Patent Application
20090164587
The present invention relates to the area of group communications.
The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architecture framework for delivery of Internet protocol IP multimedia to mobile users. It was originally designed by the wireless standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GGP), and is part of the vision for evolving mobile networks beyond GSM (General System for mobile Communications). In its original formulation, 3GPP R5 (Release 5) presented an approach to deliver Internet services over GPRS (General Packet Radio Service). This vision was later updated by 3GPP, 3GPP2, and TISPAN (Telecoms & Internet converged Services & Protocols for Advanced Networks), which is a standard body of the ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) by requiring support of networks other than GPRS, such as for example WLAN (Wireless Local Area Networks), CDMA2000 (Code Division Multiple Access 2000), and fixed line.
One of such Internet services is the Instant Messaging (IM), which is the exchange of text messages through a software application in real-time. Generally included in the IM software is the ability to easily see the presence of contacts, i.e. to see whether a chosen friend, co-worker or buddy is online and connected through the selected service. Instant Messaging (IM) differs from ordinary mail in the immediacy of the message exchange and also makes a continued exchange simpler than sending e-mails back and forth.
The IM exchange can take various forms and be for one-to-one communication or for group communication. One-to-one communication is when one user engages in a communication session with only one recipient. Group communication refers to more than two participants engaging in a communication session.
The exchanges could be for example Push to Talk (PTT) or IM chat. PTT provides voice over IP communications for mobile users. It is a quick, one way communication service for short interactions in a one-to-one or one to many recipients' session. IM chat is text or voice messaging carried out in real time.
Currently, in group communications, an ad-hoc group can be created via the XCAP (XML Configuration Access Protocol) which allows a client application to read, write, and modify configuration data related to the communication group. When a group is inexistent, a user can still initiate a call by individually selecting callees, and initiating a group communications therewith. The group communication session takes place and on termination of the session, if any of the participants involved in the session wishes to save a pre-defined group including the list of participants involved in the session, the user would have to independently create such group.
Although there is no prior art alike the present invention, the US Patent Publication no. 2002/0110225 to Cullis bears some relation with the field of the present current invention. This US publication describes functionality for saving a telephone number in an address book at either the user or recipient's request. However, the aforementioned publication only describes saving a telephone number in an address book subsequent to a termination of a given communication, for either the user or recipient's future use, and stops short of describing the features which are part of the present invention.
Reference is made to
As it can be seen, the prior art method for carrying out a group communication is cumbersome, as it requires manual definition of a communication group, or the individual selection of recipient's telephone numbers. This is awkward for many users, especially when group communications need to be carried out repetitively, or with a large number of recipients. In particular, it is especially arduous for mobile users to use the small keypads and/or displays of their mobiles to repetitively select individual callees' Ids from their contact books, or dial multiple phone numbers, in order to establish group calls.
There is therefore no known way at present to assist a user with the creation of communication group that can be automatically and persistently stored for subsequent use.
Accordingly, in order to overcome the shortcoming of the current solutions, it would be beneficial to provide a method and server for the automatic creation by the communications network of a communications group whereby each participant is given the option to store said communications group in his/her address book. The present invention provides such a method and server.
In one aspect, the invention is a method for the creation by the communication network of a communication group based on an ad-hoc group of participants. The group that is created is given a group identifier (ID) and is sent to the communication group. Thereafter any of the communication group participants can use the ID for carrying out future group communication sessions.
In another aspect the invention is a server for detecting a group communication and the subsequent creation of a communication group with an ID.
For a more detailed understanding of the invention, for further objects and advantages thereof, reference can now be made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The innovative teachings of the present invention will be described with particular reference to various exemplary embodiments. However, it should be understood that this class of embodiments provides only a few examples of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings of the invention. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed aspects of the present invention. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others. In the drawings, like or similar elements are designated with identical reference numerals throughout the several views.
According to the present invention and its related preferred embodiments, there is provided a method, a system and a telecommunications node that assists a user in the persistent creation of a communication group. The invention allows the creation by the network of a communication group based on the individual participants to a group communication session. According to the invention, when a user initiates a group communication (e.g. group call, multi-party conference, IM chat, SMS/MMS/IMS message broadcast or the likes), participants are first selected, and when establishing the communication, during the session, or at session termination, the network can automatically create the group with the participants, assign a group identifier to the group, and transmit the group identifier to the recipients for storage and subsequent use. Upon receipt of the group identifier, the participants can use that identifier in order to facilitate future group communications.
