If a terminal (MOB_T) receives an incoming call and this receiving terminal (MOB_T) is not suitable to handle this incoming call, the receiving terminal (MOB_T) detects the service type of the incoming call, and notifies this service type to a destination terminal selecting arrangement (PRES_GATH). The destination terminal selecting arrangement (PRES_GATH) registers the presence and capabilities of all terminals (FAX_T, BB_T, MOB_T) within a certain area, and upon receipt of the service type of the incoming call selects the most suitable terminal (FAX_T) within the area of the receiving terminal (MOB_T) to handle the call. The destination terminal selecting arrangement (PRES_GATH) thereupon notifies the address of this most suitable terminal (FAX_T) to the receiving terminal (MOB_T) so that the receiving terminal (MOB_T) can forward the incoming call to the most suitable terminal (FAX_T).
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0. 25. A method comprising:
receiving, at a mobile terminal, an incoming call;
the mobile terminal detecting a service type associated with said incoming call; and
the mobile terminal forwarding the incoming call to a suitable one of a plurality of destination terminals, wherein the suitable destination terminal is selected based on the service type of the incoming call.
0. 14. A method comprising:
receiving, at a network element from a source terminal, a notification of a service type associated with a call;
selecting, at said network element, one of a plurality of terminals as a destination terminal to handle said call based on said service type associated with said call; and
providing an address of the destination terminal to the source terminal, permitting the source terminal to forward said call to said destination terminal.
0. 21. A method comprising:
receiving, at a receiving terminal, an incoming call;
the receiving terminal detecting a service type associated with the incoming call;
the receiving terminal providing notification of the service type of the incoming call to a destination terminal selecting device;
responsive to the providing, the receiving terminal receiving an address of a suitable destination terminal from the destination terminal selecting device; and
the receiving terminal subsequently forwarding the incoming call to the suitable destination terminal using the received address.
0. 9. A network element for use in a telecommunication system, comprising:
a type notification unit configured to receive, from a source terminal, a notification of a service type associated with a call;
a terminal selecting unit coupled to said type notification unit and configured to select one of a plurality of terminals as a destination terminal to handle said call based on said service type associated with said call; and
an address notification unit coupled to said terminal selecting unit and configured to provide an address of the destination terminal to the source terminal, permitting the source terminal to forward said call to said destination terminal.
0. 19. A receiving terminal comprising:
a call receiving unit configure to receive an incoming call;
a type detection unit coupled to the call receiving unit and configured to detect a service type associated with the incoming call;
a type notification unit coupled to the type detection unit and configured to provide notification of the service type of the incoming call to a destination terminal selecting device;
an address receiving unit configured to receive an address of a suitable destination terminal from the destination terminal selecting device; and
a call forwarding unit coupled to the address receiving unit and configured to forward the incoming call to the suitable destination terminal using the received address.
2. A method of selecting a suitable destination terminal for routing thereto in a telecommunication system an incoming call received in a receiving terminal, said method comprising the steps of:
registering presence and capabilities of a plurality of terminals within a certain area including said suitable destination terminal and said receiving terminal;
receiving from said receiving terminal a notification of a service type associated with said incoming call;
selecting said suitable destination terminal as being a terminal amongst said plurality of terminals with best capabilities to handle calls of said service type of said incoming call; and
notifying said receiving terminal of an address of said suitable destination terminal.
1. A method of routing in a telecommunication system an incoming call from a receiving terminal to a suitable destination terminal, said method comprising the steps of:
receiving said incoming call in said receiving terminal;
detecting a service type associated with said incoming call;
notifying a destination terminal selecting arrangement of said service type, said destination terminal selecting arrangement registering a presence and capabilities of a plurality of terminals including said receiving terminal;
receiving at said receiving terminal an address of said suitable destination terminal from said destination terminal selecting arrangement, said suitable destination terminal having the best capabilities to handle calls of said service type; and
forwarding said incoming call from said receiving terminal to said suitable destination terminal.
4. A destination terminal selecting arrangement suitable for use in a telecommunication system wherein an incoming call received in a receiving terminal has to be routed to a suitable destination terminal, said destination terminal selecting arrangement comprising:
terminal registration means, coupled to a first input terminal of said destination terminal selecting arrangement and adapted to register presence and capabilities of a plurality of terminals within a certain area including said suitable destination terminal and said receiving terminal;
type notification receiving means, coupled to a second input terminal of said destination terminal selecting device and adapted to receive from said receiving terminal a notification of a service type associated with said incoming call;
terminal selecting means, coupled to said terminal registration means and to said type notification receiving means, and adapted to select said suitable destination terminal as being a terminal amongst said plurality of terminals with best capabilities to handle calls of said service type of said incoming call; and
address notifying means, coupled between to said terminal selecting means and an output terminal of said destination terminal selecting arrangement, and adapted to provide notification of an address of said suitable destination terminal to said receiving terminal.
