Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Combined circuit switching and packet switching
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-18
2001-05-01
Marcelo, Melvin (Department: 2663)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Combined circuit switching and packet switching
C370S353000, C379S093130, C379S266070
Reexamination Certificate
active
06226287
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF INVENTION
The invention is a method for integrating voice on network with traditional telephony in a corporate network. In particular the invention relates to person-to-person calls and local and virtual call centers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The landscape of telephony is changing rapidly today. Traditional telephony networks no longer carry all the telephone traffic to a business. Some voice traffic is present today on public networks such as the Internet. This is termed voice on network (“VON”). Blending VON traffic with traditional telephone traffic presents difficult problems to corporations. These problems are found in both person-to-person and call center environments. Over time, a significant mix of voice traffic will shift to packet network sources. This shift will create a significant need to bring packet voice traffic into the existing telephony environments. For some years there will be a large market for adaptive rather than replacement systems.
The technology for packetizing voice for sending on networks is well known. Routing of packetized voice and the solution of inter-working of packetized voice in traditional telephony environments is still an area in need of significant innovation. A typical scheme for delivering VON calls to a PBX is to deliver VON calls to a gateway device which converts VON call traffic to T1 or analog. Output from this gateway looks like regular telephony traffic to the PBX. This approach enjoys the benefit of simplicity. Unfortunately much routing information and interactivity is lost in this arrangement. Calls from a packet network carry useful information relating to the caller and the caller's interests as well as history of interaction with a company's data systems such as Web servers. This call-related information is useful in forming accurate routing and meaningful dialogue with the caller—whether the dialogue is audio, video, or web interactive.
Calls to individuals in a company typically need less of this type of routing and interaction than calls to call centers. Due to the volume of calls handled, call centers must formalize the interaction and routing of calls. Individuals need routing and caller interaction but on a more dynamic basis. For instance, an individual needs to get calls routed to their current location—which may change. A caller also needs to be able to deliver messages and receive delivery of messages meant for their ears only. Whether calls are made to call centers or to individuals, there are significant ways to make these interactions more sophisticated and more valuable when the call is received through the network. However, this benefit is lost in conventional system because gateways strip out voice content and separate it from other call-related information.
As the shift to Voice on Network (VON) traffic occurs corporations need ways to bring this traffic into their existing networks. For the next several decades corporations will need a good way to handle both circuit switched voice calls and VON calls. Ultimately, the choice to replace existing infrastructure switching with all VON may occur. The same infrastructure used to facilitate the coexistence of VON with circuit switched voice needs to be capable of replacing circuit switched voice.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention solves problems associated with the prior art by facilitating call routing through the PBX and the VON through a Link Server (LS). Calls are delivered to the link server as either traditional telephony (T1, analog, digital handset, or C link) or as SETUP messages in a VON call handling protocol. The LS inputs the calls and handles them appropriately: telephony calls receive voice prompts and responsive DTMF signals are collected, SETUP messages from VON protocols are sent and Web page interactions are established. Ultimately, whether the call is conventional telephony or VON, the processing required to handle it is reduced to a message to a call processing system.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention the call processing system is a call distributor such as that described in the '668 patent.
In alternate embodiments of the invention the LS places or tracks a traditional telephony call in a PBX or ACD—passing status messages to a program running on a desktop PC. The desktop PC program synchronizes the display of the incoming calls with messages received from the LS. For traditional telephony calls this means display information relating to calls being processed inside the PBX or ACD switching device. For VON calls this means display information relating to calls being processed by the LS.
In a queuing system calls from both sources are intermixed. Agents are able to see the source of calls and handle them appropriately. VON call handling can include web interaction with the caller before or instead of a full voice connection. The Agent or LS system can also offer a callback option to the caller over traditional telephony equipment when a better grade of voice quality is desired. Whatever the interaction, the result generally leads to a completed call to an agent. Traditional telephony calls are transferred or completed to the agent through the actions of the coordinated efforts of the agent desktop software and the LS and the PBX. For example, a switchhook transfer can be used to transfer the call held in the LS to the agent. Alternately, a message passed to the PBX/ACD via a switch link can be used to force completion of the call to the agent. VON call sources are passed the network address of the agent's PC (e.g., the IP address) so that a point-to-point connection can be established between the agent's PC and the VON call source.
For VON calls, the packetized voice must be decoded from the network. Preferably the decoding is performed in a server, for example at the LS or at the agent's PC. Regardless, the LS can coordinate the passage of the call to the agent. It may also perform an intermediate step of performing a voice connection to the caller to play prompts or audio messages while the caller is in queue before the connection is passed finally to an agent. In this way the connection can be moved from point to point in the call center.
When decoding occurs at the LS, the LS must have resource cards which perform the decoding function. One such card is that supplied by the Natural Microsystems Fusion product. Fusion cards decode/encode voice to/from the network on DSP's dedicated to each voice path. National Microsystems also has a card which contains a TCP/IP protocol stack. The TCP/IP protocol stack on the card is optimized for packet passing from and to this DSP card as well as to and from a data network. This is required to make the solution independent of the microprocessor and operating system of the LS (i.e., the solution is scaleable).
When decoding occurs at the desktop, resources are in a voice card similar to the QX2000 board made by Natural Microsystems. This card decodes/encodes packets from/to the network. In one embodiment of the invention the TCP/IP stack is running in the operating system of the PC. This is workable since only one call path and one card are present in the PC (scaleability is not an issue).
One of the benefits of this invention is allowing bridge technology to be built between existing switching and data network communications features. Because the device at the desktop is fully capable of VON and standard telephony both types of communications can be processed on a per-call basis. It is necessary in this model to have conferencing capabilities on the card in the PC. Conferencing at the desktop is made considerably simpler than centralized conferencing since both conversations meet at the desktop. Centralized conferencing of VON and traditional telephony would require VON to be converted to traditional telephony and passed into a switch. This is undesirable for reasons discussed above.
Local conferencing makes control software much simpler since there is no resource shared by multiple users. The usual data structures, linked lists,
Apropros Technology
Marcelo Melvin
Pittman Shaw
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