Importance

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Abstract

A telecommunication network (10) includes satellites (12) in which cellular base station switches (42) are located. Each switch (42) is hardware configured to require the use of relatively few interconnection segments but would suffer a significant amount of call blocking if operated in a conventional manner. A new call setup process (96) is performed whenever a request to setup a new call is received at the switch (42). The process (96) defines new connections through switch 42 for ongoing calls while simultaneously defining a new connection for the new call. In addition, the process (96) forces the new connections to use only those interconnection segments that are reasonably required to implement the new connections. Segments that are not required are deactivated (128) to reduce power consumption.

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First Claim