Telecommunications switch with improved redundancy
US5596569A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 10, 1995 |
| Grant date | Jan 21, 1997 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Oct 10, 2015 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04Q2213/13396
- WIPO fieldTelecommunications
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A programmable telecommunications switch has automatic backup of line cards to provide complete redundancy. The switch has I/O cards which terminate the external telecommunications spans. Each I/O card passes the data from its spans to a line card. When the line card fails, the I/O card switches the data onto an I/O bus which is connected to a standby I/O card. The standby I/O card switches a standby line card into connection with the I/O bus such that the data stream is then serviced by the standby line card. The failed line card may then be removed and replaced. All I/O cards are attached to the I/O bus such that redundancy for all active line cards using the same signalling protocol is provided with a single standby line card. With multiple I/O busses, standby I/O cards and standby line cards, multiple redundancy is possible. Finally, the failure of a single line module of a line card may be handled by switching only the span serviced by that module to a standby line card. Spans from different I/O cards may be serviced by different line modules of a single standby line card, and may be all connected to the same standby line card by the same bus.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.