an intermittent signal. Accordingly, the call waiting detector 13 monitors the spectrum of the input signal, and determines that the reception of the call waiting signal is determined when the spectrum of the 400 Hz signal is much stronger than other signals and is interrupted at predetermined intervals. Have been.

The notifying unit 14 is a means for notifying an operator of the own station to perform a predetermined operation when a call is received. The off-hook detection unit 15 is connected to the telephone 16 and detects whether the handset of the telephone 16 is raised or lowered, ie, detects off-hook / on-hook. The off-hook detection unit 15 detects an off-hook and outputs a high-level (= 1) signal, and outputs a low-level (= 0) signal in an on-hook state.

The retransmission instruction detecting unit 17 is provided with a retransmission instruction switch 1
9, when an ON signal is input from the retransmission instruction switch 19, the transmission control unit 2 transmits a retransmission instruction detection signal.
Output to 0.

The notification unit 14, the off-hook detection unit 15,
And the retransmission instruction detecting unit 17
When a call waiting signal is detected and the output signal becomes high level, a predetermined operation is started in response to this signal. That is, the notification unit 14 notifies a schedule (details will be described later), the off-hook detection unit 15 starts monitoring the handset up / down, and the retransmission instruction detection unit 17 uses the retransmission instruction switch 19 turned on (ON). Wait for a resend instruction.

The hooking signal generator 22 responds to the high-level signal output from the off-hook detector 15 and sends a hooking signal, that is, a pulse signal corresponding to an instant on-hook, to the modem 18. This pulse signal is transmitted to the exchange 9
, The exchange 9 switches the line connected to the transmitting station 10 to the third station 12.

The pulse signal is defined so as to be recognized in advance by the exchange 9 as a response signal of the call waiting. Therefore, depending on the specifications of the exchange 9, a different response signal may be defined. In this case, it is needless to say that the hooking signal generation unit 22 can be modified so as to output a signal defined there as a response signal.

The protocol controller 23 controls the protocol with the partner station. The counter 21 reads information on the number of pages of the transmission document from the protocol control unit 23 and stores it as a counter value. This counter value is fixed to the current value in response to the call waiting detection signal supplied from the call waiting detection unit 13. The transmission control unit 20 reads a counter value from the counter 21 in response to the retransmission instruction detection signal supplied from the retransmission instruction unit 17 and transmits predetermined image information from the image information memory 3 based on the counter value.
To be sent.

The notification unit 14 requests the operator to provide an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), an LED indicator, a buzzer, and a speaker arranged on the operation panel 6 and to activate a call waiting call and an operation instruction therefor. Control means. Also, a retransmission instruction switch 1
It is also desirable to provide 9 on the operation panel 6.

FIG. 4 shows an example of the notification by the LCD and the speaker. In the figure, the stop button corresponds to the retransmission instruction switch 19. By the notification of such a message, the operator can select whether to pick up the handset and respond to the call waiting or to resend the image information transmitted when the call is received. Further, when the operator does not respond to the notification, the notification operation, the off-hook detection operation, and the retransmission instruction detection operation are canceled by the disappearance of the call waiting signal.

In the case of notifying a message by voice or screen display, but notifying by a buzzer or an indicator light, for example, if the buzzer sounds or the indicator light flashes in accordance with the intermittent timing of the call ringing of the call waiting, the operator Becomes easier to recognize.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of this embodiment. In the figure, in step S1, it is determined whether or not a call waiting signal is detected. If a call waiting signal is detected, the process proceeds to step S2 to energize the notification unit 14 to generate and display a scheduled message (see FIG. 4) when the call waiting signal is detected, or to turn on a lamp or display a buzzer. Make a notification. In addition, what is necessary is just to implement | achieve at least one of these alerting | reporting operations. This notification is continued until it is canceled in step S11.

In step S3, the off-hook detection unit 15
It is determined whether or not an off-hook has been detected. As a result of the operator intervening and lifting the handset,
If an off-hook is detected, the process proceeds to step S7 to determine whether the flag F is set (= 1). This flag F is for determining whether or not a call waiting signal has been detected in the processing up to the previous time and any action has been taken on it.

If the flag F is not set, that is, if it is determined that the call waiting signal has been detected for the first time, or if it has been detected that no operator intervention has been performed, the process proceeds from step S7 to step S8. Step S8
Then, the hooking signal generator 22 is activated to transmit a hooking signal to respond to a call waiting. Since the operator has intervened, the flag F is set in step S9.

If no off-hook is detected in step S3, the process proceeds to step S4, where it is determined whether the retransmission instruction detecting unit 17 has detected a retransmission instruction. If there is a retransmission instruction, the process proceeds to step S5, where the image information of the page indicated by the counter is read from the image information memory 3 and transmitted (retransmitted). If it is determined in step S6 that retransmission has been completed, the process returns to the main routine.