In the context of the present invention, the term communication may designate various types of communications, including but being not limited to message-based communications alike SMS/MMS/IMS/IM/email communications, or session-based communications where actual sessions are established and held for a given period of time, such as for example voice-based communications sessions, videoconferencing communications sessions, and the likes.
Reference is now made to
The PF (204) receives all the SIP MESSAGE messages and is in charge to inspect the SIP message headers. Once successfully done, the PF (204) first verifies the sender's user preferences to determine if the sender is allowed to send an IM message. If not allowed, the PF (204) rejects the message and sends back the appropriate error response. If allowed, the PF (204) proceeds to determine where the message has to be routed and subsequently forwards the SIP MESSAGE message (224) to the Group Communication Handler Module (206) for further handling. The S-CSCF (214) proxies the message coming from the PF (204) direct to the Group Communication Handler Module (206). The Group Communication Handler Module (206) receives the SIP MESSAGE message (224). After analyzing each address the Group Communication handler module (202) may create copies (224′, 224″) of the original SIP MESSAGE message (224′) for each IMS recipient in the recipient list, i.e. for the UE-B (220) and UE-C (222) and send them to the intended recipients. Each of the new SIP MESSAGE message (224′ and 224″) is destined to one of the two intended recipients so that it is proxied by the S-CSCF (214) to the S-CSCF (216) for further analysis.
The Participating Function PF (212) receives all the SIP MESSAGE messages (224′ and 224″) and is in charge to inspect the SIP message headers. Once successfully done, the PF (212) first verifies the receiver's user preferences to determine if the receiver is allowed to receive IM messages. If not allowed, the PF (212) rejects the message and sends back the appropriate error response. If allowed, the PF (212) proceeds to determine where the message has to be routed and subsequently forwards the SIP MESSAGE (224′ and 224″) to the S-CSCF (216) where it will be sent to the end-user (based on the Request—URI) for further handling.
The SIP MESSAGE message (224′, 224″) is sent by the S-CSCF (216) and finally received by each intended recipient (i.e., UE-B (220) and UE-C (222)).
Although not shown in
In parallel with the receipt of the SIP 200 OK messages (i.e., one 200 OK message for each SIP MESSAGE message that was sent out), the Group Communication Handler Module (206), initiates the group creation. Alternatively, the Group Communication Handler Module (206) can initiate the group creation upon detecting the optional Group Creation Indicator (306), For example, upon receipt of the SIP MESSAGE message (224) by the Group Communication Handler Module (206), the Group Communication Detector (207) may detect in the SIP MESSAGE message (224′) the Group Communication Indicator (306), which triggers the formation of the communication group by the Group Communication Creator module (209). Thus, the Group Communication Creator module (209) acts to gather the participants list that includes all participants to the communication, i.e. UE-A (218), UE-B (220), and UE-C (222), and put these identities into a communication group, assigns it an alias name, i.e. a group identifier name, and then issues to the Group Identifier storage (208) a Group Identifier message (213) containing the communication group as just created. This Group Identifier Message (213) tells the Group Identifier Storage (208) to store the communication group. Once the communication group is successfully created, an advertising group message (226) containing the group identification (400) is sent out to all IMS group participants in order to inform them that the group has been created with its own unique Group ID. The advertising group message (226′, 226″, 226′″) is sent from the Group Communication Handler Module (206) to the S-CSCF (214). One advertising group message (226′″) is returned to the sender UE-A (218) whilst the other two advertising group message (226,′ 226″) are forwarded to the S-CSCF (216). The Participation Function (212) receives the advertising group messages (226′, 226″) and forwards them to the S-CSCF (216). Thereafter the advertising group message (226′, 226″) containing the group identification (400) is sent to recipients UE-B (220) and UE-C (222).
Although not shown in
Reference is now made to
The network then sends the group identifier to the group of participants (action 410) giving the option to each one to save the group identifier in his/her individual address books (action 412). The recipients will thereafter be able to use the new group identifier, instead of all the individual numbers, to carry out future communication sessions (action 414).
Although the exemplary embodiments of the present invention have been mainly described with reference to message communications, such as the SIP MESSAGE message communication, it is to be understood by those skilled in the art that the application of the present invention is not limited to the transmission of SIP messages to a communication group. For example, with reference being now made back to
Although several preferred embodiments of the method and system of the present invention have been illustrated in the accompanying Drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications and substitutions without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims.
