Patent · US Expired

Systems, methods and computer program products for identifying digital impairments in modems based on clusters and/or skips in pulse code modulation signal levels

US6816545B1 · kind B1 · utility

7Cited by
141References
36Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 29, 1999
Grant dateNov 9, 2004
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 29, 2019

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L25/4927
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Digital impairments in a set of Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) signal levels that are received at a client modem from a server modem are identified by compressing the set of PCM signal levels into a signature. Digital impairments are determined based on the signature. In a preferred embodiment, the PCM signal levels are compressed into a signature by identifying clusters and/or skips in the set of PCM signal levels. In particular, when transmitting PCM signal levels from a server modem to a client modem over a connection that is subject to digital impairments such as Robbed Bit Signaling (RBS) and/or PAD digital impairments and quantization, some adjacent PCM signal levels may become identical or very close to one another. Moreover, other adjacent signal levels may have a difference that is at least approximately twice the difference of other levels. The former phenomenon is referred to as a “cluster” and the latter phenomenon is referred to as a “skip”. By identifying clusters and/or skips in the set of PCM signals that are received at the client modem from the server modem, a signature of the network connection may be obtained. Digital impairments including R…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.