This application is related to the application entitled “System and Method for Remote Dialable Number Conversion” by Jeffrey Mikan, George S. Creigh, & Kenneth D. Heil filed concurrently with the present application.
This invention relates to the field of mobile telecommunications, and more specifically, a system for and method of providing a text to dialable number conversion function.
The world is currently experiencing a telecommunications revolution. The days of everyone communicating solely over land lines, i.e. the public switched telephone network or PSTN, have long past. Mobile telecommunications has established itself as the future of telecommunications. With this evolution in telephony comes a need to change the way that people interact with telephonic devices.
The standard PSTN terminal, the desktop telephone with the familiar 12 key dial pad, was the paradigm for which initial mobile devices were built. Since the 1980's cellular telephones have been built around the 12 key dial pad comprising the digits 0–9 and the characters, “*” and “#”. The digits on the dial pad are respectively associated with three or more alphabetic characters. For example, the number 2 is associated with the characters “A”, “B”, and “C”. This is a useful feature for those wishing to provide a simple to remember word for their telephone number. For example, AT&T long distance uses the phone number 1-800-225-5288 which is the equivalent of 1-800-CALL-ATT.
While it is easy to remember this phrase for reaching AT&T, dialing the number required a user to pay careful attention to the small alpha characters on the keypad in order to enter the telephone number. This is enough of a challenge on a standard desktop phone, but when this must be performed on a small mobile telephone keypad, the task becomes much more difficult.
As mobile device design shifts away from the desktop paradigm, the keypad is often being replaced or augmented by other text entry methods. For example, many mobile platforms today have a full alphanumeric keypad installed or permit entry of text via pen strokes, e.g. a graffiti entry system on PalmOS mobile devices. Although these modem mobile platforms have the alternate entry means of an alphanumeric keypad or graffiti, users are still required to utilize the 12 digit keypad to painfully, manually convert text based phone numbers to numeric phone numbers.
The present invention is directed to overcoming the one or more problems identified above.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a mobile platform for use in a mobile communications network is disclosed. The mobile platform includes an alphanumeric input device adapted to receive alphanumeric input from a user as an input alphanumeric string; memory; and a processor coupled to the alphanumeric input device and the memory. The processor receives the input alphanumeric string; replaces one or more characters within the input alphanumeric string with its numeric equivalent to generate an output numeric string; and initiates a dialed call using the output numeric string.
In accordance with an additional embodiment of the present invention, a method of converting an alphanumeric input string into a numeric input string for dialing a called number is described. The method receives the input alphanumeric string; replaces one or more characters within the input alphanumeric string with its numeric equivalent to generate an output numeric string; and initiates a dialed call using the output numeric string.
The foregoing summarizes only a few aspects of the invention and is not intended to be reflective of the full scope of the invention as claimed. Additional features and advantages of the invention are set forth in the following description, may be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practicing the invention. Moreover, both the foregoing summary and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate one embodiment of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Reference will now be made in detail to the present exemplary embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawings to refer to the same or like parts.
The text to dialable number conversion system according to embodiments of the present invention take an input string of alphanumeric characters and converts the non-numeric characters into numbers, resulting in an output string of purely dialable numbers. The conversion system may be resident on the mobile platform or located on some remote platform, for example, a network switch, message server, WAP application server, or Internet application server. Once the conversion is performed, either locally within the platform or remote, the converted numeric string is utilized to dial the telephone number of a called party.
The mobile switching system 105, in addition to being in communication with a PSTN (not shown), may be in communication with one or more of the following devices: an SMS (Short Message Service) or Mobitex Message Server 125 via Message Gateway 120; a WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) Server 115 via WAP Gateway 110; or an Internet Application Server 155 via Internet 140 and Firewall 135. The text to dialable number conversion system may operate solely in the mobile platform 150, or may be made available in one or more of the Message Server 125, the WAP Application Server 115, and/or the Internet Application Server 140.
The operating system 205 receives the input from the alphanumeric device and provides it to conversion application 215. Conversion application 215 converts the alphanumeric string to a numeric string based on a set of rules to be discussed in a later portion of the present description. Once converted, the numeric string is returned to the operating system 205 for use in dialing a called party. In some embodiments of the present invention, the conversion may occur after the string has been completely entered, while in other embodiments conversion may occur as the string is entered, i.e, on the fly conversion. In alternative embodiments of the invention, the converted characters may be displayed on a screen for the user to view.
In certain embodiments of the present invention, the mobile device may not contain a conversion application, and conversion may be performed remotely.
At stage 630, a check is made to see if anymore characters remain in the string. While there are characters in the string, at stage 640 the next character position is selected and flow continues to stage 625. When the end of the string is reached, at stage 635 the converted numeric string is returned.
Embodiments of the present invention may be utilized where the mobile platform does not locally convert the alphanumeric string into a numeric string prior to dialing, such alternative systems are illustrated in
At stage 830, the message server returns the numeric string which is sent to the message gateway at stage 835. At stage 835, the message gateway sends the converted string, in an SMS or Mobitex message, to the switching platform. At stage 845, the switching platform sends the converted string to the mobile platform. The mobile platform then initiates a dial routine using the numeric string to dial the called party. In an alternative embodiment, the switching platform captures the returned numeric string in the SMS message and initiates the call without the need to return the numeric string to the mobile platform.
At stage 930, the WAP application server returns the numeric string associated with a WTAI (Wireless Telephony Application Interface) dial command which is sent to the WAP gateway at stage 935. At stage 935, the WAP gateway sends the WTAI command and numeric string to the switching platform. At stage 945, the switching platform sends the WTAI command and converted string to the mobile platform. The mobile platform then initiates a dial routine using the numeric string to dial the called party.
At stage 1030, the Internet application server returns the numeric string which is sent to the Internet gateway at stage 1035. At stage 1035, the Internet gateway sends the converted string to the switching platform. At stage 1045, the switching platform sends the converted string to the mobile platform. The mobile platform then initiates a dial routine using the numeric string to dial the called party. In an alternative embodiment, the switching platform captures the returned numeric string and initiates the call without the need to return the numeric string to the mobile platform.
It will be readily apparent to those skilled in this art that various changes and modifications of an obvious nature may be made, and all such changes and modifications are considered to fall within the scope of the appended claims. Other embodiments of the invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the specification and practice of the invention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification and examples be considered as exemplary only, with a true scope and spirit of the invention being indicated by the following claims and their equivalents.
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