WO2001033789A1

WO2001033789A1 - A system for enabling a plurality of concurrent telephone sessions on a single line

Info

Publication number: WO2001033789A1
Application number: PCT/IL2000/000697
Authority: WO
Inventors: Shimon Ben-David; Binyamin Maytal
Original assignee: Smart Link Ltd.
Priority date: 1999-11-01
Filing date: 2000-10-31
Publication date: 2001-05-10
Also published as: AU1051501A

Abstract

A system includes a gateway (508) for sending generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog telephone line (504) and at least one adapter (512) connected to the single internal analog telephone line for converting the digital packetized data to an internal analog telephone line standard (504).

Description

A SYSTEM FOR ENABLING A PLURALITY OF CONCURRENT TELEPHONE

SESSIONS ON A SINGLE LINE

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to high bandwidth communications over

telephone lines, in general and to a system for enabling multiple "logical"

telephone lines using a single, physical analog telephone line, in particular

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

With^' the tremendous growth of information available over the Internet

in including multimedia data there is an increasing need for high-bandwidth

communications between a home or small business and the Internet Various

high-bandwidth technologies currently exist for this market including integrated

services digital network (ISDN), satellite, and cable modems

Digital subscriber line (DSL) is a relatively new group of technologies for

i bringing high-bandwidth information over ordinary copper telephone lines A

major sub-class of the group is Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) As is known in the art,

an ADSL line can carry both high bandwidth data and standard analog voice

telephone signals, by sending the data over unused frequencies on the telephone

line Analog voice travels on the first 4 kHz of frequency, and the higher

20 frequencies, up to 2 MHz, are used for digital information (data and digitized

voice) Reference is now made to Fig 1 , which is a schematic illustration of an

example of digital subscriber line (DSL) data, known in the art Data packets 100

and digitized voice packets 102 are sent one after another

A DSL system typically uses either asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) or

> frame-relay as an upper protocol DSL does not treat packets of data and digitized voice differently ATM allows different types of packets to be defined and

assigned different priority Packets of digitized voice are given high priority, while

data is given low priority Digitized voice can have low latency, while data must be

correct, and is therefore resent if it is received with too many errors Internet

in Protocol (IP) is the standard for Internet communication at a higher communication layer (layer 3)

An example of the digitized voice packet 102 is shown in more detail

Packet 102 comprises a 5-byte header 104, followed by voice session byte

groups 106, 108 and 110

15 Voice over DSL (VoDSL) is an existing technology for transferring one or

more digitized telephone sessions over a DSL line VoDSL protocol adds

telephone session control packets to DSL, so that packets of digitized voice data

belonging to telephone sessions will be treated differently than packets of non-voice data Prior to VoDSL, digitized voice was treated the same as any

20 other data for communication between computers

Voice session byte group 1 10 comprises a telephone session control

message 1 12, and digitized voice samples 1 14 containing the speech and

perhaps the dialed number Examples of telephone session control messages 1 12 include off-hook with a port id, begin call, call waiting, and more data coming

for this telephone session

Jetstream Communications, Inc of Los Gatos, California, USA has

developed a proprietary VoDSL protocol and accompanying products Reference

^ is now made to Fig 2, which is a schematic illustration of a prior art central office

(CO) system which supports VoDSL, and to Fig 3, which is a schematic

illustration of a prior art customer premises equipment (CPE) system which

supports VoDSL

At the central office of the telephone company, a plurality of DSL lines

l o 200 from different subscribers are connected to a DSL access multiplexer

(DSLAM) 202 DSLAM 202 is connected to a voice gateway 204 via a regional

packet network 206 Regional packet network 206 separates the voice packets from the data packets The data packets are routed to the Internet 208, and the

voice packets are routed to voice gateway 204 Voice gateway 204 handles the

15 telephone session control messages, separates the voice packets into their

respective telephone sessions, converts them to a standard format and routes the

voice traffic to a Class 5 switch 210 Class 5 switch 210 is connected to a public

switched telephone network (PSTN) For voice traffic arriving from Class 5 switch

210, voice gateway 204 creates voice packets and adds telephone session

20 control messages to the voice packets Voice gateway 204 associates each

telephone number with a unique port id

At the customer premises, an integrated access device (IAD) 302 is connected to an outside DSL line 300 coming from the CO The output of IAD

