A highly flexible small digital telephone system

An architecture and design for a highly flexible, cost-effective, small-business telephone system are described. Targeted at businesses having up to 100 telephones, the system attributes include very simple operation and installation, and a fully digital design, made cost effective through custom silicon integration and a novel architecture. The architecture, based on an intelligent station set software model and functional message broadcast, allows externally connected servers, such as personal computers, to extend the call-processing functionality of the system. The design forms the basis of Northern Telecom´s Meridan Norstar key system product