Interactive home systems (IHS)-voice and data services

A description is given of the data and voice services offered by a particular subset of interactive home systems (IHS) classes 2 and 3 which, it is strongly believed, fills a market niche hitherto overlooked. IHS has been designed to support three distinct types of data, which may be categorized according to bit rate and application: low-speed, medium-speed, and high-speed. It is shown that the most flexible general-purpose system will be one based on twisted-pair and medium-speed data, specified so as to harmonize with the rest of IHS and to provide a comprehensive package of facilities at low cost to the consumer. Key design objectives are as follows: multimedia implementation; compatibility with IHS protocols; transparency to class 1; independent support of data and digital voice; independent support of both low and medium-speed data; connection to external networks and services via gateways; support ISDN at low incremental cost; inexpensive infrastructure; and is modular/easy to install. System design aspects are discussed along with system topology