Telecommunications – Transmitter and receiver at separate stations – Plural transmitters or receivers
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-04
2001-03-27
Nguyen, Lee (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Transmitter and receiver at separate stations
Plural transmitters or receivers
C455S416000, C455S432300, C455S519000, C455S520000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06208872
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed toward receiving and originating calls in a wireless communication system and, more particularly, toward a method and apparatus for inhibiting the receipt and/or origination of calls by a roaming mobile station.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The operation of cellular communication systems is fairly well known. A mobile station, such as a cellular telephone, has the ability to roam to other cellular systems, i.e., a cellular system other than its home system (the home system being the cellular system in which the user of the mobile station has an account), and place and/or receive calls. However, a roaming mobile station will incur roaming charges, and possibly long distance charges, when placing or receiving calls of any type, i.e., calls to/from land-lines, calls to/from other mobile stations, calls to/from groups, etc. Such roaming charges may be as high as 10× the normal rate per minute charge that would be incurred if the mobile station were communicating in its home system.
In the case of a company providing mobile stations to its employees for work use, the company may not wish the employee to originate or receive calls when the employee takes a mobile station out of its home system. Presently, a company has the following choices in how it may limit calls originating from its mobile stations: (1) Allow all (can dial any number); (2) Restrict all (can't dial any number); (3) Local calls+800# only (thus restricts all roaming calls); (4) Memory only; (5) Local calls+800#+ Memory only; (6) Restrict international calls, (7) Restrict 900# calls, and (8) Restrict operator calls.
With respect to receiving calls at the mobile station, a company has only two choices, namely, it can either (1) allow all incoming calls, or (2) prohibit all incoming calls.
Thus, a company attempting to restrict the use of its mobile stations by its employees is limited in its choices. In order to prohibit a mobile station from originating roaming calls, the company's only choice is to limit the mobile station to originating local and 800# calls. However, this means that the employee cannot make any long distance calls from the mobile station even though the company may wish the employee to be able to dial certain particular numbers at any time. While the company could store these particular numbers in the memory of the mobile station and restrict the employee to the memory only dial lock feature, this restricts the employee to dialing out to only the phone numbers stored in the memory, which may also be undesirable to the company.
A company wishing to restrict the receipt of calls by its mobile stations while they are roaming has even fewer choices. The company must either allow the mobile station to receive all incoming calls, including roaming calls, or restrict all calls to the mobile station, thus rendering the employee unreachable through his/her mobile station.
The present invention is directed toward overcoming one or more of the above-mentioned problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A method is provided for placing a phone call from an originating mobile station to a group of receiving stations collectively having a group identification number, the method including the steps of (a) initiating a call at the originating mobile station to a selected group identification number, (b) determining if the originating mobile station is in a roaming condition, (c) if the originating mobile station is roaming as determined at step (b), determining whether the originating mobile station is permitted to place calls to the selected group identification number while roaming, and (d) if the originating mobile station is permitted to place calls to the selected group identification number while roaming as determined at step (c), placing a call to a selected group of receiving stations defined by the selected group identification number.
In one form, the method further includes the step of (e) if the originating mobile station is not permitted to place calls to the selected group identification number while roaming as determined at step (c), informing a user that the call is forbidden while roaming.
In another form, there are a plurality of wireless communication systems each having a discrete system identification number and distinct geographical boundaries, one of said plurality of wireless communication systems being a home wireless communication system associated with the originating mobile station, with the originating mobile station physically within the geographical boundaries of the home wireless communication system in a non-roaming condition, the home wireless communication system having a home system identification number stored in a memory in the originating mobile station, and wherein step (b) includes the steps of (b1) receiving, at the originating mobile station, a system identification number of a wireless communication system within which the originating mobile station has initiated a call to the selected group identification number, and (b2) determining if the received system identification number matches the home system identification number.
In still another form, the method further includes the steps of (f) storing a plurality of group identification numbers in a memory at the originating mobile station, one of said plurality of group identification numbers being the selected group identification number, and (g) storing a roamenable flag in the memory for each of the plurality of group identification numbers, each roam-enable flag selectively settable between (a) a first state permitting calls to a particular group identification number with which it is associated with the originating mobile station in a roaming condition, and (b) a second state prohibiting calls to the particular group identification number with which it is associated with the originating mobile station in a roaming condition, wherein step (c) comprises the step of checking the state of the roam-enable flag associated with the selected group identification number.
A method is also provided for connecting a phone call from an originating station having an originating identification number to a plurality of receiving stations collectively having a group identification number, the method including the steps of (a) initiating a call request at an originating station to a selected group identification number, (b) receiving the call request, with the selected group identification number, at a Group Call Server (GCS), (c) routing a page message to each of a plurality of receiving stations included within the selected group, (d) receiving the page message at a select one of the plurality of receiving stations, said select receiving station comprising a mobile station, (e) determining if the select mobile receiving station is in a roaming condition, (f) if the select mobile receiving station is roaming as determined at step (e), determining if the received page message defines a group call, (g) if the received page message defines a group call as determined at step (f), determining whether the select mobile receiving station is permitted to receive calls from the selected group identification number while roaming, and (h) accepting the call from the originating station if all of the conditions in steps (e)-(g) are determined to be present.
In one form, the step of accepting the call from the originating station includes the step of activating an indicator at the select mobile receiving station alerting a user to an incoming call.
In another form, the activating step generates a ringing tone at the select mobile receiving station.
In another form, there are a plurality of wireless communication systems each having a discrete system identification number and distinct geographical boundaries, one of said plurality of wireless communication systems being a home wireless communication system associated with the select mobile receiving station, with the select mobile receiving station physically within the geographical boundaries of the ho
Ericsson Inc.
Nguyen Lee
Nguyen Simon
Wood Phillips VanSanten Clark & Mortimer
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