GB2402295A

GB2402295A - Telecommunications services apparatus

Info

Publication number: GB2402295A
Application number: GB0311849A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Jeffrey Wilson
Original assignee: Intellprop Ltd
Current assignee: Intellprop Ltd
Priority date: 2003-05-13
Filing date: 2003-05-23
Publication date: 2004-12-01
Also published as: GB0311849D0; GB0310950D0

Abstract

A caller is able to specify, using control signals such as DTMF signals input by telephone keys, an audio clip or file to be played to the recipient during a normal voice call or to be left on a voice mail system. The control signals, detected by a DTMF detector 16, are associated with corresponding audio clips in an audio store 19. According to the identity of the detected control signals, a switch 15 allows the selected audio clip to be injected into the voice path.

Description

TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES APPARATUS

This invention concerns the field of telecommunications and in particular the areas of voice and text services.

There are many forms of voice and text messaging services in existence in telephone networks. A common form of voice messaging is known as voice mail, whereby an unsuccessful call attempt may be terminated by an equipment which can record a message from the caller, which may be later listened to be the called party.

Other messaging systems include those designed to record a message from a caller and then to distribute it to multiple recipients, either by placing a copy of the message into a mailbox associated with each of the desired recipients, or by notifying the desired recipients of the message via text or some other means so that they may dial into to listen to the recording.

Some voice mail systems provide direct access, so that a person-to-person call is not attempted. Instead the dialled call is routed directly to the voice mail system for the purpose of recording a message. The mailbox is normally reached by dialling a different number that is associated in some way with the called party's normal number.

The association may be algorithmic, e.g. insertion of a defined extra digit, or defined by a mapping held in a network database.

Some email and chat systems, which are normally text based, provide the facility for insertion of 'emoticons' or 'smileys' into a message. These are little pictograms or symbols that can indicate or modify some part of the message meaning, for example indicating that humour or some other context is intended to be understood in conjunction with the text.

The original pair of characters: ) (colon, close bracket) is known as a smiley and is generally used in text communication to indicate happiness or intended humour in some form. Many other forms of smiley are also readily recognizable such as: ( [sad] or; ) [wink]. These are readily entered and pictorially convey emotions or nuances of meaning that may be impractical to convey with words. Some word- processing programs automatically transform these pairs of characters e.g. : ) into similar symbols such as (smiley symbol). More recent implementations of chat (e.g. Yahoo) and messaging service (e.g. Nokia Enhanced Messaging Service EMS) provide the facility for small pictograms to be combined with text, providing in effect a sophisticated range of smileys.

Some text messaging services, such as those providing support for mobile to fixed network text messaging, have the facility to convert the text into speech. This allows fixed network customers who do not have a textmessage capable telephone to receive such messages in a voice call. Some of these types of system also support the conversion of a set of shorthand text words into the audio corresponding to the full word or phrase. For example the text C U L8R might be converted to the audio "see you later". Similarly a text smiley such as:) may be converted into a laugh.

Voice messaging services typically allow the recipient to modify any message that is played to callers as a greeting prior to them leaving a message. Being a voice greeting, this has scope for emotional content. Commonly, the user may use a 'celebrity greeting', which is normally a spoof message recorded by a well known voice, that purports to be the user's voice mail greeting. Alternatively the user may record his own greeting in any way he chooses.

Furthermore in some networks, significant revenue is being made from users who pay to select the ringback tone that is played to callers during the alerting period before answer, while the called terminal is ringing.

It can be seen that the recipient of a voice message has a number or options for providing personalized or emotional content for his outgoing audio, for example by using a special ringback tone or a customized voice greeting. However, the calling : , . . . ..: party leaving a voice message has no support for adding anything other than his own voice into his message.

According to an aspect of the invention there is provided a method of associating certain control signals in the forward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting said control signals from a caller, and according to the identity of the detected signals, corresponding audio is injecting into the forward audio path.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of associating certain control signals in the backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting said control signals from a called party, and according to the identity of the detected signals, corresponding audio is injecting into the backward audio path.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of associating certain control signals in the forward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting a first control signal from a caller, said control signal is removed from the forward audio path.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of associating certain control signals in the backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting a first control signal from a called party, said control signal is removed from the backward audio path.

According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a telecommunications services apparatus operable to associate certain control signals in the forward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting said control signals from a caller, and according to the identity of the detected signals, the corresponding audio is injecting into the forward audio path.

2.ei ' : c. .2 According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a telecommunications services apparatus operable to associate certain control signals in the backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting said control signals from a called party, and according to the identity of the detected signals, the corresponding audio is injecting into the backward audio path.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a telecommunications services apparatus operable to associate certain control signals in the forward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting a first control signal from a caller, said control signal is removed from the forward audio path.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a telecommunications services apparatus operable to associate certain control signals in the backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby on detecting a first control signal from a called party, said control signal is removed from the backward audio path.

