GB2357657A

GB2357657A - Communication system

Info

Publication number: GB2357657A
Application number: GB9930227A
Authority: GB
Inventors: David Adams
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1999-12-21
Filing date: 1999-12-21
Publication date: 2001-06-27
Anticipated expiration: 2019-12-21
Also published as: GB9930227D0; GB2357657B

Abstract

A method for communicating between an internet user and a person remote from the internet user, comprising the steps of receiving (54), at a web server, user data from the internet user; communicating (60) user information relating to the received user data from a first software process to a second software process; communicating (70) the portion of user information to the remote person using a non-Internet Protocol communication system, using the second software process; receiving (72) reply data from the remote person; communicating (74) reply information relating to the reply data from the second software process to the first software process; and communicating (82) the portion of the reply information to the internet user. Also disclosed is a computer program for carrying out the above and a communication system for communicating between a first person and a second person, the system comprising a web server (16) coupleable by an analogue interface to a telephone network; internet access means (12) for accessing the web server, to receive a message from the first person and to provide the message to a web server message handler; speech means (20) to produce a spoken voice message from the message received from the first person; telephone network access means (22) to dial-up the second person using the telephone network; interface means (24) to convey the voice message to and to receive a reply from the second person; and communication means (16) to convey the reply to the first person.

Description

2357657 M&C Folio: 230P81625 Document #: 462499 Communication System This

invention relates generally to communication systems and more particularly to systems and software to enable an internet user to communicate with non-internet based equipment such as a telephone.

The internet has facilitated cheap and simple global communications and for many purposes intemet-based communication such as e-mail has taken over from voice communication by telephone. Nevertheless, in order to access the internet and the communication facilities it offers, a computer or computerised equipment running web browser software is needed. This is a limitation when an internet user wishes to communicate with the person in a remote geographical location who does not have access to a computer with a web browser and a modem. It is desirable to extend the communication facilities of the internet to avoid this limitation. More generally, it is desirable to facilitate communication between a person who is not logged onto the internet and an internet user. It is ftirther desirable to extend the communication possibilities offered by the internet to people who may have difficulty in using a computer, such as blind people.

Accordingly, the present invention provides a method for communicating between an internet user and a person remote from the internet user, comprising the steps of.

i) receiving, at a web server, user data from the internet user; ii) communicating user information relating to the received user data from a first software processes; iii) communicating the portion of user information to the remote person using a non-Internet Protocol communication system, using the second software process; iv) receiving reply data from the remote person; 2 v) communicating reply information relating to the reply data from the second software process to the first software process; and vi) communicating the portion of the reply information to the internet user.

Advantageously the first and second software processes communicate by logging information in, and retrieving information from a common storage module.

Preferably, the first software process is a web server process and the second software process is a communication system server process. The web server and communication system server processes interact by means of a common storage module which allows messages to be passed between the internet and the non-IP (internet protocol) communication system. Messages may be passed either by direct signalling between the two processes or by arranging the processes to poll the storage module to determine whether or not new information which must be acted upon has been written into it. In one embodiment a web browser of the internet user polls the storage module by requesting status updates from the web server.

Preferably, the method presents a web page to the internet user, identifies a request to communicate with the remote person and then initiates a web server add-on process (WS-AP) to receive the user data. This allows the method to be readily implemented on a conventional web server without the need for significant modifications to software already present on the server. For simplicity of communication between software modules it is preferred that the step of logging the user information in the storage module creates a storage module entry identifier which can then be used by the communication system server process to retrieve the user information and to store the reply. The identifier is also usable by the web browser or server to poll to check for a reply.

