Curbside circuitry for interactive communication services
US5699105A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 28, 1995 |
| Grant date | Dec 16, 1997 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 28, 2015 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04N7/17318
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Only one or only a few channels are sent at a time from circuitry located in a curbside box, via a link such as either a coaxial or a fiber cable, into a customer's home TV set or personal computer. However, many more than a few channels are delivered to the curbside box, via a link such as a fiber or a coaxial cable, from a central office or a central bank of paid video-movies to be selected by the customers. Thus whereas the link from the central office or central bank is relatively broad-band (e.g. 500 MHz to 1,000 MHz), the cable from the curbside to the home (or any other kind of building) can be relatively narrow-band (e.g., 5 MHz to 50 MHz). The curbside box serves a multitude of homes--a separate (narrow-band) cable running to each home from the (same) curbside switch. Each channel can be a free radio or free TV channel, a stored or an on-line newspaper pay channel, or a pay TV channel, or a pay-per-view channel (i.e., the customer must give advance notice per view, and may begin viewing in the middle of a selected program, or may come in at the beginning of a selected program with a short delay, depending on the sender's arrangement). Requests from each TV set in each home…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.