Patent Application
20080003941
The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same become better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Generally described, the present invention relates to a method and system for broadcasting a message over a two-way communication channel. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for identifying a group of recipient clients, and generating and transmitting a broadcast message in accordance with the profile information of each recipient client. In order to format and schedule broadcast messages, information relating to recipient clients and the broadcast message may be exchanged as part of a VoIP conversation. A VoIP conversation is a data stream of information related to a conversation, such as contextual information and voice information, exchanged over a communication channel. For example, the profile information of the recipient clients is exchanged as part of contextual information represented according to “structured hierarchies” a two-way communication channel. “Structured hierarchies,” as used herein, are predefined organizational structures for arranging contextual information to be exchanged between two or more VoIP devices. For example, structured hierarchies may be XML namespaces. Although the present invention will be described with relation to illustrative structured hierarchies and an IP telephony environment, one skilled in the relevant art will appreciate that the disclosed embodiments are illustrative in nature and should not be construed as limiting.
With reference to
Generally described, the IP telephony environment 100 may include an IP data network 108 such as the Internet, an intranet network, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), and the like. The IP telephony environment 100 may further include VoIP service providers 126, 132 providing VoIP services to VoIP clients 124, 125, 134. A VoIP call conversation may be exchanged as a stream of data packets corresponding to voice information, media information, and/or contextual information. As will be discussed in greater detail below, the contextual information includes metadata (information of information) relating to the VoIP conversation, the devices being used in the conversation, the contact point of the connected VoIP clients, and/or individuals that are identified by the contact point (e.g., employees of a company).
The IP telephony environment 100 may also include third party VoIP service providers 140. The VoIP service providers 126, 132, 140 may provide various calling features, such as incoming call-filtering, text data, voice and media data integration, and the integrated data transmission as part of a VoIP call conversation. VoIP clients 104, 124, 125, 134 may collect, maintain, and provide contextual information relating to a request signal for a communication channel. In addition, the VoIP service providers 126, 132, 140 may be any VoIP related service providers, including a call center, a customer support center, a VoIP service provider, an interactive E-commerce server, a centralized client information management server, and the like. The VoIP service providers 126, 132, 140 also collect, maintain, and provide a separated set of information (e.g., provider contextual information) for providing services (requested, self-configured) for VoIP clients 104, 124, 125, 134 communicating in a call conversation. The VoIP service providers 126, 132, 140 may route a request signal for a communication channel to an appropriate destination and contextual information which may assist the appropriate destination in providing the requested service.
VoIP service providers 132 may be coupled to a private network such as a company LAN 136, providing IP telephone services (e.g., internal calls within the private network, external calls outside of the private network, and the like) and multimedia data services to several VoIP clients 134 communicatively connected to the company LAN 136. Similarly, VoIP service providers, such as VoIP service provider 126, may be coupled to Internet Service Provider (ISP) 122, providing IP telephone services and VoIP services for clients of the ISP 122.
In one embodiment, one or more ISPs 106, 122 may be configured to provide Internet access to VoIP clients 104, 124, 125 so that the VoIP clients 104, 124, 125 can maintain conversation channels established over the Internet. The VoIP clients 104, 124, 125 connected to the ISP 106, 122 may use wired and/or wireless communication lines. Further, each VoIP client 104, 124, 125, 134 can communicate with the PSTN 112. A PSTN interface 114 such as a PSTN gateway may provide access between PSTN and the IP data network 108. The PSTN interface 114 may translate VoIP data packets into circuit switched voice traffic for PSTN and vice versa. The PSTN 112 may include a land line device 116, a mobile device 117, and the like.
Conventional voice devices, such as land line 116, may request a connection with the VoIP client based on the unique VoIP identifier of that client, and the appropriate VoIP device associated with the VoIP client will be used to establish a connection. In one example, an individual associated with the VoIP client may specify which devices are to be used in connecting a call based on a variety of conditions (e.g., connection based on the calling party, the time of day, etc.).
It is understood that the above-mentioned configuration in the environment 100 is merely exemplar. It will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art that any suitable configurations with various VoIP entities can be part of the environment 100. For example, VoIP clients 134 coupled to LAN 136 may be able to communicate with other VoIP clients 104, 124, 125, 134 with or without VoIP service providers 132 or ISP 106, 122. Further, an ISP 106, 122 can also provide VoIP services to its client.