The audio path may be connected to a live recipient of a voice call or may be connected to a recording system such as a voice messaging system. Clearly implementations that utilize control signals in the backward path are more suited to person to person calls that person to machine calls.

Referring to Figure 1, the apparatus is placed in the path of a voice call between a caller and a recipient. Audio from the caller (10) is passed through a delay line, and then via a switch (15) on to the recipient (11). A DTMF detector (16) detects control signals from the caller and passes them to a controller (17). The controller determines when a first control key has been pressed, and changes the switch (15) to a second position to route audio from the Audio play module (18), which initially outputs silence. Upon detection of a second control signal following the first control signal, the controller (17) causes the Audio Play module (18) to play a corresponding audio file to the recipient (11) and preferably also to the caller (13) via the summer (21) which :: .. . : À: a-. : : -.

combines the audio from the recipient (12) and the Audio Play module (18). At the end of audio play, or on a timeout in the absence of the second control signal, the switch (15) returns to the first position. Audio is provisioned to the system via a provisioning interface (20).

In an alternative embodiment utilising short (e.g. single DTMF key) control signals, the delay line may be omitted. Referring to Figure 2, the apparatus is placed in the path of a voice call between a caller and a recipient. Audio from each party (10,12) is passed to the recipient (11, 13) via a summer or switch (21) through which audio may be injected into the corresponding path. A DTMF detector (16) in each path detects control signals from the corresponding party and passes them to a controller (17). The controller determines when a control key has been pressed, and causes the Audio Play module (18) to play a corresponding audio file to the other party (11,13) and preferably also to the caller (13,1 1) via the summer or switch (21).

The caller is able to specify, preferably using first and second control signals, an audio clip or file to be played to the recipient during a normal voice call. The first control signal is preferably a DTMF *, although this could optionally be omitted in an alternative embodiment. Use of a first control signal and second control signal makes the system more robust to false control signal detection.

Referring to Figure 1, audio from the caller (10) is passed through a delay line, via a switch (15) to a recipient. The Recipient may be a live called party, or may be a voice mail system or the like.

The purpose of the delay line is to allow the first control signal from the caller to be detected and then removed from the recipient audio path (11) by the changing of switch (15). The length of the delay line should therefore be longer than the longest DTMF tone expected, which on a mobile telephone network is usually around 270 me, plus the detection and operation time for the control mechanism and switch. A delay of 300 to 400 me is appropriate. Once the switch (15) has been changed, no further audio or tones from the caller reach the recipient, until the switch is changed back. À À .

À À À . e.

À * * À À * * * À À A DTMF detector normally signals detection of a DTMF tone at the end of the detected tone. In this application, the Controller (17) is notified of detection of a first control signal at the end of the signal. The controller switches the switch (15) to the second position to route audio to the recipient from the Audio play module (18), which initially outputs silence, thereby preventing the first control signal from reaching the recipient via the delay line. The caller may then enter a second control signal, which is preferably a sequence of 2 or more DTMF digits to indicate the identity of a desired audio clip or file to be played to the recipient. On detection of a valid second control signal, the controller causes the Audio Play module to play the corresponding audio file to the recipient, and preferably also to the caller. At the end of audio play, or on a timeout in the absence of a valid second control signal, the switch (15) returns to the first position. An appropriate timeout strategy for a second control signal consisting of two or more DTMF tones would comprise a first-digit timeout and an inter- digit timeout, each of which could preferably be set to around 3 seconds.

In advance of making a call, the caller may preferably choose one or more audio smileys from a plurality of available sound effects. The list of available choices may be made known to the caller by any of a variety of media, including but not limited to advertising, a published leaflet or booklet, the web, SMS, WAP, MMS and the like.

The caller may then insert a chosen smiley into the call at a desired point by means of entry of first and second control signals. In an alternative embodiment, the first control signal may be omitted. The corresponding audio played in response to a given control signal may for example be a sound effect such as applause, cheering or a lip smack.

Advantageously, a preferred embodiment signals the end of play of an audio smiley by playing a small beep or similar signal to the caller. The beep may be played at about the same time that the switch is changed back to connect to the delay line. The caller may then resume talking, since his audio path is reconnected to the recipient.

Further advantage may be gained by alternatively playing the beep to the caller slightly in advance of the end of play of an audio smiley, and muting the remainder of the smiley played to the caller. The period of advancement may be made equal to the : e: . . À -: :.e.-e.. : I- . length of the delay line, such that if the caller resumes talking when he hears the beep, ; the start of his audio will then be synchronised with the end of the smiley (and the changing of the switch) once it has passed through the delay line. This modification] then removes the period of silence that would otherwise be heard by the recipient i between the end of the smiley and the resumption of caller audio. I An embodiment of the invention that uses a dynamically adjustable delay line is possible. This would allow for example, the period of delay to be gradually built up to a desired value, without introducing periods of silence in the audio path. l 1 It would also be possible to offer callers a voice service, possibly on a short code, so I that they may call to listen to audio smileys, perhaps before choosing which to use.