Preferably the non-IP communication system is a telephone network such as a POTS (plain old telephone system), a mobile telephone network or a satellite telephone system, although other communication systems such as pager systems can be used. In a 3 preferred embodiment information is communicated to the remote person using spoken voice messages although other message types, such as the GSM Short Message Service, are also usable. When a telephone network is used the telephone number of the remote person can either be entered by the internet user or can be looked up in a database held on the server or elsewhere. In one embodiment, software identifies the requested service and one or a plurality of remote persons who might be available to supply the service and automatically selects an appropriate person to communicate with. In some embodiments the first and second software processes comprise parts of a combined software process. Thus, for example, telephone integration software can be built into the WSAP, eliminating the need for data passing or communication between separate software processes.

According to a second aspect of the invention there is provided a computer program for a web-server to, when running, provide communication between an internet user and a person remote from the internet user, the program comprising means to receive user data from the internet user including a request to communicate with the remote person; means to store information relating to the received user data in a file or database; means to signal to a telephone network access process that a request has been received ftorn the internet user; either or both of means to poll the database or file storage, and means to receive a signal from the telephone network access process that reply data has been received; means to retrieve reply data from the database or file storage; and means to communicate at least a portion of the reply data to the internet user. The program may log user data, including billing information, in the database or file storage and, advantageously, the program communicates with the telephone network access process using the database or file storage. The program comprises, in one embodiment, software for the web server to put the invention into effect.

According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a communications system for communicating between a first person and a second person, the system comprising a web server coupleable by an analogue interface to a telephone network; internet access means for accessing the web server, to receive a message from 4 the first person and to provide the message to a web server message handler; speech means to produce a spoken voice message from the message received from the first person; telephone network access means to dial-up the second person using the telephone network; interface means to convey the voice message to, and to receive a reply from, the second person; and communication means to convey the reply to the first person.

This system allows the first, intemet-based person to communicate with and receive a reply from a second person not logged on to the internet. In a simpler system, instead of a voice message being generated from the first person's message the system simply forwards an audio file containing the voice message from the first person to the second person.

The system can be arranged to allow billing for use of the communication link by storing system use statistics including details of the first person and the service or services used and providing a requested portion of this information to a billing module.

These and other aspects of the present invention will now be further described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying figures in which:

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of a web-telephone data exchange system in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; Figure 2A shows an example of the system concept as it appears to a user; Figure 2B shows an example of an HTML information request form for presentation to a user of the system of Figure 2A; Figure 3 shows a flow chart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present invention; and Figure 4 shows components of a web-telephone data exchange system.

Annex 1 is an HTML file to generate the form of Figure 2B; Annexes 2A to 2C comprise web server add-on process (WSAP) code fragments to implement an embodiment of the invention; and Annexes 3A and 3B show, respectively, code fragments for telephone server processes for querying, and for updating a relational database in which user data has been posted.

Referring to Figure 1, a web-telephone data exchange system is generally illustrated at 10. This comprises a web browser 12, coupled to a web server 16 via a TCP/IP data network 14. The link between the user's web browser and the server can be made using any standard internet technologies including POTS, mobile and satellite telephone networks, and radio frequency and cable networks. The web browser may also reside within a local or wide area network. As illustrated web server 16 is logically coupled to a database server 18 although in practice this could be physically part of the web server. Both web server 16 and database server 18 are logically coupled to CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) server 20 which provides an analogue connection 21 to PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) 22. Telephone 24 is the telephone of a person the web browser user wishes to contact, and this is also coupled to PSTN 22. Information is conununicated from web browser 12 to telephone 24 and back as generally shown by dotted paths 26 and 28. The electronic data flows are described in more detail below.

Figure 2A shows an example of the concept of the system as it appears to a user of the web browser. In the example shown, the user is able to access a service in which the user can ask request the result of mathematically operating on two numbers. The user opens a web page 30, shown in more detail in Figure 2B, enters two operands 32, 34 and selects an operator 36. In addition, in the example shown the user enters a telephone number, in field 38, to be dialled to reach a person or service who will provide the

6 answer. The user then clicks on submit button 40, which causes the webtelephone data exchange system to dial the number entered to place a call to telephone 24. Telephone 24 is answered, the user's question is posed verbally over the telephone 24 and an answer is received by the system either by interpreting speech from telephone 24 or by interpreting DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency) tones from a key pad on the telephone. Once an answer has been obtained, it is relayed to the web browser user.

