JP3001322B2 - Facsimile machine - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus, and more particularly to a facility for transmitting and receiving a large number of documents and a transmission / reception determination system for transmitting / receiving data for improving the utilization of the line.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional facsimile apparatus accommodates only one facsimile line and transmits and receives a facsimile document.

[0003]

However, in this method, it is not possible to perform an incoming call during facsimile transmission or a transmission during reception, and it is often impossible to receive a signal because the line is busy. Also, where facsimile usage is high, prepare multiple facsimile machines as the above countermeasures,
Each of them was dedicated to transmission and reception only in operation, and the receiving line was secured.

However, even in this method, although each facsimile apparatus has means for transmission and reception, equipment is wasted because one of the functions is not used. Further, even when the facsimile apparatus allocated for reception is not receiving any data due to a temporary increase in transmission requests, the facsimile apparatus for transmission has many facsimile documents waiting to be transmitted or has not transmitted at all. Even when the concentration of incoming calls is temporary, the external call blocking rate increases, and in terms of line utilization and external call blocking rates,
Efficiency was also low in terms of waiting time for transmission of each manuscript.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a facsimile apparatus which improves the utilization rate of a facsimile line, reduces the transmission waiting time, and reduces the external call blocking rate.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a facsimile apparatus according to the present invention comprises: reading means for reading a document to be transmitted to a counterpart; output means for outputting the transmitted document; A plurality of line communication control means for transmitting a transmission original in the storage means after transmission, connecting a line when receiving an incoming call, receiving data, and storing the data in the storage means, and storage means utilization, the number of transmission requests, the presence or absence of waiting, hold the status of each line which contains, its state under, low transmission request
Always secure a free line, and
And the transmission request from the
If the number of transmission lines increases, the transmission
The number of facsimile manuscripts in a normal state
If there is no request, secure a receiving line when there are many transmission requests
Those having a line selecting means for.

In addition, when the number of free lines is small, in order to prevent the line from being buried in the transmission line and the external transmission from being kept busy, a certain condition other than the transmission request is set as a condition for document transmission. The condition is set.

[0008] Also, when there are few transmission requests, there is always an empty state.
Secures the line and receives transmission from the other party's facsimile machine.
And the number of transmission lines when there are many transmission requests
Facsimile documents waiting to be sent
The first condition for suppressing the number of requests is the number of transmission requests and the number of storage units.
The usage rate is above a certain value, and it is constant for the current free line
Set under the condition that the incoming call is no more than an hour, a certain period of time
If there are no incoming calls and there are many transmission requests,
The second condition for securing the line is a transmission request of the first condition.
The number and the usage rate of the storage means are set high .

[0009]

[Function] One facsimile machine accommodates a plurality of lines,
By determining the number of transmission lines from the storage means utilization ratio, the number of documents waiting for transmission, the state of each line, etc., the utilization ratio of the facsimile line is improved, the transmission waiting time is reduced, and the call blocking rate from the outside is reduced.

[0010]

Next, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

In this embodiment, for the sake of simplicity, a description will be given on the assumption that a facsimile apparatus accommodating three lines and that the state of two or more lines does not change at the same time. Actually, the number of accommodated lines can be set to an arbitrary value. At the same time, there is a possibility that the line state changes, so it is necessary to cope with those state changes.

Referring to FIG. 1, one embodiment of the present invention is:
A reading means 1 for reading a transmitted / received document in accordance with an instruction of an operator, and storing the read data in a storage means 3 together with a transmission number, and a sheet of received data stored in the storage means 3 on a sheet in order from the end of reception. An output unit 2 for printing, a storage unit 3 for storing data according to an instruction from the reading unit 1 or an instruction from the line communication control unit 5, the line communication control unit 6, and the line communication control unit 7, Line communication control means 6, line communication control means 7 and line selection means 4 for monitoring the state of storage means 3 and selecting a communication line for transmission from information such as the use state of the line.
And one for each of the accommodated communication lines, receives data by receiving a call, stores the data in the storage means 3,
It comprises a line communication control means 5, a line communication control means 6, and a line communication control means 7 for calling and transmitting according to the instruction of the line selection means 4.

FIG. 2 shows a state transition for the line selecting means 4 in FIG. 1 to perform control. In FIG. 2, the numbers in the boxes represent the states of the devices possessed by the line selecting means 4, and represent the number of unused lines, the number of lines receiving facsimile, and the number of lines transmitting facsimile, respectively. That is, the state (x, y, z) indicates that the number of unused lines is x, the number of receiving lines is y, and the number of transmitting lines is z. The line connecting each state represents a transition of the state. The character above the line indicates the condition that the state transitions from left to right, and the character below the line indicates the condition that the state transitions from right to left. Is shown.

Next, the operation of the present invention will be described in detail.

The reading means 1 reads a document to be transmitted and obtains a transmission number in accordance with an instruction of an operator, and stores the read data in the storage means 3 together with the transmission number.

The output means 2 prints out the received data stored in the storage means 3 on a sheet in order from the data whose reception has been completed. It is also assumed that all communication lines are representative telephones represented by one number.

First, in the initial state, all the line communication control means of the line communication control means 5, the line communication control means 6, and the line communication control means 7 are set to a call waiting state. At this time, the line selecting means 4 sets the state (3, 0,
0). That is, it indicates that all the lines are idle. At this time, when the line communication control means 5 is in a call receiving state by a call from the other party's facsimile apparatus, the line communication control means 5 receives data from the other party's facsimile apparatus and stores it in the storage means 3.

At this time, the line selecting means 4 monitoring the line communication control means 5 makes a transition to the state (2, 1, 0). When the line communication control means 5 has received all data and has released the communication line A, the output means 2 prints the received document on paper. At this time, the line selecting means 4 sets the state (3, 0,
0).

