Telephonic communications – Special services – Conferencing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-30
2004-07-06
Bui, Bing (Department: 2642)
Telephonic communications
Special services
Conferencing
C370S260000, C370S261000, C370S262000, C370S352000, C370S353000, C379S093210, C379S204010, C379S206010, C709S204000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06760422
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and, in particular, to an apparatus and method for providing conference call service based on participation status.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Telecommunications systems are well known in the art. For many years, circuit-switched telephone systems have been used to provide a variety of communication services. In a circuit-switched system, generally speaking, end-to-end communication resources are provided in a dedicated fashion in response to each communication request. Thus, when a call is placed in a circuit-switched telephone communication system, those communication resources provided to complete the call (i.e., trunk lines, switch resources, etc.) are used exclusively by the called and calling parties for the duration of the call. Upon completion of the call, the resources are made available for subsequent exclusive assignment to another call.
In contrast, more recently developed telecommunications systems rely on the non-exclusive use of communication resources. For example, in a packet-switched system, individual communication resources are not provided for dedicated use; rather, they are available for simultaneous use by multiple sources and destinations. Examples of widely used packet-switched systems are the so-called Internet and World Wide Web. In these systems, communication resources (e.g., a dedicated phone line coupled to a gateway) used to provide a given computer access to a web page can simultaneously provide other computers access to other web pages.
As the use of packet-switched systems becomes increasingly pervasive, techniques for providing telephone communications via packet-switched systems have been the subject of significant development. Indeed, various systems have emerged providing a variety of services, including conference calling. Documents describing such systems include Recommendation T.120 (07/96) “Data Protocols for Multimedia Conferencing” by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union—Telecommunication Standardization Sector) and SR-4717, “Voice Over Packet in Next Generation Networks: An Architectural Framework” (Issue 1, Feb. 1999) by Bellcore. Currently, circuit-switched telephone systems generally provide several advantages over packet-switched telephone systems, i.e., higher voice quality, low latency, etc. However, in comparison to circuit-switched telephone systems, packet-switched telephone systems have the potential to provide cheaper communications to a large number of called parties, making packet-switched telephone systems an attractive option for providing conference call services. As packet-switched telephone systems become more widely accepted, it is anticipated that an increasing number of users will use such systems for conference calling. Thus, it would be advantageous to provide a solution that allows telephone users to reap the benefits of both circuit-switched and packet-switched telephone communications, particularly in the area of conference call services.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention may be more fully described with reference to
FIGS. 1-3
.
FIG. 1
illustrates a telecommunications system
100
comprising an apparatus
102
coupled to a switch
104
that provides connectivity with both a circuit-switched telephone network
106
and a packet-switched telephone network
108
. Circuit-switched telephone networks are well-known in the art and need not be described in greater detail here. Furthermore, the circuit-switched telephone network
106
supports conference call services using known techniques, such as conference bridges and related techniques. Preferably, the packet-switched telephone network
108
comprises an Internet Telephony network, as described by Recommendation T.120 (07/96) “Data Protocols for Multimedia Conferencing” by ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union—Telecommunication Standardization Sector) or SR-4717, “Voice Over Packet in Next Generation Networks: An Architectural Framework” (Issue 1, Feb. 1999) by Bellcore. Likewise, the packet-switched telephone network
108
supports conference call services, such as Internet Telephony conference call services as described in the above-mentioned ITU-T and Bellcore documents. Of course, the present invention is not necessarily limited to given circuit-switched or packet-switched conference call services and is only limited by the availability of platforms capable of supporting such services within the apparatus
102
and switch
104
. As shown in
FIG. 1
, both the circuit-switched network
106
and the packet-.switched network
108
support telephone communications with a variety of telephone-capable devices
144
-
154
, which devices may participate in conference calls.
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Kowal James A.
Roy Bijay K.
Bui Bing
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
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