Telephonic communications – Special services – Service trigger
Patent
1997-01-15
1999-05-25
Hong, Harry S.
Telephonic communications
Special services
Service trigger
379230, 39520058, 3952008, H04M 342, H04M 700
Patent
active
059076070
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to service creation apparatus for a communications network, and finds particular application in intelligent networks.
Related Art
As communications networks have developed, there has been a major increase in the number and variety of services which a network operator can deploy. It is a key commercial issue for network operators to be able to create and deploy new services quickly and efficiently. The intelligent network form of architecture, wherein intelligence is provided at a variety of points in or associated with a communications network rather than primarily at a switch or exchange as has been the case in the past, has been developed at least partly to give the network operator the facility to provide new services with speed and flexibility.
A key principle in intelligent networks (IN) is the separation of software which controls basic switch functionality, such as setting up switch paths, from the software that controls call progression. Referring to FIG. 23, this has been achieved in known INs by enabling network exchanges 230 to recognise calls which require modified call progression and to suspend ordinary call processing. The decision to suspend call processing is based on the meeting of pre-specified trigger criteria, for example dialling digits, line condition or time of day, at certain points during the call. This can be described as "service switching point (SSP)" functionality being provided at the network exchange 230.
On recognising a call needing an IN-based service, the SSP functionality refers to a service control point (SCP) 231 and call progression is thereafter controlled by intelligence outside the basic network exchange 230 to provide whatever service the call required.
An aspect of an intelligent network architecture which is particularly relevant to the provision and modification of services is the service creation and deployment system. Attributes that are particularly attractive in an IN to accelerate the creation of new services are: real time call switching from the customer and service specific aspects, so that the latter can be changed more easily, which is mentioned above. and then run on SCPs 231 provided by different suppliers. considerable reuse and hence speed of development. linkages between building blocks. SLPs are usually produced by service creation tools. rapidly created, by `on screen` manipulation of icons which represent the generic building blocks. be simulated to check its functionality, performance, cost, etc. electronically sent to the network and the appropriate management systems, from the service creation tool.
Services are created, in a known type of service creation environment 232, from the generic building blocks by specifying the sequences of these blocks and any conditonal linkages between the blocks. This specification is frequently known as a script or service logic program (SLP) and is usually generated by a service creation tool. When this SLP is deployed into the network it needs to be `executed`. This is done in a Service Logic Execution Environment (SLEE) which often sits in the SCP 231. The module for doing this execution itself is often called a Service Logic Interpreter (SLI) because many IN implementations use an interpreted language for their SLPs. It can alternatively be called for instance a Service Engine, which more clearly can provide flexibility to support interpreted, compiled, and possibly other forms of SLP.
Together with the Service Creation tools themselves, the use of re-usable generic building blocks is very important in service creation. In the general world of computing much work has been done on trying to achieve significant software reuse because the benefits are enormous. For example, reusing a program three times effectively triples productivity and furthermore on the second and subsequent time it is used, the lead time can be virtually zero.
Despite these benefits, general software reuse is still rare because it is difficult to realise. However, within the f
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Slides by Inventor Waters at a presentation in the UK in MAR. OF 1993.
Cox Richard D.
Hunter Andrew T.
Pavier Jeremy
Rand Jeffrey K.
Turner Graham D.
British Telecommunications public limited company
Hong Harry S.
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