Figure 3 illustrates in more detail the sequence of events taking place during the above exemplary use. The process starts 50 when the web browser user (person A) requests 52 web page 30 from web server 16. User A is presented by the web page with an option to exchange data with some other user or service provider of the system (person B) who is not required to have any internet connectivity or computer equipment. Although in the example described above, user A provides person B's telephone number, in many cases this number will be automatically provided by the system according to the service required by A.

User A enters the data required by the chosen service into fields on the web page and, by pressing the submit button 40 requests 54 communication (for the requested service or to exchange data) with B. Web server 16 receives this request, which contains information to identify 56 it to the web server as a request to be passed 58 to a web server add-on process (WSAP). The WSAP may be running on the web server itself or may be run on another computer to which the web server has access. Details of the request are examined by the WSAP and necessary information from the request is logged 60. Preferably the information is logged in a relational database management system which is either hosted by the web server or by another computer to which the web server has access, such as database server 18. Alternatively, information from the request can be logged in local or remote file storage to which the web server has access, or the information may be exchanged with another local or remote process, or it may be held in some other location.

7 As shown in Figure 3, the web server then signals 62 a TSP (Telephone Server Process), that is, the CTI of Figure 1, again running on the web server or on a separate server. Alternatively, the WSAP may start up the TSP at this point, or the TSP may be arranged to poll the database/file storage in order to ascertain that a request from A has been logged. Any standard communications protocol can be used for communication between the web server and the TSP including (but not limited to) a TWIP socket connection, a UDP (User Datagram Protocol) socket broadcast, and a higher level protocol such as a Java Remote Method Invocation, (Java RMI) instruction or a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA).

The WSAP then confirms 64 A's request by replying to A with an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) document informing A that the request is being processed. In a preferred embodiment, this document includes an instruction to A's web browser that the web browser should request the status update from the web server, if desired repeatedly after in a predetermined intervals, for example every five seconds.

When started or signalled by the WSAP as described above, the TSP originates 66 a telephone call to B. The TSP identifies the telephone number to call, either from data entered by A or from a database on the web server or from an internet-accessible source and, if necessary, records billing information including A's identity and the service requested. It then dials the telephone number for B and establishes communications with B. In one embodiment, when B answers the TSP waits for B to make a sound (for example "hello?") indicating that they have put the telephone handset to their head. The TSP then plays an introductory greeting to B and retrieves 68 the necessary part of the information entered by A. This information is relayed 70 to B (together with details of the user A as necessary), using a combination of text-to-speech synthesis, pre-recorded messages and system voice messages.

8 The TSP then captures 72 reply data from B and stores 74 this data in association with A's request in the relational database/file storage. The data from B is captured either by speech recognition, or in a simpler system, by interpreting DTMF tones generated by the key pad of B's telephone 24.

As described, the communication process has a straightforward question and answer protocol but the system can be extended to provide half or full duplex communication between A and B as necessary. In this latter case, the TSP and WSAP control the flow of prompts to A and B by interpreting inputs from A and B. The telephone call is concluded 76 either by B replacing the telephone handset or by the TSP when, for example, the sequence of prompts comes to a conclusion. At the conclusion of the call, the TSP signals the web server using any of the protocols described above, or in an alternative embodiment without such a signal, the WSAP identifies the conclusion of communication with B by polling the database/file storage to ascertain that the necessary data has been received from B. The WSAP then retrieves 78 B's data and formats 80 the data for A. Whilst the telephone exchange has been taking place, the web browser has been repeatedly requesting status updates, which the web server passes to the WSAP. Once the WSAP has the necessary information from B, it replies 82 with the information formatted according to the user's needs and the process ends 84. In this manner, data can be transferred reliably from a user's web browser to a person operating a telephone handset, and data from the telephone handset can be returned to the web browser.