Announcements could be used to notify callers which smileys were currently most l popular.

In an alternative embodiment the invention may be optimised for use in a person to person call. In this application it is desirable that both parties should independently have access to the facility to play audio smileys to be heard by the other party.

Furthermore the period where tones are muted should be minimised or eliminated so that normal conversation is possible. To this end, the audio smileys may be preferably summed into the audio path, rather than switched, although switching is simpler and I may be acceptable in some implementations. It is also advantageous that the delay line I is eliminated to avoid interfering with normal conversation.

In a preferred embodiment as illustrated in Figure 2, single key DTMF signals are used to activate audio smileys, and the control tone is also heard by the other party, but is not found to be intrusive. Preferably, 9 keys of a telephone are usable to select one of nine smileys from one of several sets. At the start of the call, a set of 'favourites' is active by default, and the available sets may be scrolled through and automatically selected using two keys designated 'up' and 'down'. The two keys for up and down are preferably * and #. O is available for another function such as help. Preferably, the :: c ce À -. .e.- .e 1 title of each set of smileys is announced only to the selecting party each time a set is; selected.

Call setup via the apparatus may be achieved using 2-stage dialling, For example a short code may be dialled to use the service, and then the service prompts the caller, I using the controller and the audio play facility, for a B party number to be entered.

Alternatively, a shortcode prefix or a suffix to the B party number could be used to permit 1-stage dialling via the apparatus.

In so far as the embodiment(s) of the invention described above may be implemented, I at least in part, using software controlled processing apparatus, it will be appreciated I that a computer program providing such software control and a storage medium by which such a computer program is stored are envisaged as aspects of the invention. I À e.e À À À À À À À # À À À . À À À À # as. a À ,

Claims

1. Telecommunications services apparatus operable to associate certain control signals in the forward andlor backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby, on detecting said control signals from a calling and/or called party, and according to the identity of the detected signals, the corresponding audio signal is injected into the forward and/or backward voice path.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, including means operable, upon detection of a first control signal from a calling and/or called party, to remove said first control signal from the voice path.

3. Apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the control signal removing means comprises a switch operable in response to detection of said first control signal.

4. Apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the control signal removing means further comprises a delay line for delaying audio in the voice path from the calling and/or called party.

5. Apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the control signals are DTMF signals, and including a DTMF detector for detecting the DTMF signals.

6. Apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said control signals comprise a first control signal for indicating that a stored audio signal is to be injected into the voice path, and a second control signal identifying which of the stored audio signals is to be injected into the voice path.

7. Apparatus according to claim 6 when dependent on claim 5, wherein the first control signal comprises a single DTMF digit, and the second control signal comprises at least one further DTMF digit.

8. Apparatus according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising an audio store storing a plurality of audio signals, and operable to generate respective audio signals in response to corresponding control signals from the calling and/or called party. s

9. Telecommunications services apparatus operable to associate certain control signals in the forward and/or backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby, on detecting a first control signal from a calling and/or called party, said first control signal is removed from the forward and /or backward voice path.

10. Telecommunications services apparatus substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

11. A method of associating certain control signals in the forward and/or backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby, on detecting said control signals from a calling and/or called party, and according to the identity of the detected signals, the corresponding audio signal is injected into the forward and/or backward voice path.

12. A method according to claim 11, including the step of, upon detection of a first control signal from a calling and/or called party, removing said first control signal from the voice path.

13. A method according to claim 12, wherein the control signal is removed by a switch operable in response to detection of said first control signal.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein removal of the control signal includes delaying audio in the voice path from the calling and/or called party.

1 5. A method according to any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the control signals are DTMF signals, and including detection of the DTMF signals.

16. A method according to any one of claims 11 to 15, wherein said control signals comprise a first control signal for indicating that a stored audio signal is to be injected into the voice path, and a second control signal identifying which of the stored audio signals is to be injected into the voice path.

17. A method according to claim 16 when dependent on claim 15, wherein the first control signal comprises a single DTMF digit, and the second control signal comprises at least one further DTMF digit.

18. A method according to any one of claims 11 to 17, wherein an audio store storing a plurality of audio signals is operable to generate respective audio signals in response to corresponding control signals from the calling and/or called party.

19. A method of associating certain control signals in the forward and/or backward voice path in a telecommunications network with stored audio signals whereby, on detecting a first control signal from a calling and/or called party, said first control signal is removed from the forward and /or backward voice path.

20. A method substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

21. A computer program for implementing a method according to any one of claims 11 to 20.

22. A storage medium storing a computer program according to claim 21.