3. A receiving terminal suitable to receive in a telecommunication network an incoming call and to route said incoming call to a suitable destination terminal, said receiving terminal comprising:
call receiving means, coupled to a first input terminal of said receiving terminal and adapted to receive said incoming call;
call forwarding means, coupled between to said call receiving means and a first output terminal of said receiving terminal, and adapted to forward said incoming call to said suitable destination terminal;
presence notification means, coupled with its output to a second output terminal of said receiving terminal and adapted to provide notification of presence and capabilities of said receiving terminal to a destination terminal selecting device which is able to register presence and capabilities of terminals within a certain area;
type detection means, coupled to said call receiving means and adapted to detect a service type associated with said incoming call;
type notification means, coupled between to said type detection means and a third output terminal of said receiving terminal, and adapted to provide notification of said service type of said incoming call to said destination terminal selecting arrangement device; and
address receiving means, coupled to a second input terminal of said receiving terminal and having an output coupled to a control input of said call forwarding means, said address receiving means being adapted to receive an address of said suitable destination terminal from said destination terminal selecting arrangement device and to apply said address to said call forwarding means.
5. A destination terminal selecting arrangement according to
6. A destination terminal selecting arrangement according to
7. A destination terminal selecting arrangement according to
8. A telecommunication system comprising:
a plurality of terminals interconnected via a network of links and network nodes,
at least one receiving terminal as defined in
at least one destination terminal selecting arrangement.
0. 10. The network element of claim 9, wherein said network element is a switching node.
0. 11. The network element of claim 17, further comprising a de-registration unit coupled to said terminal registration unit and configured to automatically de-register a terminal amongst said plurality of terminals that does not provide notification of its presence in said area to said network element during a certain time interval.
0. 12. The network element of claim 9, wherein the destination terminal is selected based on having the best capabilities for handling the call.
0. 13. The network element of claim 9, wherein said destination terminal is configured to confirm receipt of the call to said source terminal.
0. 15. The method of claim 14, wherein said destination terminal is selected based on having the best capabilities for handling the call.
0. 16. The method of claim 14, wherein said destination terminal is configured to confirm receipt of the call to said source terminal.
0. 17. The network element of claim 9, further comprising a terminal registration unit configured to register presence and capabilities of the plurality of terminals within a certain area.
0. 18. The method of claim 14, further comprising registering, at said network element, presence and capabilities of said plurality of terminals.
0. 20. The receiving terminal of claim 19, further comprising a presence notification unit configured to provide notification of presence and capabilities of the receiving terminal to the destination terminal selecting device which is configured to register presence and capabilities of terminals within a certain area.
0. 22. The method of claim 21, further comprising:
the receiving terminal providing notification of presence and capabilities of the receiving terminal to the destination terminal selecting device which is configured to register presence and capabilities of terminals within a certain area.
0. 23. The network element of claim 9, wherein the network element is a node of a telecommunication system.
0. 24. The network element of claim 9, wherein the network element is incorporated in a terminal.
0. 26. The method of claim 25, further comprising:
the mobile terminal indicating the service type to a terminal selecting unit, wherein the terminal selecting unit selects the suitable one of the plurality of destination terminals; and
the mobile terminal receiving an address of the suitable destination terminal from the terminal selecting unit, wherein the incoming call is forwarded to the received address.
0. 27. The method of claim 26, wherein the terminal selecting unit is configured to register presence and capabilities of the plurality of destination terminals.
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The present invention relates to a method to route in a telecommunication system an incoming call to a suitable destination terminal a related method to select the suitable destination terminal, a receiving terminal able to perform the method to route the call defined in, a destination terminal selecting arrangement able to perform the method to select the suitable destination terminal, and a telecommunication system including such a receiving terminal and such a destination terminal selecting arrangement.
Such a method to route an incoming call to a suitable destination terminal and related equipment are already known in the art, e.g. from the U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,382 entitled ‘Telecommunication system having capability of notifying the occurrence of forwarding of an incoming call to a terminal’. Therein,
It is an object of he present invention to provide a method to forward a call to a suitable destination terminal and equipment to perform this method as described above, but wherein a call coming in on a received terminal is forwarded to the most suitable destination terminal whereto the call may be forwarded, so that calls are always received with the highest possible quality.