If it is determined in step S1 that call waiting has not been detected, the flow advances to step S10 to determine whether or not the flag F is set. If the flag F is not set, the process returns to the main routine without performing any processing. On the other hand, if the flag F is set, it is determined that the received call waiting signal has disappeared, and step S11 is performed.
Then, the notification is released and the flag F is cleared (set to 0).

The reason why the determination in step S1 is negative is that call waiting has not arrived from the beginning, the line has been switched in response to hooking and the call waiting signal has disappeared, and the third station gives up calling. For example, when the call waiting signal disappears due to this.

As described above, in this embodiment, when the call waiting arrives and the handset is picked up, a hooking operation is automatically performed to respond to the call waiting. If there is a retransmission instruction, the image information of the page which is considered to be adversely affected by the call waiting signal is retransmitted.

In the present embodiment, the retransmission operation is automatically performed in response to the retransmission instruction. However, the line is released in response to the retransmission instruction, and then the operation for retransmission is performed. It may be left to the operator whether or not to perform. The retransmission procedure in that case is performed manually.

In addition, when the call waiting is received, the determination as to whether or not the operator intervenes is based only on the presence or absence of the retransmission instruction, and the present invention can be modified and applied so as not to respond to the call waiting. In this case, the content of the notification by the retransmission notification unit 14 is simply to notify that the call waiting has been received, and to retransmit, only to press the stop button, and the off-hook detection unit 15 and the hooking signal generation unit 22 It may be omitted.

In the above embodiment, transmission of image information data between facsimile apparatuses has been described. However, data communication between data communication apparatuses using a personal computer as a terminal device can be processed in the same manner as this embodiment. Of course.

In this embodiment, an example in which a 400 Hz call waiting signal is detected as a line connection request signal has been described. However, a ringing signal employed in the ATT and a ringing signal of other formats such as voice and music are used. As a matter of course, the same effect as that of the above-described embodiment can be obtained by modifying the call waiting detector so as to detect the same.

In order to detect voice or music, for example, judgment is made based on the presence or absence of a carrier signal, or signals of a plurality of different frequencies other than the carrier signal can be detected so as to be distinguished from data such as image information. .

[0039]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the present invention, when an interruption occurs in a transmitting station during data communication, the line is not cut off uniformly but the intention of the operator is emphasized. Now follows the will display. In other words, picking up the handset or turning on the resending instruction switch recognizes the operator's will and, depending on the result, responds to the line connection request, automatically resends, or opens the line and resends it again. Was decided.

As described above, the processing after the detection of the line connection request can be entrusted to the operator, so that the most suitable processing can be performed according to the importance and urgency of the data to be transmitted, and the line is uniformly opened. Waste of time for subsequent processing can be eliminated.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating main functions of an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a hardware configuration of the facsimile machine.

FIG. 4 is an example of a message output by the notification means.

[Explanation of symbols]

4 ... NCU, 6 ... Operation panel, 8 ... CPU, 9 ...
Exchange 10 facsimile transmission station 11 facsimile reception station 12 third station 13 call waiting detection unit 14 notification unit 15 off-hook detection unit 16 telephone set 17 retransmission instruction detection unit ,
19: retransmission instruction switch, 20: transmission control unit, 22
… Hooking signal generator

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Ryoji Hosaka 3-7-1, Fuuchi, Iwatsuki-shi, Saitama Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Iwatsuki Office (72) Inventor Tomio Fukao 3-7-1, Fuuchi, Iwatsuki-shi, Saitama No. Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Iwatsuki Works (72) Inventor Naoki Sudo 3-7-1, Fuwa, Iwatsuki City, Saitama Prefecture Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. Iwatsuki Works (56) References JP-A-63-128853 (JP, A) JP-A-4-170136 (JP, A) JP-A-1-200865 (JP, A) JP-A-64-86660 (JP, A) JP-A-59-36470 (JP, A) JP-A-63-301671 (JP, A) JP, A) JP-A-4-313940 (JP, A) JP-A-3-143148 (JP, A) JP-A-64-38862 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , (DB name) H04M 11/00-11/10 H04M 3/42-3/58 H04N 1/32-1/36 H04N 1/42-1/44

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A notifying means for responding to a line connection request from a third station that has entered during data transmission and notifying that there has been a line connection request, and an operator for interrupting the current communication after the notification. Interrupt instruction detecting means for detecting the instruction of, a retransmission instruction means for instructing retransmission of data, there is a line connection request from the third station , the interruption instruction detecting means does not detect the instruction of the operator , And before
A data communication apparatus comprising: retransmission means for retransmitting data including at least data transmitted at the time of receiving the line connection request when an instruction from the retransmission instruction means is detected .