Referring now to
The unique client identifier may be used similarly to a telephone number in PSTN. However, instead of dialing a typical telephone number to ring a specific PSTN device, such as a home phone, the unique client identifier is used to reach a contact point, such as an individual or company, which is associated with the VoIP client. Based on the arrangement of the client, the appropriate device(s) will be connected to reach the contact point. In one embodiment, each VoIP device included in the VoIP client may also have its own physical address in the network or a unique device number. For example, if an individual makes a phone call to a POTS client using a personal computer (VoIP device), the VoIP client identification number in conjunction with an IP address of the personal computer will eventually be converted into a telephone number recognizable in PSTN.
The multimedia input/output component 302 may include any suitable user input/output components such as a microphone, a video camera, a display screen, a keyboard, user biometric recognition devices, and the like. The multimedia input/output component 302 may also receive and transmit multimedia data via the network interface component 304. The network interface component 304 may support interfaces such as Ethernet interfaces, frame relay interfaces, cable interfaces, DSL interfaces, token ring interfaces, radio frequency (air interfaces), and the like. The VoIP device 300 may comprise a hardware component 306 including permanent and/or removable storage such as read-only memory devices (ROM), random access memory (RAM), hard drives, optical drives, and the like. The storage may be configured to store program instructions for controlling the operation of an operating system and/or one or more applications, and to store contextual information related to individuals (e.g., voice profiles, user biometrics information, etc.) associated with the VoIP client in which the device is included. In one embodiment, the hardware component 306 may include a VoIP interface card which allows a non-VoIP client device to transmit and receive a VoIP conversation.
The device 300 may further include a software platform component 310 for the operation of the device 300 and a VoIP service application component 308 for supporting various VoIP services. The VoIP service application component 308 may include applications such as data packet assembler/disassembler applications, a structured hierarchy parsing application, audio Coder/Decoder (CODEC), video CODEC and other suitable applications for providing VoIP services. The CODEC may use voice profiles to filter and improve incoming audio.
With reference to
There are a variety of protocols that may be selected for use in exchanging information between VoIP clients, VoIP devices, and/or VoIP service providers. For example, when Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is selected for a signaling protocol, session control information and messages will be exchanged over a SIP signaling path/channel and media streams will be exchanged over a Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) path/channel. For the purpose of discussion, a communication channel, as used herein, generally refers to any type of data or signal exchange path/channel. Thus, it will be appreciated that depending on the protocol, a connection set-up phase and a connection termination phase may require additional steps in the conversation flow 400.
For ease of explanation, consider an example in which, the first VoIP client 406 and the second VoIP client 408 each include only one VoIP device. Accordingly, the discussion provided herein will refer to connection of the two VoIP devices. The individual using the device of the first VoIP client 406 may select or enter the unique VoIP identifier of the client that is to be called. Provider 1402 receives the request from the device of the first VoIP client 408 and determines a terminating service provider (e.g., Provider 2404 of the second VoIP client 408) based on the unique VoIP identifier included in the request. The request is then forwarded to Provider 2404. This call initiation will be forwarded to the device of the second VoIP client. A conversation channel between the device of the first VoIP client 406 and a device of the second VoIP client 408 can then be established.
In an illustrative embodiment, before the devices of the first VoIP client 406 and the second VoIP client 408 begin to exchange data packets, contextual information may be exchanged. As will be discussed in a greater detail below, the contextual information may be packetized in accordance with a predefined structure that is associated with the conversation. Any device associated with the first VoIP client 406, the service provider of the first VoIP client 406, or a different device/service provider may determine the structure based on the content of the contextual information. In one embodiment, the exchanged contextual information may include information relating to the calling VoIP client 406, the device, and the VoIP client 408 being called.
Available media types, rules of the calling client and/or the client being called, and the like, may also be part of the contextual information that is exchanged during the connection set-up phase. The contextual information may be processed and collected by one of the devices of the first VoIP client 406, one of the devices of the second VoIP client 408, and/or by the VoIP service providers (e.g., Provider 1402 and Provider 2404), depending on the nature of the contextual information. In one embodiment, the VoIP service providers 402, 404 may add/delete some information to/from the client's contextual information before forwarding the contextual information.
In response to a request to initiate a conversation channel, the second VoIP client 408 may accept the request for establishing a conversation channel or execute other appropriate actions such as rejecting the request via Provider 2404. The appropriate actions may be determined based on the obtained contextual information. When a conversation channel is established, a device of the first VoIP client 406 and a device of the second VoIP client 408 start communicating with each other by exchanging data packets. As will be described in greater detail below, the data packets, including conversation data packets and contextual data packets, are communicated over the established conversation channel between the connected devices.