302 is a plurality of physical, internal analog telephone lines 304, each with its own telephone number IAD 302 comprises a DSL modem 306 connected to

outside DSL line 300, an ATM unit 308 connected to DSL modem 306 for

separating the voice packets and the data packets, and a plurality of voice cards

310, one for each internal analog telephone line 304 ATM unit 308 sends each

-< voice packets to one of the voice cards 310, according to the telephone session

control packets accompanying the voice packets and interpreted by ATM unit 308

ATM unit 308 also is connected to a local area network (LAN) 312, along which

the data packets are sent Other companies, such as Tollbridge Technologies of

Sunnyvale California, USA, use the upper IP layer to transfer telephone sessions

l o over the DSL line This is known as voice over IP (VOIP)

The system described in Figs 2 and 3 enables a customer to transmit

and receive data and multiple telephone sessions simultaneously over the single

DSL line 300 This system has a number of disadvantages Firstly, the system

requires having a private branch exchange (PBX) and/or a plurality of internal

i s analog telephone lines physically installed at the customer premises Secondly,

the number of internal analog telephone lines is fixed in the hardware of IAD 302

Finally, if there is no PBX at the customer premises, additional internal analog

telephone lines need to be physically installed at the customer premises in order

to add additional telephone numbers

20 Other VoDSL products are commercially available from Coppercom Inc

of Santa Clara, California, USA

The Home Phone ne Networking Association (HPNA) is an organization

of companies interested in promoting the existing technology of home phonehne

networking (HPNA) HPNA converts a regular internal telephone line into a LAN, as shown in Fig. 4, to which reference is now made. A single internal analog

telephone line 404 is converted into a LAN having an addressable port 406 at each standard telephone jack on line 404. Some of the ports are used as high-bandwidth data ports 408, some are connected to personal computers (PCs) 410, some are connected to telephones 412, and some are connected to other devices such as a printer 414. PCs 410 can communicate with each other and with the printer 414 at the same time that one of the telephones 412 is being used for a telephone call and the high-bandwidth data port 408 is downloading data from the Internet. However, it will be appreciated that the telephones 412 share the same telephone number and that it is not possible to make concurrently separate telephone calls using telephones connected to different ports. It is known that HPNA transmits data and digitized voice at frequencies higher than those used for DSL.

US Patent No. 5,742,596 to Baratz et al. describes a network based distributed PBX system.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

There is provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the

present invention an adapter for converting digital packetized data to an internal

analog telephone line standard The data is carried across an internal telephone

line and includes at least a portion of a telephone session

Preferably the adapter includes an interface unit for identifying packets of

the digital packetized data destined for the adapter, a voice packet extractor for

extracting control messages and voice samples of the telephone session from the

packets and an analog front end for interfacing between the voice packet

l o extractor and a telephone line interface

There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the

present invention a gateway for sending generally concurrent multiple telephone

sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog telephone line

Preferably, the gateway includes means for sending a standard analog

i telephone session across the single internal analog telephone line, generally

concurrently with the multiple telephone sessions

Preferably, the multiple telephone sessions arrive at the gateway via a

high bandwidth channel

Preferably, the high bandwidth channel is a cable channel, an E1/T1

20 trunk or a digital subscriber line (DSL)

If the high bandwidth channel is a DSL line, the gateway preferably

includes a DSL modem connected to the internal analog telephone line, a

data/voice packet separator connected to the DSL modem, a voice over DSL (VoDSL) protocol unit connected to the data/voice packet separator, and a voice

session handler connected to the VoDSL protocol unit

There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the

present invention a system including a gateway for sending generally concurrent

multiple telephone sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal

analog telephone line, and at least one adapter connected to the single internal

analog telephone line for converting the digital packetized data to an internal

analog telephone line standard

There also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the

10 present invention a system for enabling generally concurrent multiple telephone

sessions using a single physical telephone line inside a customer premise, the

telephone line also serving as a local area network (LAN) inside the customer

premise The customer premise has a plurality of telephones for use with the

telephone line, and the telephone sessions arrive at the customer premise via a

i s high bandwidth channel The system includes a high bandwidth gateway for

interfacing between the high bandwidth channel and the telephone line serving as

a l_AN, and a corresponding plurality of adapters for interfacing between the

telephone line serving as a LAN and the telephones, each of the adapters

connected to the telephone line and to one of the plurality of telephones

20 Preferably, the multiple telephone sessions arrive at the gateway via a

high bandwidth channel

Preferably, the high bandwidth channel is a cable channel, an E1/T1

trunk, or a digital subscriber line (DSL) If the high bandwidth channel is a DSL line, the gateway preferably

