Broadband communications device

What is this patent about?

'349 is related to the field of residential and small business telecommunications, specifically addressing the problem of limited bandwidth over existing Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines. The background involves Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) seeking to offer competitive voice and data services against established Local Exchange Companies (LECs) without incurring the high infrastructure costs associated with DSL or cable deployments. Existing VoIP solutions often require expensive infrastructure upgrades or suffer from quality of service issues over the public internet.

The underlying idea behind '349 is to aggregate the bandwidth of multiple POTS lines using a Residential Communications Gateway (RCG). This gateway leverages Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and wireless communication technologies to combine voice, data, and video communications. The key insight is to use multiple POTS lines, potentially from neighboring residences, in conjunction with a wireless network to create a virtual broadband connection without requiring upgrades to the central office or other network infrastructure.

The claims of '349 focus on a method and device for increasing bandwidth and data throughput by establishing a multilink connection between a first device and a second device, each connected to a network at geographically separate locations. The first device sends a multilink request to the second device. Upon acceptance, the first device concurrently receives data from the network via its own connection and data wirelessly transmitted from the second device, effectively aggregating the bandwidth of both connections.

In practice, the RCG connects to a standard POTS line and uses a modem to establish a connection with the service provider's network. It then utilizes its wireless interface (e.g., 802.11) to communicate with other RCGs in the vicinity. When a user requests high-bandwidth data, the RCG initiates a multilink PPP connection, requesting neighboring RCGs to participate by forwarding data received over their POTS lines wirelessly to the requesting RCG. This creates a virtual broadband connection by combining the bandwidth of multiple POTS lines.

This approach differentiates itself from prior solutions by avoiding the need for expensive infrastructure upgrades at the central office. Unlike DSL or cable, the RCG works with existing POTS infrastructure. Furthermore, it addresses the quality of service issues associated with internet-based VoIP by prioritizing voice traffic and dynamically allocating bandwidth. The system can also leverage existing Wi-Fi networks or create ad-hoc wireless networks to further enhance bandwidth and connectivity, offering a cost-effective solution for delivering broadband services over legacy telephone lines.