Similarly, when the reading means 1 reads a document to be transmitted in accordance with an instruction from the operator and stores the read data in the storage means 3 together with the calling number, the line selecting means 4 sets the currently available line to a free line. Select one arbitrary line. For example, if the selected communication line is a communication line C, the line selecting means 4 instructs the line communication control means 7 to transmit data.

At this time, the line selecting means 4 sets the state (2, 0,
1). The line communication control means 7 receiving the transmission instruction from the line selection means 4 makes a call and transmits the data. When the data transmission is normally completed, the data in the storage unit 3 is deleted. As described above, when there is a sufficient free line, a line is selected each time a call is received and a line is selected each time a transmission request is made, and a call is transmitted and transmitted.

However, when the number of available lines is small (in this embodiment, when the number of available lines is one), the line selecting means 4 responds to all transmission requests and issues a transmission instruction to the currently available line communication control means to transmit. Is performed, there is a possibility that a facsimile original cannot be temporarily received while all lines are transmitting.

Therefore, in the present invention, when the number of available lines is small, the lines are buried in the transmission lines by applying certain conditions in addition to the transmission request as conditions for document transmission,
It prevents outside calls from being left busy.

In the embodiment, the first additional condition for transitioning from the state (1,1,1) to the state (0,1,2) and the state (0,0,2) from the state (1,0,2). The second additional condition for transitioning to 3) is this condition.

Here, the first condition is a condition that the number of transmission requests and the usage rate of the storage means 3 are equal to or more than a certain value, and that there is no incoming call for a certain period of time on the current free line. Second
The condition of (1) is that the number of transmission requests of the first condition and the condition of the usage rate of the storage unit 3 are increased. For example, in this embodiment, the number of transmission requests under the first condition and the usage rate of the storage unit 3 are respectively 5 or more and 50% or more, and the incoming call waiting time is 1.5 minutes.
The second condition is that the number of transmission requests under the first condition and the usage condition of the storage unit 3 are 10 or more and 75% or more, respectively.

If facsimile transmission is performed on the communication lines A and B, and there are nine documents waiting to be transmitted, and the usage rate of the storage means 3 is 50%, the line selection means 4 sets the state (1, 0) , 2), and the state (0,
No transition to 0,3). Here, assuming that the communication line A being transmitted has completed the transmission, the line selecting means 4 changes to the state (2, 0, 1) according to the notification from the line communication control means 5, but there is a document waiting to be transmitted. Then, an instruction for document transmission is issued to the line communication control means 5, and the state transits to the state (1, 0, 2).

If two transmission requests are generated in this state, the number of documents waiting to be transmitted becomes ten in total, and the number of transmission requests satisfying the second condition of ten or more is satisfied. At this time, if the currently available communication line C is in the idle state for 1.5 minutes or more, an instruction to transmit the original is issued to the line communication control means 7 and the state is changed to (0, 0, 3).

As described above, by providing a condition that the transmission request and the usage rate of the storage unit 3 are equal to or more than a certain value, an empty line is always secured when the transmission request is small, and the transmission from the other party facsimile apparatus is performed. By making it possible to receive transmissions and increasing the number of transmission lines when there are many transmission requests, the number of facsimile documents waiting for transmission can be reduced.

Further, another condition, that is, there is no incoming call for a certain period of time or more, it is possible to secure a receiving line when there are many transmission requests under the first condition. This is because most of the facsimile machines that have made calls to the line in use manually or automatically resend to send the original, thereby suppressing the transmission of the facsimile machine and waiting for a certain period of time. This is because it is possible to receive a re-call from a facsimile machine that has made a call while all the lines are in use.

However, the values shown in the first condition and the second condition do not have any special meaning, and the optimum values may be determined for each device according to the number of lines accommodated and the use environment. Similarly, as many numbers and positions as necessary can be added.

[0030]

As described above, according to the present invention, a conventional facsimile apparatus accommodates a plurality of lines and selects the number of transmission lines according to the use state of the lines and storage means, thereby increasing the line utilization rate. This has the effect of reducing the transmission waiting and external call blocking rates.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a state transition in a line selecting unit of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Reading means 2 Output means 3 Storage means 4 Line selection means 5 Line communication control means 6 Line communication control means 7 Line communication control means

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A reading means for reading a document to be transmitted to a partner, an output means for outputting a transmitted document, a storage means for storing data to be transmitted and received, and a transmission document in a storage means to be transmitted after transmission. A plurality of line communication control means for connecting a line when an incoming call is received, receiving data, and storing the data in a storage means, a use rate of the storage means, the number of transmission requests, whether to wait for reception, and a state of each accommodated line. Hold down its status , send request
When there are few lines, always secure an empty line and
Enables reception from transmissions from the x-millimeter, and transmission
If there are many requests, increase the number of transmission lines to send
Reduce the number of waiting facsimile documents and wait for
Receiving line when there are many transmission requests when there is no incoming call
Facsimile apparatus having line selection means for securing the facsimile. 2. When the number of vacant lines is small, in order to prevent the line from being buried in the transmission line and keeping external transmission from being busy, a certain condition other than a transmission request is set as a condition for document transmission. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a condition is set. 3. When the number of transmission requests is small, an empty state is always set.
Secures the line and receives transmission from the partner facsimile machine
And if there are many transmission requests, the number of transmission lines
Increase the number of facsimile documents waiting to be sent.
The first condition for suppressing the number is the number of transmission requests and the use of storage means.
When the usage rate is above a certain value and the current available line is fixed
If there are no incoming calls for a certain period of time,
The second condition for securing the receiving line is the first condition.
Set the number of transmission requests and the usage rate of the storage means to be high.
Facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that that.