Conversation data packets carry data related to a conversation, for example, a voice data packet, or multimedia data packet. Contextual data packets carry information relating to data other than the conversation data. Once the conversation channel is established, either the first VoIP client 406 or the second VoIP client 408 can request to terminate the conversation channel. Some contextual information may be exchanged between the first VoIP client 406 and the second VoIP client 408 after the termination.
In one embodiment of the present invention, a structured hierarchy may be predefined for communicating contextual information over a VoIP conversation channel. The contextual information may include any information relating to VoIP clients, VoIP devices, conversation channel connections (e.g., call basics), conversation context (e.g., call context), and the like. More specifically, the contextual information may include client preference, client rules, client's location (e.g., user location, device location, etc.), biometrics information, the client's confidential information, VoIP device's functionality, VoIP service provider's information, media type, media parameters, calling number priority, keywords, information relating to application files, and the like. The contextual information may be processed and collected at each VoIP client and/or the VoIP service providers depending on the nature of the contextual data. In one aspect, the VoIP service providers may add, modify and/or delete the VoIP client's contextual data before forwarding the contextual information. For example, the client's confidential information will be deleted by the VoIP service provider associated with that client unless the client authorizes such information to be transmitted. In some cases, a minimal amount of contextual information is transmitted outside of an intranet network.
With reference to
In another embodiment, each VoIP client may have a set of predefined structured hierarchies stored in a local storage of any devices or a dedicated local storage which all devices can share. The predefined structured hierarchies may be declared and agreed upon between VoIP clients before contextual information is exchanged. In this manner, the need to provide the structure of the contextual data packets may be eliminated and thus the amount of transmitted data packets corresponding to the contextual data is reduced. Further, by employing the predefined structured hierarchies, data packets can be transmitted in a manner which is independent of hardware and/or software.
Upon retrieving the identified structured hierarchy, VoIP Client 608 is expecting to receive a data stream in which data packets corresponding to the data stream are defined according to the identified structured hierarchies. VoIP Client 606 can begin sending contextual information represented in accordance with the identified structured hierarchies. In one embodiment, VoIP Client 608 starts a data binding process with respect to the contextual information. For example, instances of the identified structured hierarchies may be constructed with the received contextual information.
With reference to
For discussion purposes, assume that a city emergency center contacted a call center for an emergency broadcasting about a flood in a river. Upon receipt of the request, the call center composes the content of a message (e.g., flood warning). The call center may need additional information, for example profile information of recipient clients, a set of rules indicating which group of clients should be notified first, with what level of detail, etc. The call center may obtain such necessary information from the city emergency center. Based on this information, the call center may identify several groups of clients who should receive the flood warning message. A first group of clients may be clients traveling or residing near the flooded area. A second group of clients may be clients who can be influenced by the flood within an hour, and so on.
In an illustrative embodiment, the call center generates a broadcast message which is formulated for each group and/or each client. Specifically, each client may have a limited number of devices currently available for receiving a broadcast message. In one embodiment, a broadcast message may be formulated based on the functionality of at least one available device of each client. For example, Bob, a client of the call center, forgot to bring his mobile phone but has a laptop with him. The call center may formulate and send a broadcast message to Bob's laptop. Upon receipt of the message, Bob tries to contact the call center to ask a safe direction which will lead away from the flood. The call center may route Bob to a contact (e.g., agent, Interactive Voice Recognition System (IVRS), operator, etc.) of the call center, a third party service provider, or a public help center which is ready for further assistance.
Referring to
Referring to
In one embodiment, SP 610 has already obtained contextual information including priority information from the authorized party 612 (which requested to broadcast messages). Further, SP 610 may maintain own priority information corresponding to VoIP clients. As will be described in greater detail below, it is contemplated that structured hierarchies are utilized to carry contextual information (contextual data packets) between several VoIP entities in this illustrative embodiment. SP 610 processes the contextual information to identify what information will be further collected and which appropriate source will be contacted or queried, to obtain the identified information. However, the initial contextual information obtained from the authorized party 612 may be sufficient enough for SP 610 to broadcast messages. In some instances, several message broadcasts to clients may be necessary. With each broadcast, the size or scope of the recipient clients and/or content of the messages may vary. The authorized party 612 may provide contextual information including a set of rules which specify how to format, schedule, and transmit messages to clients. For example, a flood message may be read in Spanish for end users who have specified Spanish language preferences. Alternatively, a flood message for a first device may be formatted to be in combination of an audible alarm and a text message while a flood message for a second device may be formatted to be a voice recording based on the set of rules.
