Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-29
2001-05-22
Hunter, Daniel (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S445000, C455S422100, C455S520000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06236857
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to wireless telephony and more particularly to the provision of enhanced wireless services.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
An important feature of modem wireless telephony is enhanced wireless services. These are services for which the Mobile Switching Center (MSC) that does the switching for a call originating at a mobile station (MS) such as a cellular telephone requires the assistance of specialized Service Nodes (SN) that have the processing capability to perform the services. One class of such enhanced wireless services is interactive voice services. These services use information obtained from spoken input provided by the person originating the call to route or otherwise process the call. The services are termed “interactive” because they involve voice prompts from the telephone system and voice inputs from the user of the mobile station in response to the prompts. Examples of interactive voice services include
services in which voice input is used to select from a menu of choices, for example, between collect and credit card calls;
voice-activated dialing services, in which the user speaks the number he or she wishes to reach; and
services which use characteristics of the user's voice to authenticate the user to the wireless telephone system.
All of the interactive voice services require specialized hardware and/or software voice input interpretation systems to handle the voice input. Moreover, the voice input is required to set up the call, and a voice channel must therefore exist for the interactive voice service before the call is set up.
FIG. 1
shows how enhanced wireless services such as interactive voice services are presently provided. Arrangement
101
shows a portion of a network for wireless telephony. Two kinds of information are involved in making a call in such a network: signaling information which coordinates the operation of the components of the network during the call, and the audio signals that the call carries once it is set up. In the following, the arrangements in the network for transporting signaling information will be termed signaling channels and the arrangements for transporting audio signals will be termed voice channels. In the figures of this Specification, signaling channels are represented by dashed lines and voice channels by solid lines. Arrangement
101
has an originating mobile station (OMS)
103
which has originated a call that requires an interactive voice service. The interactive voice service is specified by a sequence of digits dialed by the mobile station
103
. The call origination goes via a signaling channel
104
provided by air interface
105
to serving MSC
107
, the Mobile Switching Center which is currently handling the call origination for mobile station
103
. Serving MSC
107
is permanently connected by trunk
109
to enhanced MSC (E-MSC)
111
, a Mobile Switching Center which establishes connections to a number of Service Nodes
115
(1 . . . n) that contain the special-purpose hardware and software required for the enhanced wireless services. Trunk
109
provides a voice channel
108
between serving MSC
107
and enhanced MSC (E-MSC)
111
. Serving MSC
107
is also connected by IS-41 signaling network
109
to enhanced MSC
111
. Signaling network
109
provides signaling channel
112
between serving MSC
107
and E-MSC
111
. Thus, when serving MSC
107
receives a call origination from a mobile station for a call that requires an interactive voice service, serving MSC
107
uses signaling channel
114
to send the dialed digits specifying the enhanced wireless service to enhanced MSC
111
and uses trunk
109
for voice channel
108
. Enhanced MSC
111
then selects Service Node
115
(i) required for the service and connects the trunk via local network
113
to the Service Node
115
(i), so that voice channel
108
extends to Service Node
115
(i). After Service Node
115
(i) has performed the service, enhanced MSC
111
uses the result of the voice processing (for example, the digits specified by the voice input) to set up a call via public switched telephone network (PSTN)
107
or some other network to destination station
119
. The call extends the voice channel
108
provided by trunk
110
via PSTN
117
to DS
119
.
Arrangement
101
serves perfectly well to provide enhanced wireless services. It does, however, have two serious drawbacks:
the arrangement requires trunk
109
between serving MSC
107
and enhanced MSC
111
. This both increases the cost of providing enhanced wireless services and prevents service providers who do not have such trunks available to them from providing enhanced wireless services.
whether mobile station
103
is able to take advantage of the enhanced service depends on whether its serving MSC is connected by a trunk to enhanced MSC
111
. Because that is so, roaming is not seamless when enhanced wireless services are involved.
It is an object of the techniques disclosed herein to overcome the above and other problems of current techniques for providing enhanced wireless services.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In a wireless communication system enhanced service features, such as prepaid services, which a wireless subscriber has paid for, might not be available to the subscriber when roaming in a foreign coverage area. Custom service features, which require equipment in the service provider's coverage area, can still be accessed from outside the coverage area of the custom-feature service provider's coverage area by linking a wireless subscriber through the Public Switched Telephone Network to equipment in the service provider's network.
The serving Mobile Switching Center of another service provider is directed to transport the call over the PSTN to an Enhanced Mobile Switching Center (E-MSC) in the subscribers home market. The E-MSC then both
1
). reconstructs the call by combining information received from the IS-41 signaling network and the Public Switched Telephone Network
2
). routes the call to the proper enhanced service.
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Calabrese Robert T.
Gnesda Nicholas John
Riley Douglas Harvey
Zahnle Jeffrey Arthur
Hunter Daniel
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Tran Pablo
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