US 5,708,961 · Granted 1998-01-13

The 1998 Patent That Imagined WiFi Before WiFi Existed

Before WiFi was mainstream, Bell Atlantic patented a system that beamed TV signals wirelessly around your house using digital multiplexing—basically packing multiple TV channels into one signal and broadcasting it without cables. It's like an early blueprint for the wireless home entertainment we take for granted today.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The patent covers a system for receiving multiplexed digital TV channels at a home, letting users select specific programs from those channels, and then wirelessly broadcasting the selected content throughout the house via a digital transmitter and antenna. What's protected is the combination of the channel selection hardware, the multiplexer that reassembles the selected programs into a transport stream, and the wireless broadcast system that delivers it to in-home receivers.

Why it matters

This patent represents an early corporate vision of wireless in-home video distribution, filed in 1995 when cable and satellite were the dominant delivery methods. Though the specific architecture described didn't become the market standard, the concept anticipated the shift toward wireless connectivity in consumer electronics—a shift that defines home entertainment today through streaming devices and WiFi.

Real-world use

Today's wireless TV streaming boxes and devices that broadcast video around your home without running cables through walls are direct descendants of the problem this patent solved.

Original USPTO abstract

A digital network delivers multiplexed channels to a customer premises. Each multiplexed channel contains a digitally multiplexed data stream including digitized broadband information relating to a number of programs. At the customer premise, a shared processing system includes several channel selectors and program selectors. Each channel selector selects one of the multiplexed channels, and each program selector selects digitized broadband information relating to a selected program from a selected channel. A multiplexer combines the selected digitized broadband information from the program selectors into a transport stream. A transmitter system, for example comprising a digital modulator, a spread spectrum modulator and a broadcast antenna, provides a wireless broadcast of the digital transport stream throughout the customer premise and possibly one or more near by premises. Terminal devices within range of the broadcast receive the wireless broadcast and process selected digitized broadband information from the transport stream to present information relating to a selected program, e.g. on an associated television set.

Patent details

Publication number: US 5,708,961
Filing date: 1995-08-18
Grant date: 1998-01-13
Assignee: Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc.
Inventor(s): HYLTON; DENNY L., FARRIS; ROBERT D., FLAHERTY; STEPHEN J., BACKUS; RICHARD G., SMITH; FAYE M., HERHEI; JOHN ANDREW, MILLET; RAYMOND IAN, FORNESS; NOLAN MARCUS, STIER; CHARLES H.
CPC class: H04L12/2801

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