Method of restricting use of a PacketCable SIP or NCS E-MTA line to fax-only
View Patent ↗A fax-only MIB stores a value that is used as a counter of a timer. Upon initiating or receiving a call at an endpoint with which the fax-only MIB value is associated, a user device that provides the endpoint begins a timer based on the MIB value. During the timer period processing circuitry and/or software of the user device associated with the endpoint determines whether a tone generated/received by a call being initiated/received is a fax or modem tone. If the device determines that such a tone has been generated/received, a call corresponding to the tone is processed. If the device does not determine that a fax/modem tone has been generated/received, the call being initiated or received at the endpoint is dropped.
1. A method for operating a line of a packet based user device as fax-only, comprising:
configuring an endpoint in a packet based network that is associated with the line as fax-only;
setting up a call at the fax-only endpoint on the packet based network, wherein the call may be an outgoing call being initiated or an incoming call being received over the packet based network;
starting a timer upon setting up the call at the fax-only endpoint, the timer counting down for a predetermined period based on a fax-only configuration value;
determining whether a fax or modem tone is detected within the packets received at the fax-only endpoint during the period the timer is counting down; and
processing the call if a fax or modem tone was detected during the timer period.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the fax-only configuration value is stored in an MIB object for the packet based user device.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the method operates on a session initiation protocol (SIP) based protocol.
4. A method for operating a line of a packet based user device as fax-only, comprising:
configuring an endpoint in a packet based network that is associated with the line as fax-only;
setting up a call at the fax-only endpoint, wherein the call may be an outgoing call being initiated or an incoming call being received over the packet based network;
starting a timer upon setting up the call at the fax-only endpoint, the timer counting down for a predetermined period based on a fax-only configuration value;
determining whether a fax or modem tone is detected within packets received at the fax-only endpoint during the period the timer is counting down; and
dropping the call if a fax or modem tone is not detected before the timer reaches zero.
5. The method of claim 4 wherein the fax-only configuration value is stored in an MIB.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein a protocol used to communicate the packets comprises session initiation protocol (SIP).
7. A device for processing calls in a packet based network, comprising:
a first memory for storing code, wherein the code facilitates operating an endpoint at the device as a fax-only endpoint operable to receive packet based fax signals;
a second memory for storing a fax-only configuration value;
a processor adapted to operate a timer according to the code, the counter beginning counting when a call is initiated or received at the fax-only endpoint and ending counting when the fax-only configuration value has been counted by the timer; the processor also being adapted to determine whether to process the call according to the code based on whether the processor detects that the call transmitted a fax or modem tone.
8. The device of claim 7 wherein the first memory and the second memory are portions of a memory.