System and Method for Providing Selected Video Images to Local Telephone Stations

摘要

A system and method for providing subscriber selected advertising in the form of video images to a local telephone station (16) is disclosed. The telephone network (14) includes a telephone line system (57) and switch facility (56,58) contained within the line system for forwarding calls made by a calling party from a local telephone station (16) through the telephone line system to a destination point (81). The local telephone station is interfaced with the network. The phone includes a display monitor (18) for receiving data corresponding to video images and displaying same. The images are stored in a central database (100) and compressed (104) into data packets (106) of lesser bandwidth for transmission from the database through a network interface (102) and into the existing telephone line system in packet form to the local telephone station (16) where they are arranged and decompressed for display on the monitor (18). A plurality of telephone stations can be grouped into a cluster unit. In this format, video data is preferably compressed, multiplexed, transmitted over the telephone network, demultiplexed and then decompressed for display at respective monitors.