Telephonic communications – Plural exchange network or interconnection
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-18
2001-02-06
Zele, Krista (Department: 2748)
Telephonic communications
Plural exchange network or interconnection
C370S352000, C709S206000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06185288
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a system and method for multimedia call signalling.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are many known call setup methods for use in setting up calls within the PSTN (public switched telephone network) though new methods are still evolving.
Data telephony, over a data network such as the Internet for example, will likely soon start to carry a significant amount of multimedia traffic, and has its own call setup methods for establishing calls over the relevant data network. Various different data networks exist including the Internet, wireline networks, cellular networks, and PCS (personal communications systems) networks for example. In addition, calls other than voice calls of course are establishable over such data networks. These include FAX calls, video calls, T.120 conference calls etc.
When a user wants to make a regular phone call, the user's phone informs a switch via a sequence of electrical signals, or a message. Software in the switch will engage a process to find out where the called phone is located by performing an address translation. The address translation will return the information related to which trunk and which protocol should be used to signal a remote CO (captive office) which will ring the called phone.
In the case of an H.323 terminal, a call setup request is sent in a message to a component called the gatekeeper to perform address translation. The address passed to the gatekeeper can be a symbolic name or an Internet address. In the current H.323 implementation, the gatekeeper will use the H.245 and H.225 protocols to complete the call.
It would be desirable to be able to place calls of various types from a PSTN based terminal for example for connection to a data network based terminal, and call setup methods must be established for this. Existing solutions have focused on a few particular instances of the problem such as Internet to PSTN voice calls.
These existing solutions provide a single solution for one or two media, but do not provide an approach to solving the problem in a general fashion.
One of the technical challenges in solving this problem is the complexity and diversity of the types of call processing equipment, call transmission media and protocols involved all of which are based on various technologies.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to obviate or mitigate one or more of the above identified disadvantages.
According to a first broad aspect, the invention provides a multimedia call signalling method comprising the steps of: a calling terminal initiating a call with a call setup request including a user identifier; a calling agent receiving the call setup request and looking up an E-mail address corresponding with the user identifier; the calling agent sending a call setup E-mail with said E-mail address to a called agent; the called agent looking up a current terminal identifier which identifies a current terminal associated with the user identifier on the basis of the call setup E-mail message; and the called agent and the calling agent coordinating a call setup between the calling terminal and the current terminal.
According to a second broad aspect, the invention provides a multimedia call signalling end system comprising a calling agent for connection to a network for coordinating the establishment of a connection between a calling terminal served by the calling agent and another terminal, the calling agent comprising: a) means for receiving a call setup request from the calling terminal including a user identifier; b) means for looking up an E-mail address corresponding with the user identifier; c) means for generating a call setup E-mail with said E-mail address and mailing it to said address; and d) first means for coordinating the establishment of an outgoing connection between the calling terminal and the another terminal.
A first element empowering this invention is based on an encapsulation principle. Because different telephony and communication networks use different signalling protocols, to make the signalling protocol independent the call setup requests are encapsulated in a common format. This invention devises a scheme to encapsulate an outgoing call request with all associated attributes preferably using the MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension) principle from Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
A second element empowering this invention is the use of an E-mail address or an electronic address for the user. Once used, this conceals the discrepancies or deficiencies of the terminals to be connected and broadens the choice of the medium which can be used for the connection.
A third preferred element empowering this invention is the use of MIME application typing so that an electronic message server can associate any required processing with various components in the message. As a result, this invention provides a generic mechanism to support multi-media multi-channel and multi-device communication call setup.
The broad application domain of the signalling protocol allows it to be applied to PSTN, Internet and cable networks and to other network types as it becomes appropriate. It also enables the establishment of multi-media phone calls that support multiple terminals and connections.
Advantageously, the system provided by some embodiments of the invention is applicable to existing telephony equipment without the need for any change to customer equipment.
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Foster Roland G.
Nortel Networks Limited
Zele Krista
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