includes a DSL modem connected to the internal analog telephone line, a

data/voice packet separator connected to the DSL modem, a voice over DSL

(VoDSL) protocol unit connected to the data/voice packet separator, and a voice

^•> session handler connected to the VoDSL protocol unit

Preferably, the adapter includes a LAN interface unit for identifying

packets on the telephone line serving as a LAN destined for the adapter, and a

voice packet extractor for extracting control messages and voice samples of one

of the telephone sessions from the packets

l o Preferably, the adapter further includes a line fallback unit for directly

connecting the telephone line to the telephone

Preferably, the adapter further includes a ringer for generating voltage

signals required to make the telephone connected to the adapter ring

Preferably, the system further includes a ringer for generating voltage

15 signals to be sent on the single telephone line, the signals required to make any of

the plurality of telephones ring

There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the

present invention a telephony method including the step of converting digital

packetized data to an internal analog telephone line standard The data is carried

20 across an internal analog telephone line and includes at least a portion of a

telephone session

Preferably, the step of converting is performed by an adapter and

includes the steps of identifying packets of the digital packetized data destined for

the adapter, extracting by a voice packet extractor control messages and voice samples of the telephone session from the packets, and interfacing between the voice packet extractor and a telephone line interface

There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a telephony method including the step of sending generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog telephone line

Preferably, the method further includes the step of sending a standard analog telephone session across the single internal analog telephone line, generally concurrently with the multiple telephone sessions Preferably, the step of sending is performed by a gateway between a high bandwidth channel and the single internal analog telephone line

There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a telephony method including the steps of sending generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog telephone line, and per session, converting the data to an internal analog telephone line standard

There is also provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a method for enabling generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions using a single physical telephone line inside a customer premise, the telephone line also serving as a local area network (LAN) inside the customer premise The customer premise has a plurality of telephones for use with the telephone line, and the telephone sessions arrive at the customer premise via a high bandwidth channel The method includes the steps of interfacing between the high bandwidth channel and the telephone line serving as a LAN, and interfacing between the telephone line serving as a LAN and the telephones.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will be understood and appreciated more fully from

the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the appended drawings

in which

Fig 1 is a schematic illustration of an example of digital subscriber line

(DSL) data, known in the art,

Fig 2 is a schematic illustration of a prior art central office (CO) system

which supports voice over DSL (VoDSL),

Fig 3 is a schematic illustration of a prior art customer premises

lo equipment (CPE) system which supports VoDSL

Fig 4 is a schematic illustration of a prior art home phonehne networking

solution,

Fig 5 is a block diagram illustration of a flexible high bandwidth CPE

system for enabling multiple "logical" telephone lines using a single, physical

i s analog telephone line, according to a preferred embodiment of the present

invention,

Fig 6 is a block diagram illustration of a flexible VoDSL CPE system for

enabling multiple "logical" telephone lines using a single, physical analog

telephone line, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention,

20 Fig 7 is a block diagram illustration of the DSL gateway of Fig 6,

according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention,

Fig 8 is a block diagram illustration of the adapter of Fig 6, according to a

preferred embodiment of the present invention, and Fig 9 is a schematic illustration of the voice and data packets sent over

the internal analog telephone line

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a customer premises equipment

(CPE) system for enabling multiple logical telephone lines using a single,

physical analog telephone line The system comprises a high bandwidth gateway

and a network of adapters

Reference is now made to Fig 5, which is a block diagram illustration of a

flexible high bandwidth CPE system 502 for enabling multiple "logical" telephone

ι o lines using a single, physical internal analog telephone line 504, according to a