According to the invention, this object is achieved by the method to route an incoming call from a receiving terminal to a destination terminal as defined in claim 1, the method to select a suitable destination terminal as defined by claim 2, the receiving terminal able to perform the method to route an incoming call as defined in claim 3, the destination terminal selecting arrangement able to perform the method of selecting a suitable destination terminal as defined in claim 4, and the telecommunication system including such a receiving terminal and such a destination terminal selecting arrangement as defined in claim 8.
Indeed, if all terminals within a certain area register their presence and capabilities with a destination terminal selecting arrangement, this destination terminal selecting arrangement is able to select within a certain area the terminal with the best capabilities to handle an incoming call. A terminal which receives an incoming call thereto determines the type of service where the call belongs to, for example a fax call or an electronic mail, and indicates to the destination terminal selecting arrangement the type of call it has received. The destination terminal selecting arrangement thereupon determines the most suitable terminal within the area of the receiving terminal to handle the call and informs the receiving terminal about the address of this most suitable terminal so that the receiving terminal can forward the incoming call to the address of the most suitable terminal, thereby ensuring a high quality receipt of the call. Summarising, according to the present invention, incoming calls are intelligently forwarded to the most suitable destination terminal after a decision where to forward the call, based on the type of service that is associated with the incoming call, has been taken by an arrangement that collects terminal capabilities information.
It is to be noted that the term ‘area’ used in the claims and throughout the remainder of the description does not necessarily mean a geographical area with limited boundaries. An area, according to the present invention, is a collection of terminals which are allowed to transfer calls between one another by their owners. Thus, the fixed and mobile telephone terminals, owned by a single person and able to receive voice calls, the facsimile terminal of this person's secretary, able to receive fax calls, and the personal computer of this person's neighbour or employer, able to receive data files and electronic mail, may belong to the same area although their physical locations can differ widely.
A Another remark is that the term ‘call’ used in the claims should not be interpreted as covering circuit switched communication only. Any service request, like for instance a request for an internet-like multimedia service is meant to fall within the scope of the term ‘call’.
It is also to be noticed that the term ‘comprising’, used in the claims, should not be interpreted as being limitative to the means listed thereafter. Thus, the scope of the expression ‘a device comprising means A and B’ should not be limited to devices consisting only of components A and B. It means that with respect to the present invention, the only relevant components of the device are A and B.
Similarly, it is to be noticed that the term ‘coupled’, also used in the claims, should not be interpreted as being limitative to direct connections only. Thus, the scope of the expression ‘a device A coupled to a device B’ should not be limited to devices or systems wherein an output of device A is directly connected to an input of device B. It means that there exists a path between an output of A and an input of B which may be a path including other devices or means.
An additional feature of the destination terminal selecting arrangement according to the present invention is defined in claim 5.
In this way, by automatically de-registering terminals which have not confirmed their presence in a certain area during a predetermined time interval, it is avoided that the terminal registration memory of the destination terminal selecting arrangement contains invalid information leading to call transfers to terminals which are no longer present within the area wherein a call has to be forwarded.
Another feature of the destination terminal selecting arrangement according to the present invention is defined by claim 6.
Indeed, the destination terminal selecting arrangement can be special hardware equipment or software which can run on any device, allowing this device to become destination terminal selector for one or more area's. The in hardware or software implemented destination terminal selecting arrangement for example may be integrated in a network switching node as indicated by claim 6 or in a terminal as indicated by claim 7.