Further, SP 610 can request the identified information necessary for message broadcast and obtain the information from a third party SP. SP 610 and the third party may exchange more information, including the client's contextual information relating to the VoIP Client 606, 607, 608. In an illustrative embodiment, upon receipt of the request, SP 610 obtains (or collects) any readily available contextual information, for example, previously obtained contextual information related to VoIP Client 606, devices, previous communications, service history, and the like, from its database.
In one embodiment, the structured hierarchies may be defined by Extensible Markup Language (XML). However, it is to be appreciated that the structured hierarchies can be defined by any language suitable for implementing and maintaining extensible structured hierarchies. Generally described, XML is well known for a cross-platform, software and hardware independent tool for transmitting information. Further, XML maintains its data as a hierarchically-structured tree of nodes, each node comprising a tag that may contain descriptive attributes. Typically, XML namespace is provided to give the namespace a unique name. In some instances, the namespace may be used as a pointer to a centralized location containing default information about the namespace.
In accordance with an illustrative embodiment, while the communication channel is being established, VoIP Client 606 may identify a XML namespace for contextual information. For example, the XML namespace attribute may be placed in the start tag of a sending element. It is to be understood that XML namespaces, attributes, and classes illustrated herein are provided merely as an example of structured hierarchies used in conjunction with various embodiments of the present invention. After SP 610 receives the XML namespace information, the VoIP Client 606 transmits a set of contextual data packets, defined in accordance with the identified XML namespace, to SP 610. When a namespace is defined in the start tag of an element, all child elements with the same prefix are associated with the same namespace. As such, SP 610 and VoIP Client 606 can transmit contextual information without including prefixes in all the child elements, thereby reducing the amount of data packets transmitted for the contextual information. Likewise, VoIP Client 608 and the third party 620 exchange the XML namespace information and a set of contextual data packets, defined in accordance with the identified XML namespace.
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
With reference to
Beginning at block 902, the service provider may detect a request for broadcasting messages. The request for broadcasting messages may be received from an authorized third party such as an EB third party, another service provider, a client, etc. Further, the request for broadcasting messages can be triggered upon detection of certain events in the service provider. At decision block 904, it is determined as to whether the request is from a third party. If it is determined at decision block 904 that the request is triggered by some events in the service provider, at block 906, the service provider collects information necessary to formulate messages. In one embodiment, the service provider may have a predefined set of events which will trigger a broadcast message to its clients. For example, the service provider may have predefined a set of rules specifying that if a possible cable failure event is detected, it will trigger a broadcast message to a group of clients who can be affected by the cable failure.
If it is determined that the request is from the third party, at block 908, the service provider receives information relating to a message from the third party. As mentioned above, the third party may include an EB third party, another service provider, a client, etc. In one embodiment, the information relating to a message may include the content of the message, priority information, scheduling information, duration of the broadcast, escalating message information, etc. In an illustrative embodiment, each EB third party may have different levels or sub-levels of priority based on a current emergency situation, an individual user's member ranking, or the like. Further, the service provider can obtain priority information from various sources. For example, the service provider may obtain its corresponding priority information from a centralized repository such as a centralized database server which may be centrally managed by either public or private entities. Alternatively, the service provider may obtain priority information from another service provider. It is contemplated that the service provider may have some logic to resolve any conflict among the information received from various sources.
At block 910, the content of the message may be composed based on collected or received information. At block 912, at least one group of clients (recipient clients) may be identified to receive several messages relating to the request of broadcasting messages. For example, a service provider decides to inform every client about a temporary bandwidth problem, but decides to broadcast a different message to its employees which instruct the employees not to burden the system's bandwidth. In this case, the content of a first message may be related to a temporary bandwidth problem; the content of a second message may be related to an instruction not to burden the system's bandwidth. Based on the content of the messages, two groups (a general client group and an employee group) may be identified.
At block 914, a broadcast message may be formulated for each identified group via formatting message subroutine 1000. As will be discussed in greater detail below, in some cases, a broadcast message may be formulated for each client based on client profile information such as capability and functionality of each client's devices, priority, etc. At block 916, the formulated broadcast messages may be transmitted to their destinations. Based on the priority information, the formulated broadcast messages may be scheduled for an orderly transmission of messages to clients. For example, the service provider has composed content of messages for three different groups having different priority levels. The service provider determines a priority level of each group and, based on the priority level of each group, determine a schedule to transmit a message. As such, the service provider may ensure that clients with a higher priority may be able to receive the broadcast messages before clients with a lower priority may. Upon receipt of the broadcast message, any recipient client may send a proper response to the service provider. For example, a proper response can be a simple confirmation of receipt of the broadcast message, a request for a service, a request for a conversation, etc. At block 920, the service provider may perform appropriate actions based on the received response. For example, if the response is a request to communicate with a third party, a digital voice channel connection will be routed to the third party and the digital voice channel connection is established between the third party and the corresponding recipient client. If the response indicates that the broadcast message failed to reach the corresponding recipient client, the broadcast message is transmitted via an alternative path. The routine 900 terminates at block 922.
