(12) United States Patent ao) Patent No.: Us 7,142,503 Bi
Grant et al. (45) Date of Patent: Nov. 28,2006
(54) COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
ARCHITECTURE AND OPERATING
METHODOLOGY PROVIDING A VIRTUAL
NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORK
(75) Inventors: Michael F Grant, Bishop's Stortford (GB); Igor K Czajkowski, Bishop's Stortford (GB); Brian M Unitt,
Bishop's Stortford (GB)
(73) Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent (CA)
( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days.
(21) Appl. No.: 09/502,699
(22) Filed: Feb. 11, 2000
(51) Int. CI.
H04J1/16 (2006.01)
H04J 3/14 (2006.01)
(52) U.S. CI 370/217; 370/225; 370/332;
370/349; 455/432.1; 713/190; 713/191
(58) Field of Classification Search 370/236,
370/252, 351, 352, 400, 468, 395.41, 235, 370/231, 401, 217-218, 219, 220, 225-228;
713/190-191, 200 See application file for complete search history.
(56) References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
5,457,680 A * 10/1995 Kamm et al 370/332
5,592,466 A * 1/1997 Buczny et al 370/217
6,167,389 A * 12/2000 Davis et al 705/412
6,282,519 Bl* 8/2001 Peters et al 705/34
A communication system (10) supports the provision of a plurality of dedicated communication resources (50-64), such as copper drops, RF links and optical fibers, to dedicated home-gateway devices (44-48) or distribution points (124). The communication resources (50-64) support broadband interconnection (104) between the dedicated homegateway devices (44-48) or distribution points (124) and an access multiplexor (30) in a network (12). Each gateway device (44^48) or distribution point (124) generally includes a local RF transceiver (84) and associated control logic (80-82) that allows local communication (86) between gateway devices (44-48) and hence statistically multiplexed access (60-64, 89) to multiple communication resources, thereby providing increased bandwidth in uplink and/or downlink directions. With the control logic (80) operable to provide a routing and prioritisation/arbitration function, each gateway (44-48) is able to selectively engage use of supplemental, non-reserved communication resources usually associated with a dedicated ono-to-one connection between the access network (12) and at least one secondary gateway. Physical layer access to information routed via a secondary gateway within a virtual neighborhood network (90-92) comprising several gateways is restricted through an end-to-end encryption algorithm between an originating gateway and, at least, the access multilpexor (30).
46 Claims, 5 Drawing Sheets
