Arrangement for billing interactive communication services
US5701152A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 28, 1995 |
| Grant date | Dec 23, 1997 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 28, 2015 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04N7/17354
- WIPO fieldAudio-visual technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Only one or only a few channels are sent at a time from curbside 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 from a central office or a central bank of paid video-movies to be selected by the customers. 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. Requests from each TV set in each home (e.g., initiated by a hand-held remote control infra-red sending device) can be sent to the curbside circuitry from the home along a link such as a wire or along the same curbside-to-home cable itself. Storage of billing information with respect to each customer is accomplished by a billing recorder located in the curbside box. A relatively short link connects this billing recorder to a junction in the link that carries the request signals to the curbside box. The billing recorder has registers that rec…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.