Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
1998-06-24
2001-12-04
Hunter, Daniel (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S460000, C455S567000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06327475
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a selective pager for use with a paging system, and more particularly, to a selective pager capable of effecting group paging or sending a message through group broadcast transmission.
In a paging system, when a telephone number of a selective pager is dialed by way of a telephone set, there is called a selective paging base station, which radios an individual number of a selective pager corresponding to the telephone number. Upon receipt of the individual number, a beeper of the selective pager is activated. To send a message to the selective pager, the message is transmitted in the form of a DTMF signal by way of the telephone set, and the message appears on a display of the selective pager.
To simplify operations which involve pressing of push buttons to send a telephone number or a message, an existing selective pager of the paging system is provided with a DTMF signal generation circuit. A telephone number is converted into a DTMF signal, and the thus-converted DTMF signal is sounded from a speaker of the pager. Alternatively, a telephone number and a message are converted into a DTMF signal, and the thus-converted DTMF signal is sounded from the speaker. By means of the thus-converted DTMF signal, the telephone number is automatically dialed by way of a transmitter of the telephone set.
To simplify operations required to call a plurality of selective pagers, a group broadcast transmission is carried out, wherein a single message is transmitted from the base station of the paging system to the selective pagers having identical addresses.
In the existing paging system set forth, in order to effect group transmission from the base station, a paging system service provider must writes a group call address into the selective pagers. Further, the group call service is effectively resident solely within the paging system of the same service provider. Consequently, a group of selective pagers across a plurality of paging service systems cannot be paged at the same time.
To send a single message data set to a plurality of selective pagers through use of the DTMF transmission function of the selective pager, the user of the selective pager must repeatedly perform call-originating operations several times. Specifically, after the telephone number of a party to be paged has been transmitted from a DTMF signal generation circuit, the message data set is transmitted from the DTMF signal generation circuit. Further, the telephone number of the party to be paged and the message data set are transmitted from the DTMF signal generation circuit. A round of these operations must be repeated. As mentioned above, in any case, many problems are encountered in realizing a group call.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is intended to solve the problems encountered in the existing selective pager making a group call. The object of the present invention is to provide a selective pager capable of paging a plurality of selective pagers or transmitting a single message to a plurality of pagers through simple operations.
To solve the foregoing problem, a selective pager according to the present invention is arranged so as to assign a group identification code both to telephone numbers of pagers of parties to be paged to which a message is to be sent through group transmission and to data regarding the names of the parties to be paged, and to store the telephone numbers and the data into memory in a grouped manner, whereby the telephone numbers and a message are continually, automatically, and alternately generated by means of DTMF signal generation means.
A selective paging base station is arranged so as to temporarily store into memory a plurality of telephone numbers and a message received by way of a telephone line and to send the message to a plurality of selective pagers.
With the foregoing configuration, a plurality of pagers of parties to be sent can be paged through a group call without involving laborious actuation of the selective pager.
According to the present invention, a selective pager comprises: memory for storing data sets regarding telephone numbers of parties to be paged while the data sets are assigned a group identification code; means for specifying a group of parties to be paged; means for selecting from the memory a plurality of telephone number data sets regarding a specified group of parties to be paged, according to the group identification code; means for generating a DTMF signal; means for sequentially outputting the selected plurality of telephone number data sets to the DTMF signal generation means; and a speaker for converting into acoustic signals DTMF signals received from the DTMF signal generation means. So long as a group of parties to be paged are selected, the foregoing selective pager continually selects the individual telephone numbers of the group and dials the telephone numbers through generation of a DTMF signal.
Further, a selective pager comprises: memory for storing data regarding telephone numbers of parties to be sent while the data sets are assigned a group identification code; message memory for storing transmission messages; means for specifying a group of parties to be sent; means for specifying one of the transmission messages; means for selecting from the memory a plurality of telephone number data sets regarding a specified group of parties to be sent, according to the group identification code; means for selecting the thus-specified transmission message from the message memory; means for generating a DTMF signal; means for sequentially outputting the selected plurality of telephone number data sets to the DTMF signal generation means; and a speaker for converting into acoustic signals DTMF signals received from the DTMF signal generation means. So long as a group of parties to be sent and a transmission message are selected, the foregoing selective pager selects the group's telephone numbers and a transmission message and makes a group call through alternate generation of DTMF signals.
According to the present invention, a method of controlling transmission of a selective pager comprises the steps of: storing into memory data regarding telephone numbers of received parties input from an operation section of the selective pager while the data are assigned a group identification code; selecting from the memory a plurality of telephone number data sets regarding the group of parties to be sent as specified by the operation section according to the group identification code; sequentially converting the thus-selected plurality of telephone number data sets into DTMF signals; and converting the DTMF signals into acoustic signals. So long as a group of parties to be sent is selected, under the foregoing method the individual telephone numbers of the group are continually selected and dialed through generation of a DTMF signal.
Further, according to the present invention, a method of controlling transmission of a selective pager comprises: the steps of: storing into memory data regarding telephone numbers of received parties input from an operation section of the selective pager while the data are assigned a group identification code; storing into message memory transmission messages input from the operation section; selecting a plurality of telephone number data sets regarding the group of parties to be sent as specified by the operation section from the memory according to the group identification code; selecting from the message memory the transmission message specified by the operation section; sequentially and alternately converting the thus-selected plurality of telephone number data sets and the transmission message into DTMF signals; and converting the DTMF signals into acoustic signals. So long as a group of parties to be sent and a transmission message are selected, under the foregoing method the group's telephone numbers and a transmission message are selected and transmitted through a group call by alternately producing DTMF signals.
According to the present
Abe Yasushi
Fujimori Kazuhiko
Ishii Keiko
Wada Akihiko
Chow C.
Hunter Daniel
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
Pearne & Gordon LLP
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