Figure 4 shows software components of the web-telephone data exchange system. As illustrated these are distributed on three different computers, 16, 18 and 20 but could all reside on a single computer, for example on web server 16. The data flows illustrated correspond to the steps of Figure 3.

9 An I-ITTI request 54 is first submitted by A's web browser to web server process 90 running on web server 16. The web server process parses this request, identifies it as a servIet request and passes 58 it to servIet execution process 92, also on the web server.

ServIet execution process 92 receives details of the question being asked by A and posts 60 these to relational database 94 and signals 62 to CTI (or TSP) process 96 that this should interrogate 68 the relational database 94 to retrieve details of the question which has been asked. The request is then relayed 70 to B. Annex 1 shows an example of an HTML file which generates a web browser interface for A, in the example shown, the interface of Figure 2B. User's A web browser accesses the interface by requesting a particular URL, for example "http://q-anda/question.html", as shown in field 42 of Figure 2B. The static HTML file of Annex 1 then generates the interface shown in the example, although the skilled person will recognise that the interface could be generated by other conventional internet-based means. When user A clicks submit button 40, servIet process 92 is executed on the web server as specified by an "action" property of the HTML form.

Annex 2 (A to C) shows fragments of servIet code for the example shown. At 92a A's question is inserted in database 94 and the entry ID is obtained at 92b. The CTI server is then signalled at 92c and 92d. The servIet at 92e is repeatedly executed by the refresh (status update) event request from the browser and provides the result at 92f The CTI process request 62 is passed over a TCP/IP socket to a specified port (92d), but not until details of the request have been inserted in the database 94. The CTI process 96, which is listening on the specified port, wakes up on receiving the request. It interrogates the relational database with a simple query to retrieve details of the question being asked, as shown in the code fragment of annex 3A. Preferably, the query retrieves only a single question. The CTI process then uses the telephone number from the query result to dial up B, as shown at 70 in Figure 4, who will answer the question.

Once telephone has been answered, and A's question has been relayed to B using data to a voice synthesis provided by the CTI system, the CTI system waits for B to speak or enter DTMF tones representing the answer. In one embodiment the telephone process uses natural language processing to interpret spoken commands such as "Accepf', or Qtnumeric language" processing to interpret spoken numbers (for example, "say Qone" to Accept").

The CTI process then updates the relational database 94 (step 74 of Figure 3) as shown in the code fragment of Annex 3B. In this code fragment @ DTNIF is a variable containing key pad numbers/symbols entered by B and @REQUEST-ID is the ID field from the query which originally retrieved A's request. At this point, communication of the CTI process with B is ended and the CTI process returns to its original state, listening for a signal on its specified TCP/IP port.

Meanwhile, user A's browser has been making repeated requests to the WaitRequestProcess servIet 92e, which polls database 94 and notes when the entry status is updated to "C" (92f). The servIet then returns the answer to user A's web browser. If, alternatively, the CTI process failed as denoted by an "F" status (92g) a servIet reports this to a browser. If user A clicked a "Cancel" hyperlink within the browser page, the waiting process is cancelled (92h).

The skilled person will understand that the invention is not limited to the described embodiment. As well as simple question and answer exchanges suitable for solving maths problems or crossword clues, the system is also usable for more complex interactive transactions, for example, financial transactions, and can, if necessary, incorporate encryption and means for verifying the identity of one or more of the communicating parties. Although the system has not been described with the web browser user originating the communication, communication with a designated internet user can be originated from telephone 24 using, for example, an e-mail address. Also, although the system has been described in terms of one-to-one communication, one-to- 11 many communication and many-to-many communication is also possible in either direction.

