Telephone terminal and method of telephone communication...

Details Telephone terminal and method of telephone communication... Telephone terminal and method of telephone communication...

1998-01-08

2001-07-31

Chin, Wellington (Department: 2664)

Multiplex communications

Pathfinding or routing

Combined circuit switching and packet switching

C370S356000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06269094

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is that of communications and in particular telephone communications.
To be more precise, the invention concerns a new approach to telephone terminals and a corresponding method of communication between a calling terminal and a called terminal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At present, to establish a call between two terminals, the telephone number of a called terminal is entered by means of a calling terminal. The call can be a telephone call (voice transmission) or a multimedia call (voice and/or image and/or data transmission). In the conventional way, the calling terminal uses a predetermined communication network (generally the switched telephone network) to establish real time point to point communication enabling true interactivity between the two parties.
This conventional technique is advantageous in terms of user friendliness in particular. On the other hand, under some conditions it proves very costly. The call is generally billed according to duration and distance. The time period used as the basis for billing is sometimes very short, in particular when communicating with other countries. In this situation, it is not uncommon for the cost of a call to be upwards of ten dollars.
There are less costly communication systems. There is the INTERNET network, for example, where billing is not based on duration or distance. In the conventional way a single base unit on the telephone network enables exchange of data between Europe and Japan for hours at a time.
On the other hand, this network is often rather slow and does not provide real time information exchange, as is provided by the switched telephone network. The INTERNET is therefore essentially used to transfer data when off-line communication or at the very least a very low speed can be tolerated.
In some situations it is not necessary to set up a relatively high cost real time symmetrical call.
This applies if the called terminal is a facsimile machine, for example. The inventors have also realized that, even though this goes against received wisdom in the art, this applies also to an answering service (telephone, telematics or multimedia). It could therefore be highly feasible to set up an off-line call rather than a real time symmetrical call of higher cost.
One objective of the invention is to alleviate these various drawbacks of the prior art and to exploit the observations referred to above.
To be more precise, one objective of the present invention is to provide a calling terminal, a called terminal and a corresponding method of telephone communication between a calling terminal and a called terminal for optimizing the cost reduction of calls.
Another objective of the invention is to provide a calling terminal of the above kind that is compatible with existing called terminals and, conversely, a called terminal that is compatible with existing calling terminals.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These various objectives, and others that will emerge hereinafter, are realized in accordance with the invention by means of a calling telephone terminal for real time communication via a first communication network operating in real time including:
means for recognizing the status of a called terminal as “real time communication” in the case of a called terminal requiring real time communication or “off-line communication” in the case of a called terminal tolerating off-line communication; and
means for constructing and temporarily storing a message off-line and then sending it to the called terminal via a second communication network operating off-line if the status of the called terminal is “off-line communication”.
If possible (i.e. if the called terminal tells it that its status is “off-line communication”, for example because an answering service is operative), the calling terminal of the invention uses a second communication network operating off-line to transmit a message to the called terminal. This reduces the cost of the call because the second network operating off-line is less costly than the first communication network operating in real time.
In this case, in accordance with the new approach of the invention, the message to be transmitted to the called terminal is not transmitted as soon it is composed. To the contrary, it is composed, formatted and possibly compensated off-line, before it is transmitted.
Apart from the saving in terms of call duration, this has the advantage of enabling a high quality message to be constructed. For example, if the called terminal is an answering service, thought can be given to the content of the message, which can be started over if necessary, and so on. This obviously applies to an even greater degree if the message is complex (sound, image, data, etc).
By operation off-line (or “not in real time”) in the present context is meant either true off-line operation (the message from the calling terminal is not sent immediately to the called terminal) or “slowed down” operation (the message from the calling terminal is sent to the called terminal virtually in real time, but always at a lower speed than if it were sent over the first network operating in real time).
Note that the calling terminal of the invention is compatible with a conventional called terminal. If the calling terminal of the invention does not receive any status signals from the conventional called terminal it deduces that the latter can be called only via the first communication network operating in real time.
It is nevertheless clear that the cost of calls can be reduced only if the calling terminal and the called terminal are both terminals in accordance with the present invention.
The invention also consists in a called telephone terminal for real time communication via a first communication network operating in real time including:
means for sending to a calling terminal in response to detection of an incoming call a “real time communication” status message in the case of a called terminal requiring real time communication or an “off-line communication” status message in the case of a called terminal tolerating off-line communication; and
means for receiving and optionally storing a message sent by the calling terminal via a second communication network operating off-line if the status of the called terminal is “off-line communication”.
Thus the called terminal of the invention sends status signals to the calling terminal to tell it via which network (real time or off-line) it is preferentially accessible. In other words, the called terminal of the invention tells the calling terminal whether it is accessible via the second network operating off-line or not.
By status signals is meant either data (for example one or more status bits) or an audio signal (for example the carrier of a modem of a facsimile machine or any other predetermined audio signal).
Again, note that the called terminal of the invention is compatible with a conventional calling terminal. For a conventional calling terminal, which is unable to understand the status signals sent to it, the called terminal of the invention continues to be accessible via the first communication network operating in real time.
It is also clear that one and the same terminal can incorporate the means specific to the calling terminal of the invention and/or the means specific to the called terminal of the invention. This should be the case in most top of the range terminals incorporating a plurality of functions (multimedia terminals, for example) in any case.
It is advantageous if the first communication network is a switched telephone network and the second communication network is an “Internet” type multimedia network.
Clearly other types of network can be used for the second network operating “off-line”, for example the Transpac network, a private network, etc.
The terminal can, for example, belong to the group comprising:
telephones;
telephone answering services;
videophones;
video answering services;
telematics terminals;
telematics answering services;
“Internet” type terminals

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