Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Special service
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-13
2003-11-25
Urban, Edward F. (Department: 2685)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Special service
C455S422100, C455S417000, C455S555000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06654603
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The instant invention relates generally to the field of communication, and more particularly, to the field of personal communications. The present invention articulates methods and systems for extending the benefits of wireless voice and data services to subscribers, especially in business premises and public environments, such as universities and hospitals. Furthermore, the present invention is geared towards providing methods and systems for processing and controlling communications in wireless communications and in a wireless centrex based environment.
BACKGROUND
The challenges of an increasing mobile workforce have resulted in businesses migrating towards a more flexible and decentralized working environment. These newly evolved environments have created a need for communication systems that must be capable of facilitating untethered communication at any time and any place. Consequently, there is vast growth in emerging technologies that facilitate communication anywhere and anytime. Such technologies are employed in end user devices such as pagers, cellular telephones, and mail systems such as voice mail and e-mail systems.
There presently exists both wireline telephone network systems for home and office use and cellular telephone systems for wireless mobile calls anywhere wireless services are offered (i.e., anywhere a user subscribed cellular base station reception can reach), which are interconnected to each other through the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). As such, a user has a choice of contacting other telephone users or being contacted by other telephone users by using either the wireline telephone system or the cellular phone system, each having their own respective detriments.
Wireline business telephone service is typically more economical than cellular phone service. However, if a user decides to use a wireline telephone as their only business telephone they can not be immediately contacted if they are not in their own office where their business telephone is physically located. Nor can the user easily make telephone calls while not in his own office or on travel. On the other hand, if a user decides to have a cellular phone as their only business telephone they can be contacted at anywhere at anytime but will likely incur higher costs, e.g., airtime charges, which in total can be higher than using wireline telephone services. In the aggregate the cost of cellular telephone service to all employees of a company is generally cost prohibitive. In addition, a cellular telephone does not typically provide the feature/function of a wireline telephone service (e.g., Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and centrex feature/function).
Furthermore, if a user decides to have both a wireline telephone and a cellular phone for their business use, they incur cost for using both systems and experience the inconvenience of having two separate telephones and thus two separate voice mail systems to check for messages. A caller is also inconvenienced by having to call both the user's wireline telephone number and the user's cellular telephone to reach the user.
Wireline telephone network systems (including ISDN and centrex capabilities) and cellular telephone systems each have various feature/functions available to the user. Therefore, a need exists to provide a wireless centrex system (WCS) having features and functions presently available in existing wireline service and cellular services, as well as offering new feature/functions, while offering low cost telephone service for the working environment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The instant invention addresses this need for an untethered communication systems created by the paradigm shift towards a more flexible and decentralized working environment. The material described in the instant invention discloses a wireless communication platform that provides a solution to the challenge of mobility management by merging and expanding the capabilities of wired and wireless networks. Thus, the present invention includes systems and methods to provide a wireless communication service that has expanded the features/functions available in wireline and cellular telephone systems and the relative cost of the wireline system using a mobile telephone system and service that is added to existing wireline telephone systems equipment, to offer cost effective wireless communications for the working environment.
The instant invention includes a wireless centrex system (WCS) that allows a subscriber to use the same standard cellular/PCS telephone in both the wireless centrex system domain as well as the public cellular system domain. In the WCS domain, subscribers can use their cellular/PCS as a cordless-like phone without incurring air-time charges. The WCS has the advantage of providing a working environment mobile telephone system having traditional centrex and PBX type services such as call waiting, call hold, call forwarding, caller ID, three party conference calling, and call messaging. The WCS also includes additional enhanced features like message services used for paging, call screening, call waiting, distinctive ringing, user proactive call handling, automatic callback, call return and speed calling.
In general, the present invention is directed towards a method and system for extending the benefits of wireless voice and data systems to a wireless centrex system. The method and system as described in the instant invention, provides flexible software driven support for future generation air interfaces, as well as support for current legacy second generation air interfaces.
In traditional centrex systems, subscriber's locations are fixed, and as a result, the call delivery mechanism to deliver a call to a subscriber is predetermined. However, in a wireless environment, the subscriber has the flexibility to continuously move throughout a specified coverage area. Consequently, there exists a need to provide an intelligent call and message delivery mechanism. The instant invention introduces a novel call delivery mechanism using an Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) to achieve delivery. This AIN has a Service Switching Point (SSP) which utilizes a triggering mechanism to determine the appropriate call handling treatment for a specific call. As such, the system includes, for example, an existing local digital switch (LDS) as the SSP, an intelligent server (herein referred to as a network server platform (NSP)) coupled to the LDS for processing AIN communications, a plurality of remote digital terminals (RDT) coupled to the LDS, a plurality of intelligent transceivers (herein referred to as voice access ports (VAP)) coupled to the RDT (alternatively: the VAP could be coupled directly to the LDS), and a plurality of mobile stations (MS) which communicate with the VAPs through an air interface (wireless). Although a general WCS configuration with existing wireline centrex equipment has been provided as one preferred embodiment, there are many other configurations possible some of which are shown (e.g., WCS using PBX or having wireless data ports) and the basic system interfaces with other existing systems such as a PSTN and provider internet.
In operation, for example, the LDS upon receiving an incoming call with a directory number (DN) is triggered to communicate with a network server platform (NSP) to determine, using AIN, whether the DN has been set up to be associated with a mobile station (MS) and WCS service. The NSP tells the LDS to which of a plurality of VAPs connected to a particular RDT the desired mobile station is presently registered with (connected to via air interface RF channel), and how to route the call to the mobile station having the mobile station identification number (MSIN) associated with the called DN. The various feature/functions provided in the WCS services of the present invention are summarized below.
Feature Activation/Deactivation
Many of the feature/functions provided in the present invention WCS require selection by the mobile station user. As such, the prese
Chow Albert
Kim Jin-man
Wang Spencer
Ying Wenchu
AT&T Corp.
Trinh Sonny
Urban Edward F.
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