Home office communication system and method
View Patent ↗A home office communication system ( 10 ) has a control and display system ( 16 ). A modem ( 12 ) is controlled by the control and display system ( 16 ) and connected to a telephone line ( 14 ). A multiplexer ( 18 ) is connected to the modem ( 12 ) and multiplexes a plurality of outgoing data streams in a predefined format and demultiplexes an incoming data stream from the modem ( 12 ). A speech encoding system ( 20 ) generates a plurality of speech packets to form one of the plurality of outgoing data streams. A telephone line control system ( 22 ) generates a plurality of control packets forming one of the plurality of outgoing data streams and an information channel ( 24 ) forms one of the plurality of outgoing data streams.
1. A home office communication system wherein a base office comprises:
a router connected to a base modem;
a telephone interface connected to the router; and
a gateway connected to the router, wherein the router, telephone interface and gateway are all customer premises equipment located at a single location.
2. The home office system of claim 1 , wherein the base modem is connected through the public switched telephone network to a remote modem.
3. The home office communication system of claim 1 , further including a local area network connected to the gateway.
4. The home office communication system of claim 3 , further including an email server connected to the local area network.
5. The home office communication system of claim 4 , further including an integrated messaging center connected to the local area network the integrated messaging center connected to the email server, a voice mail system and a facsimile server.
6. The home office communication system of claim 5 , further wherein the integrated messaging center extracts a header information from the email server, the voice mail system and the facsimile server.
7. The home office communication system of claim 6 , further wherein the header information from the facsimile server includes a sender's name and a sender's telephone number.
8. The home office communication system of claim 3 , further including an user's computer connected to the local area network, wherein the user's computer and the control and display system are capable of running a shared white-boarding application.
9. The home office communication system of claim 3 , further including a project server connected to the local area network.
10. The home office communication system of claim 1 , further including a telephone switch connected to the telephone interface.
11. The home office communication system of claim 10 , wherein the telephone switch is connected to a voice mail system.
12. The home office communication system of claim 10 , wherein the telephone switch is connected to a facsimile server.
13. The home office communication system of claim 1 , wherein the router routes a packet of the plurality of outgoing data streams to the telephone interface when the packet includes the speech tag.
14. A method of operating a home office communication system comprising the steps of:
(a) establishing a communication link between a home modem and an office modem;
(b) selecting one of a plurality of communication options;
(c) selecting a second of the plurality of communication options;
(d) when the one of the plurality of communication options, is an email request, forming an email query packet;
(e) determining if a speech packet is pending;
(f) when the speech packet is not pending sending the email query packet.
15. The method of claim 14 , further including the steps of:
(g) when the one of the plurality of communication options is a telephone conversation, establishing a voice channel over the communication link;
(h) digitizing a user's voice to form a digitized voice signal; and
(i) packetizing the digitized voice signal to form a plurality of voice packets, each of the plurality of voice packets including a speech tag.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein step (h) further includes the step of:
(h1) compressing the digitized voice signal.
17. The method of claim 15 , wherein step (g) further includes the steps of:
(g1) requesting a directory listing having a plurality of names
(g2) selecting one of the plurality of names;
(g3) dialing a telephone number associated with one of the plurality of names.
18. The method of claim 15 , further including the step of:
(j) receiving an email option.
19. The method of claim 14 , further including the steps of:
(g) when the second of the plurality of communication options is an incoming telephone call, analyzing a caller's speech to recognize the caller;
(h) selecting a file associated with the caller.
20. The method of claim 14 , further including the step of:
(g) when the second of the plurality of communication options is a telephone conversation, establishing a second voice channel over the communication link.
21. The method of claim 14 , further including the steps of:
(g) when the second of the plurality of communication options is a shared white-boarding application, transmitting a start white-boarding request to a target computer;
(h) receiving an acknowledgement from the target computer.