REMOTE SUPERVISORY SYSTEM FOR MONITORING TELEPHONE SUBSCRIBER PREMISES

摘要

C54-0C3 Application of Everhard H.B. Bartelink A remote supervisory system operating in conjunction with a telephone company central office to enable monitoring of telephone subscriber premises over existing telephone circuits. Auxiliary equipment is installed at the subscriber's premises and coupled to the subscriber's telephone circuit. The equipment includes sensors which monitor the condition of the premises. If an abnormal condition occurs at the premises, the condition is sensed by one of the sensors and the equipment, in response thereto, creates a temporary off-hook condition on the subscriber's circuit, transmits to the central office alarm report signals indicative of the abnormality, and then goes back on-hook. The off-hook alarm report signal transmission may be effected repeatedly to assure reception at the central office. The central office identifies the subscriber as it does in the case of a normal outgoing call, senses the transmitted alarm report signals and stores the signals and subscriber's identity in its memory. The central office then initiates a call to a predesignated action center and reports the subscriber's identity and the nature of the abnormality. The auxiliary equipment at the premises may also be equipped to monitor the condition of the subscriber circuit by creating an off-hook condition thereon not only upon the occurrence of an abnormality, but also periodically. If one of the scheduled periodic off-hook conditions is not sensed by the central office, that fact is treated and reported by the office as a line integrity failure alarm. The equipment at the premises may also include command receivers which are responsive to command signals stored in the central office memory by the subscriber for initiating control functions at the premises. The command signals may be transmitted to the central office by the subscriber from any remote telephone subset. As a further feature, the equipment may be coupled to control a recording unit which enables the subscriber transmit and store messages of extended duration by placing an incoming telephone call to his premises.