It is to be understood that the embodiments explained in conjunction with the routine 900 are provided merely for example purposes. In one embodiment, a VoIP device may send a request to broadcast a message upon detection of problems without any human interaction. It is contemplated that the routine 900 can also be performed by a VoIP device acting as a hub for broadcasting. For example, a service provider can designate a VoIP device to propagate a message to other VoIP devices, to collect responses from other VoIP devices, and to provide the collected responses to the service provider. In this example, the service provider may act like a third party within routine 900. The designated VoIP device may receive a two-way broadcast message with a request to propagate (relay) the message from an originator which includes, but is not limited to, a service provider (e.g., an authorized call center) or other VoIP devices. The VoIP device may process the received broadcast message and determines an appropriate action. A user of the VoIP device may provide a proper input for propagating the messages. In some instances, a user of the VoIP device may reject the request to propagate. The VoIP device may compose content of a device broadcast message which is suitable for a transmission among devices. Subsequently, the VoIP device may determine a group of VoIP devices where the device broadcast message is transmitted based on a set of rules or instructions embedded in the messages. For example, the designated VoIP device may be requested to propagate the message to any VoIP devices located within 4 miles from the designate VoIP device. Additionally, the designated VoIP device may be requested to propagate the message to VoIP devices which are specified by the instructions. In one embodiment, the VoIP device may format a device broadcast message suitable for being received by each device from the group of VoIP devices. The VoIP device transmits the device broadcast message to its corresponding device. Alternatively, the VoIP device may simply forward the received messages to the group of VoIP devices. Subsequently, the VoIP device may receive responses from the group of VoIP devices and forward the responses to the originator. For example, when the VoIP device receives a confirmation of receipt about the device broadcast message, the VoIP device forwards the received confirmation to the originator.
Beginning at block 1002, after at least one group of clients has been identified, a priority level of a client from the identified group may be determined. In one embodiment, several messages may be composed for the same group of clients. For example, in order to ensure that a client receives at least one message, a second message may be sent to the client within a predetermined period after a first message has been sent. For another example, several messages have been composed for subsets of a group of clients with a specified escalation level. Each message may be escalated differently for each subset of the group. Considering the example discussed in
It is determined, at block 1004, which device of the client is appropriate to receive a message. At decision block 1006, a determination is made as to whether the appropriate device is available to receive a message. If it is determined at decision block 1006 that the appropriate device is available to receive a message, at block 1016, a message may be formatted suitable for the appropriate device receiving it. For example, in the client profile a certain device has been designated for receiving an emergency message. That device may be an appropriate device for the client. In case, the appropriate device has limited functionality (e.g., only able to communicate simple text information), the message will be formulated accordingly. In some cases, the simple text information may not be enough to notify a client of a certain event. In such a case, the simple text information may be sent to the appropriate device and a more detail message may be sent to another device of the client which has proper applications or functionality to process and/or display the detailed message. The simple text message may be used to notify the client to access another device which has received the detailed messages.
If it is determined at decision block 1006 that the appropriate device is not available, at block 1008, a set of rules specifying alternative paths for the client may be retrieved, or obtained. At block 1010, an alternative path to deliver the message to the client may be determined based on the set of rules. For example, the service provider may identify another client which can repeatedly forward the message to the client. Alternatively, the service provider may identify another client which can walk to inform the client due to proximity in geographic location. For example, Bob can walk over to Sara's office and tell her about the message. In some cases, the client may have designated a secondary contact for an emergency situation. In that case, the service provider may identify the secondary contact for the client. At block 1012, a message is formatted based on the determined alternative path.
After a message(s) is formatted for the client, at block 1014, a schedule for the message(s) will be determined. In one embodiment, when the messages are formatted, the messages are scheduled such that each recipient client is ensured to receive at least one message via its devices. In addition, broadcast messages can be scheduled based on priority information of the recipient clients. As such, the schedule can be determined based on a priority of the client among its associated group, a priority of the message(s) for a client, etc. In one embodiment, formatted messages may be queued in accordance with the schedule and be transmitted in order within the queue. The formatting message subroutine 1000 returns formatted messages and then terminates at block 1016.
While illustrative embodiments have been illustrated and described, it will be appreciated that various changes can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