preferred embodiment of the present invention An outside high bandwidth

channel 500 coming from the central office (CO) is connected to CPE system 502

CPE system 502 comprises a high bandwidth gateway 508 and a home phonehne

network (HPNA) unit 510 High bandwidth gateway 508 is connected to high

i s bandwidth channel 500 and HPNA unit 510 is connected to high bandwidth

gateway 508 and to internal analog telephone line 504

HPNA unit 510 converts internal analog telephone line 504 into a local

area network (LAN) having an addressable port 506 ax each jack CPE system

502 also comprises a plurality of adapters 512 and a corresponding plurality of

20 telephones 514 Each adapter 512 is connected to one of the ports 506 and to its

corresponding telephone 514 CPE system 502 optionally comprises at least one

PC 516 connected to a port 506 and other devices such as a printer 518

connected to a port 506 High bandwidth channel 500 may be a DSL line, in which case it is the same physical line as internal analog telephone line 504 More generally, high bandwidth channel 500 may be a different physical line than the physical line for analog telephone line 504 For example, high bandwidth channel 500 may be a

•> cable channel or an E1/T1 trunk

CPE system 502 optionally comprises a ringer 522 connected to HPNA unit 510 and to internal analog telephone line 504 As will be explained hereinbelow with respect to Fig 8, adapter 512 comprises a ringer that generates the voltage signal required to make telephone 514 ring The ringer in the adapter lo 512 consumes a relatively significant amount of power, and according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the single ringer 522 replaces the need for ringers in the adapters 512, thus enabling a low-power adapter 512

In operation, high bandwidth gateway 508 receives the traffic from high bandwidth channel 500, separates the digitized voice from the data, and transfers i s the voice to HPNA unit 510 High bandwidth gateway 508 converts the packets from the ATM or IP structure to Ethernet/LAN packets HPNA unit 510 sends the digitized voice to the appropriate port 506 according to the telephone session control message accompanying the digitized voice An example of a commercially available HPNA unit is AnyPoint Home Network from Intel

20 Corporation of Santa Clara, California The digitized voice is sent at frequencies compatible with the HPNA protocol, these frequencies being higher than the DSL frequencies At each port 506 connected to an adapter adapter 512 identifies whether

the digitized voice is destined for that port, and if so, converts the digitized voice to a format which telephone 514 can receive

In this manner, CPE system 502 creates a plurality of "logical" telephone

lines (one at each port 506 connected to an adapter) on the single, physical

analog telephone line 504 where the traffic for all of the "logical" telephone lines

is carried simultaneously on high bandwidth channel 500 CPE system 502 is

flexible the number of "logical" telephone lines is not fixed in hardware, and

additional "logical" telephone lines can be created without requiring additional

l o analog telephone lines to be installed at the customer premises In the specific

case of DSL the central office system assigns a port ID to each of the "logical" telephone line numbers

Reference is now made to Fig 6 which is a block diagram illustration of a

flexible VoDSL CPE system 602 for enabling multiple "logical" telephone lines

l -. using a single, physical analog telephone line, according to a preferred

embodiment of the present invention VoDSL CPE system 602 is a particular

implementation of CPE system 502 of Fig 5, therefore like numerals are used to refer to like features In Fig 6, high bandwidth channel 500 of Fig 5 is

implemented as a DSL line 600 DSL line 600 is physically connected to the

20 physical analog telephone line 504 at the customer premises via a connector 601

High bandwidth gateway 508 of Fig 5 is implemented as a DSL gateway 608

Reference is now made to Fig 7, which is a block diagram illustration of

DSL gateway 608 of Fig 6, according to a preferred embodiment of the present

invention DSL gateway 608 comprises a DSL modem 700 connected to DSL line 600, a CPU 702 connected to DSL modem 700, and an HPNA interface 704 connected to CPU 702 and to HPNA unit 510 Examples of DSL modem 700 include Speed Touch from Alcatel of Pans, France and Fastlnternet from Orckit Communications Ltd of Tel Aviv, Israel Examples of HPNA interface 704 include Home Phonehne Network Interface from Sihcom Ltd of Kfar-Sava, Israel and HomeFree Phonehne from Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc of San Jose, California, USA

CPU 702 comprises a data/voice packet separator 706, a VoDSL protocol unit 708 and a voice session handler 710 Packet separator 706 receives packets from DSL modem 700 and separates the digitized voice packets from the data packets It is well known in the art how to implement packet separator 706 for both asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and frame-relay based DSL VoDSL protocol unit 708 extracts the telephone session control messages from the digitized voice packets according to a given VoDSL protocol, for example the VoDSL protocol from Jetstream Communications, Inc of Los Gatos, California, USA VoDSL protocol unit 708 divides the digitized voice packets according to their telephone sessions VoDSL protocol unit 708 also identifies the telephone session control message Examples of telephone session control messages include "ring", "more data coming for this telephone session", "off-hook", "begin call", and "call waiting"

