Concurrent ringing on multiple network telephones

Details Concurrent ringing on multiple network telephones Concurrent ringing on multiple network telephones

2002-04-15

2003-06-24

Kincaid, Lester G. (Department: 2685)

Telecommunications

Radiotelephone system

Zoned or cellular telephone system

C455S414200, C455S461000, C455S560000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06584317

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunication systems and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method for ringing a subscriber's wired and wireless mobile stations concurrently based upon a call to that particular subscriber's published number.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the increasing popularity of wireless telecommunication systems (i.e, wireless cellular telephone systems), telecommunication service providers offer many different types of telecommunication services to their respective customers. Such services are generally provided to users on a subscription basis and, therefore, these users are generally referred to as “subscribers.”
Quite often, subscribers may have multiple telephones or stations at which they may be reached, such as a wired station at home or in the office and a wireless station. Accordingly, one category of telecommunication services offered to subscribers having multiple stations—a wired station (i.e., a wired telephone) served by a wired telecommunications network and a wireless station (i.e., a mobile station) served by a wireless telecommunications network—is to sequentially ring the wired and wireless stations upon the placement of a call to that particular subscriber's published number.
A known method for providing such a call delivery service is to ring the subscriber's wired and wireless stations sequentially. As illustrated in
FIG. 1
for instance, when a call is placed to a subscriber's published number, the call is routed to an end office or private branch exchange (PBX)
140
within the wired telecommunications network. The end office or PBX
140
causes the subscriber's wired station
150
to initially ring and, if there is no answer on the wired station
150
, the call is forwarded from the end office or PBX
140
in the wired telecommunications network to the wireless telecommunications network
130
to thereafter ring the subscriber's wireless station
170
.
Unfortunately, when the call is not initially answered by the subscriber at the wired station
150
according to this known method of call delivery, the calling party initiating the call to the subscriber may experience a delay between the ringing of the wired station and that of the wireless station. Additionally, as a result of forwarding the call to ring wireless station
170
in a different network
130
, the calling party may also experience a prolonged ring time. As a result of such prolonged ring time, callers may have a tendency to abandon the call when the call at the first rung station
150
goes unanswered and before the call is transferred to and/or rings at the second station
170
.
Accordingly, a call delivery method that rings the subscriber's wired and wireless stations
150
,
170
concurrently is desirable. The term “concurrently” is used herein to mean more or less at the same time, and is not limited to necessarily ringing the stations synchronously with identical periods and duty cycles (on-time and off-time).
As illustrated in
FIG. 1
, however, such concurrent ringing of the subscriber's wired and wireless stations
150
,
170
is problematic because there are two different networks involved with the wired and wireless stations (e.g., the wired telecommunication network and the wireless telecommunication network
130
) and these networks do not presently coordinate the interaction necessary to ring stations on both networks concurrently. It has also been difficult to concurrently ring a subscriber's wired and wireless stations because the call set-up time for a wireless station is generally longer than that for a wired station.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the present invention, a system and method are provided for concurrently ringing a subscriber's wired and mobile stations, where the wired station is served by a wired telecommunications network and the mobile station is served by a wireless telecommunications network.
In an advantageous embodiment of the present invention, the call is routed to a network interface point of control from either the wired or wireless networks and the network interface becomes the point of control for the call. The call is initially offered to the mobile station by the network interface, and before the mobile station is rung, the call is offered to the wired station so that the wired and mobile stations ring concurrently.


REFERENCES:
patent: 5103448 (1992-04-01), Barnes et al.
patent: 5127042 (1992-06-01), Gillig et al.
patent: 5454032 (1995-09-01), Pinard et al.
patent: 5502757 (1996-03-01), Bales et al.
patent: 5502762 (1996-03-01), Andrew et al.
patent: 5548636 (1996-08-01), Bannister et al.
patent: 5802160 (1998-09-01), Kugell et al.
patent: 5956631 (1999-09-01), Gerszberg et al.
patent: 0549126 (1993-06-01), None
patent: 2293521 (1996-03-01), None
Communications Daily, Nov. 20, 1992.
Comcast Connections, Issue 7, vol. 6, Summer 1996, Section entitled “Direct Link, One Number Service to Launch in Sep.”
U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 08/175,659, filed Dec. 30, 1993, “Multiple Terminal Device Ringing in Telephone Communications Systems.”

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