The above mentioned and other objects and features of the invention will become more apparent and the invention itself will be best understood by referring to the following description of an embodiment taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein:
The telecommunication system TELECOM_SYSTEM of
The handling of an incoming call according to the present invention is illustrated by the numbered arrows 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The facsimile terminal FAX_T, the broadband terminal BB_T and the mobile terminal MOB_T are supposed to belong to the same area. In the light of the present invention, this does not necessarily imply that the facsimile terminal FAX_T, the broadband terminal BB_T and the mobile terminal MOB_T belong to the same owner or are located within a geographical area with limited distances. The facsimile terminal FAX_T, the broadband terminal BB_T and the mobile terminal MOB_T are said to belong to the same area because one of these terminals is allowed to handle a call received by another terminal or, in other words, a call received by one of these terminals may be forwarded to another terminal. The mobile terminal MOB_T may for instance be possessed by an individual person, whereas the facsimile terminal FAX_T belongs to this person's secretary and the broadband terminal BB_T is a portable PC owned by the person's employer. The facsimile terminal FAX_T, the broadband terminal BB_T and the mobile terminal MOB_T each register their presence within the already mentioned area to the presence gatherer PRES_GATH via registration messages sent thereto. The registration of the facsimile terminal FAX_T, the broadband terminal BB_T and the mobile terminal MOB_T is indicated by the arrow with label 1 in
In
The elements of the mobile terminal MOB_T of
The presence notification unit PRES_NOT is provided with an output terminal coupled to a first output terminal of the mobile terminal MOB_T. The call receiving unit CALL_RX, the type detection unit TYPE_DET and the type notification unit TYPE_NOT are cascade coupled between a first input terminal of the mobile terminal MOB_T and a second output terminal thereof. The call receiving unit CALL_RX further is equipped with a terminal interconnected with an input terminal of the call forwarding unit CALL_FW, and the latter call forwarding unit CALL_FW is via its output coupled to a third output terminal of the mobile terminal MOB_T. A second input terminal of the mobile terminal MOB_T serves as input terminal for the address receiving unit ADD_RX, which further has an output terminal coupled to a control input of the call forwarding unit CALL_FW. A skilled person will appreciate that in a realistic implementation of the mobile terminal MOB_T the two input terminals on the one hand and the three output terminals on the other hand are combined into respectively a single input terminal and a single output terminal. To clarify the role of the different units drawn in
The presence notification unit PRES_NOT regularly sends a registration message to the presence gatherer PRES_GATH to indicate its presence within a first area where also the facsimile terminal FAX_T and the broadband terminal BB_T of
The essential elements of the presence gatherer PRES_GATH of
An input terminal of the terminal registration memory T_REG is coupled to a first input terminal of the presence gatherer PRES_GATH. The terminal registration memory T_REG further is equipped with an output terminal coupled to a first input terminal of the terminal selecting unit T_SEL whose output is coupled to the output terminal of the presence gatherer PRES_GATH via the address notification unit ADD_NOT. The type receiving unit TYPE_RX is coupled between a second input terminal of the presence gatherer PRES_GATH and a second input terminal of the terminal selecting unit T_SEL.
The terminal registration memory T_REG has received a registration message from the facsimile terminal FAX_T in
Although the presence gatherer PRES_GATH of
It is further noticed that, although not drawn in
It is also noticed that embodiments of the present invention wherein the call forwarding unit CALL_FW is not comprised by the receiving terminal MOB_T but integrated in a network element or even in the presence gatherer PRES_GATH, for instance a switching node, can be thought off of. If the call forwarding unit forms part of such a network element, the address of the destination terminal FAX_T of course does not have to be notified to the receiving terminal but should be applied to the network element where the call forwarding unit CALL_FW is integrated in. If the call id is forwarded to the destination terminal FAX_T by a network element, this network element or the destination terminal FAX_T may confirm receipt of the call to the receiving terminal MOB_T so that the latter becomes aware of the fact that the call has been handled well.
Also a remark is that the above mentioned services, i.e. mobile telephony, facsimile, e-mail, internet-like service requests, data file traffic and the short message service are only given by way of example and certainly do not limit the applicability of the present invention. Any terminal, like for example a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) terminal, a screenphone, a television, and so on, is adapted to make use of the advantageous call routing technique according to the present invention when equipped with the elements drawn in
Furthermore, it is remarked that an embodiment of the present invention is described above in terms of functional blocks. From the functional description of these blocks it will be obvious for a person skilled in the art of designing electronic devices how embodiments of these blocks can be manufactured with well-known electronic components. A detailed architecture of the contents of the functional blocks hence is not given.
While the principles of the invention have been described above in connection with specific apparatus, it is to be clearly understood that this description is made only by way of example and not as a limitation on the scope of the invention.
Peters, Marco Johannes Hubertus, Vosters, Jean
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Executed on | Assignor | Assignee | Conveyance | Frame | Reel | Doc |
Nov 30 1999 | PETERS, MARCO JOHANNES HUBERTUS | Alcatel | ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 024751 | /0178 | |
Nov 30 1999 | VOSTERS, JEAN | Alcatel | ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 024751 | /0178 | |
Dec 01 2004 | Naxos Data LLC | (assignment on the face of the patent) | / | |||
Oct 06 2005 | Alcatel | Naxos Data LLC | ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 018826 | /0756 | |
Aug 14 2015 | Naxos Data LLC | Xylon LLC | MERGER SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 036503 | /0550 |
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