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Claims

CLAIMS:

1. A method for communicating between an internet user and a person remote from the intemet user, comprising the steps of.

i) receiving, at a web server, user data from the internet user; ii) communicating user information relating to the received user data from a first software processes to a second software process; iii) communicating a portion of user information to the remote person using a non-Intemet Protocol communication system, using the second software process; iv) receiving reply data from the remote person; v) communicating reply information relating to the reply data from the second software process to the first software process; and vi) communicating a portion of the reply information to the internet user.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said step (ii) of communicating comprises: logging the user information in a common storage module using the first software process; and retrieving at least a portion of said logged user information from the common storage module using the second software process.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein said step (v) of communicating comprises: logging the reply information in a or the common storage module using the second software process; and retrieving at least a portion of the reply information relating to the reply data using the first software process.

4. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the first and second software processes comprise parts of a combined software process.

5. A method as claimed in any proceeding claim wherein the first software process is a web server process and wherein the second software process is a communication system server process.

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6. A method as claimed in claim 5, further comprising: signalling the communication system server process to indicate that the step of receiving user data has taken place.

7. A method as claimed in claim 5 or 6 further comprising: signalling the web server process to indicate that the step of receiving reply data has taken place.

8. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5, further comprising: polling the first or second common storage module to determine whether the step of receiving user data has taken place, or to determine whether the step of receiving reply information has taken place.

9. A method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein the web server instructs a web browser of the internet user to request a status update within a predetermined interval to determine whether the step (v) of communicating reply information has taken place.

10. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein step (i) further comprises: presenting a web page to the intemet user; identifying a request from the internet user to communicate with the remote person; and initiating a web server add-on process in response to said identifying, to receive said user data.

11. A method as claimed in any one of claims 2 to 10 wherein said step of logging the user information provides a storage module entry identifier for the user information and wherein the storage module entry identifier is used for logging the reply information.

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12. A method as claimed in claim 11, wherein the storage module entry identifier is used for retrieving the reply information.

13. A method as claimed in any preceding claim further comprising selecting from a database one of a plurality of remote persons to communicate with.

14. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the non-Intemet Protocol communication system is a telephone network and wherein the portion of user information is communicated to the remote person using a voice message.

15. A computer program, to, when running, carry out the method of any preceding claim.

16. A computer program as claimed in claim 15, stored on a computerreadable medium.

17. A computer program for a web-server to, when running, provide communication between an intemet user and a person remote from the internet user, the program comprising: means to receive user data from the internet user including a request to communicate with the remote person; means to store information relating to the received user data in a file or database; means to signal to a telephone network access process that a request has been received from the internet user; either or both of means to poll the database or file storage, and means to receive a signal from the telephone network access process that reply data has been received; means to retrieve reply data from the telephone network access process; and means to communicate at least a portion of the reply data to the internet user.

18. A computer program as claimed in claim 17, wherein the means to retrieve reply data retrieves the reply data from the database or file storage.

19. A computer program as claimed in claim 17 or 18, further comprising: means to confirm to the intemet user that the request is being processed; and means to instruct a web browser of the internet user to request a status update from the web server after a predetermined time interval.

20. A communication system comprising means to carry out the method of any one of claims 1 to 14.

21. A communication system for communicating between a first person and a second person, the system comprising: a web server coupleable by an analogue interface to a telephone network; internet access means for accessing the web server, to receive a message from the first person and to provide the message to a web server message handler; speech means to produce a spoken voice message from the message received from the first person; telephone network access means to dial-up the second person using the telephone network; interface means to convey the voice message to, and to receive a reply from, the second person; and communication means to convey the reply to the first person.

22. A communication system as claimed in claim 2 1, wherein the message handler and the telephone network access means have separate access to a common message reply data store.

23. A communication system as claimed in claim 21 or 22, wherein the communication means conveys the reply to the internet access means.

24. A communication system as claimed in claims 21, 22 or 23, further comprising: means to store billing information and system use statistics for the first person; and 16 means to provide a portion of the billing information and system use statistics to a billing module.

25. A method substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 1, 3 and 4.

26. Apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 1, 3 and 4.