Voice session handler 710 converts the extracted voice packets to LAN packets, described hereinbelow with respect to Fig 9, simplifies the telephone session control messages to a few bits which will be easy for the adapter to interpret, and transfers the voice packets for each telephone session to HPNA interface 704 HPNA interface 704 is a bridge to HPNA unit 510. Voice session

handler 710 translates the port IDs assigned to the various telephone numbers of

the "logical" telephone lines to the LAN addresses of the ports 506 on the internal

analog telephone line 504 Voice session handler 710 also simplifies commands

s for the ringer in the adapter 512.

Reference is now made to Fig 8, which is a block diagram illustration of

adapter 512 of Fig. 6, according to a preferred embodiment of the present

invention Adapter 512 comprises an HPNA interface 800, a voice packet

creator/extractor 802, an analog front end 804, a telephone controller 806, a line

l interface 808, an optional line fallback unit 820 and an optional ringer 822.

Adapter 512 is connected to port 506 of internal analog telephone line 504 by a

connector 810, and to telephone 514 by a connector 812.

HPNA interface 800 is connected to connector 810 and to voice packet

-creator/extractor 802. Voice packet creator/extractor 802 is connected to

15 telephone controller 806 and to analog front end 804 Telephone controller 806 is

also connected to ringer 822 and to line fallback unit 820. Analog front end 804 is

connected to line interface 808, which is connected both to ringer 822 and to connector 812

For incoming traffic, HPNA interface 800 identifies packets destined for

20 addressable port 506 to which adapter 512 is connected, and passes them to

voice packet creator/extractor 802. Voice packet creator/extractor 802 extracts

the telephone session control message from the packets and sends control

messages to telephone controller 806. For example, a telephone session control

message could be to instruct ringer 822 to generate a voltage signal causing telephone 514 to ring Voice packet creator/extractor 802 also extracts the voice

samples from the packets and sends them to analog front end 804, which is a

codec connected to telephone 514 via line interface 808

For outgoing traffic, when a user picks up the handset of telephone 514,

s an off-hook signal is sent to telephone controller 806 Telephone controller 806

generates a signal for voice packet creator/extractor 802, which creates an

appropriate voice packet The voice packet is sent along the LAN back to HPNA

unit 510, then to DSL gateway 608 and finally to the central office

Telephone 514 operates according to the internal analog telephone

l standard which includes a specification of the voltage of signals sent to and from

telephone 514, for example 70 Volts The circuitry of adapter 512, however, is

likely at a different voltage level, for example 5 Volts, and therefore line interface

808 converts signals from the adapter voltage level to that of the internal analog

telephone standard and vice versa i s Reference is now made to Fig 9, which is a schematic illustration of a

voice packet 900 sent over the internal analog telephone line When voice

session handler 710 of Fig 7 converts the extracted voice packets to LAN

packets, the resulting LAN packets have the structure of voice packet 900 Voice packet 900 comprises a LAN header 901 , a simplified telephone session control

20 message 902, and voice samples 904

While certain features of the invention have been illustrated and

described herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, and equivalents will now occur to those of ordinary skill in the art It is, therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended to cover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spirit of the invention.

Claims

What is claimed is

An adapter for converting digital packetized data to an internal

analog telephone line standard, the data carried across an internal

telephone line and comprising at least a portion of a telephone

session

An adapter according to claim 1 , wherein said adapter comprises

an interface unit for identifying packets of said digital packetized data

destined for said adapter,

a voice packet extractor for extracting control messages and voice

samples of said telephone session from said packets, and

an analog front end for interfacing between said voice packet

extractor and a telephone line interface

A gateway for sending generally concurrent multiple telephone

sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog

telephone line A gateway according to claim 3, wherein said gateway comprises

means for sending a standard analog telephone session across said

single internal analog telephone line, generally concurrently with said

multiple telephone sessions

A gateway according to claim 3, wherein said multiple telephone

sessions arrive at said gateway via a high bandwidth channel

A gateway according to claim 5, wherein said high bandwidth

channel is a cable channel

7 A gateway according to claim 5, wherein said high bandwidth channel is an E1/T1 trunk.

8 A gateway according to claim 5, wherein said high bandwidth

channel is a digital subscriber line (DSL)

s 9. A gateway according to claim 8, wherein said gateway comprises'

a DSL modem connected to said internal analog telephone line;

a data/voice packet separator connected to said DSL modem;

a voice over DSL (VoDSL) protocol unit connected to said data/voice

packet separator; and

o a voice session handler connected to said VoDSL protocol unit

10. A system comprising

a gateway for sending generally concurrent multiple telephone

sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog

telephone line; and

5 at least one adapter connected to said single internal analog

telephone line for converting said digital packetized data to an internal

analog telephone line standard

1 1 A system for enabling generally concurrent multiple telephone

sessions using a single physical telephone line inside a customer

0 premise, the telephone line also serving as a local area network

(LAN) inside the customer premise, the customer premise having a

plurality of telephones for use with the telephone line, the telephone sessions arriving at the customer premise via a high bandwidth

channel, the system comprising: a high bandwidth gateway for interfacing between the high bandwidth channel and the telephone line serving as a LAN, and a corresponding plurality of adapters for interfacing between the telephone line serving as a LAN and the telephones, each of said adapters connected to the telephone line and to one of the plurality of telephones A system according to claim 1 1 , wherein the high bandwidth channel is a cable channel A system according to claim 11 , wherein the high bandwidth channel is an E1/T1 trunk A system according to claim 1 1 , wherein the high bandwidth channel is a digital subscriber line (DSL) A system according to claim 14, wherein said high bandwidth gateway comprises a DSL modem connected to the telephone line, a data/voice packet separator connected to said DSL modem, a voice over DSL (VoDSL) protocol unit connected to said data/voice packet separator, and a voice session handler connected to said VoDSL protocol unit A system according to claim 14, wherein said adapter comprises a LAN interface unit for identifying packets on the telephone line serving as a LAN destined for said adapter, and a voice packet extractor for extracting control messages and voice samples of one of the telephone sessions from said packets A system according to claim 16, wherein said adapter further

comprises a line fallback unit for directly connecting the telephone line to the

telephone

A system according to claim 16, wherein said adapter further

comprises

a ringer for generating voltage signals required to make the telephone

connected to said adapter ring

A system according to claim 1 1 , the system further comprising

a ringer for generating voltage signals to be sent on the single

telephone line, said signals required to make any of the plurality of

telephones ring

A telephony method comprising the step of

converting digital packetized data to an internal analog telephone line

standard, wherein said data is carried across an internal analog

telephone line and comprises at least a portion of a telephone session

A telephony method according to claim 20, wherein said step of

converting is performed by an adapter and comprises the steps of

identifying packets of said digital packetized data destined for said

adapter,

extracting by a voice packet extractor control messages and voice

samples of said telephone session from said packets, and interfacing between said voice packet extractor and a telephone line

interface 22 A telephony method comprising the step of sending generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions as digital packetized data across a single internal analog telephone line

23 A telephony method according to claim 22, further comprising the s step of sending a standard analog telephone session across said single internal analog telephone line, generally concurrently with said multiple telephone sessions

24 A telephony method according to claim 22, wherein said step of lo sending is performed by a gateway between a high bandwidth channel and said single internal analog telephone line

25 A telephony method according to claim 24, wherein said high bandwidth channel is a cable channel

26 A telephony method according to claim 24, wherein said high i s bandwidth channel is an E1/T1 trunk

27 A telephony method according to claim 24, wherein said high bandwidth channel is a digital subscriber line (DSL)

28 A telephony method comprising the steps of

sending generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions as digital

20 packetized data across a single internal analog telephone line, and

per session, converting said data to an internal analog telephone line

standard

29 A method for enabling generally concurrent multiple telephone sessions using a single physical telephone line inside a customer premise, the telephone line also serving as a local area network (LAN) inside the customer premise, the customer premise having a plurality of telephones for use with the telephone line, the telephone sessions arriving at the customer premise via a high bandwidth channel, the method comprising the steps of interfacing between the high bandwidth channel and the telephone line serving as a LAN, and interfacing between the telephone line serving as a LAN and the telephones