GB2425437A - Sending MMS/SMS messages to e-mail addresses - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention generally relates to methods, apparatus and computer program code for sending messages from a mobile communication device, such as a mobile phone, to a plurality of recipients, via the internet. The message maybe SMS/MMS (short message service/multi media service) messages. A method of updating one or more predetermined recipients with information sent from a mobile communications device, the method comprising: receiving a message from said device; reading said message to determine the content of said message (message headers and body) including a unique identifier used to determine the sender of the message; reading a set of one or more predetermined email recipient addresses for said unique identifier(s) from a data store (which could be indexed by the unique identifier); and sending an email (which may or may not contain said content) to each of said recipient email addresses. The data store stores a plurality of sets of email addresses, and each said unique identifier has only a single associated set of said email recipient addresses.

Description

I

Communications Systems This invention generally relates to methods, apparatus and computer program code for sending messagcs from a mobile communication device, such as a mobile phone, to a plurality of recipients, via the internet.

Mobile phone communication has become an extremely effective form of communication. Over 2.1 billion text messages in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) are sent each day, showing that the SMS is a well liked simple to use method of communication. Other forms of messaging such as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messaging include the capability to send data, in particular audio andlor image data (still or moving pictures). MMS messages are becoming increasingly popular as more users obtain camera phones with the ability to take and send pictures. In this document references to sending/receiving a message, in particular a text message, include sending/receiving of either an SMS or MMS message.

If a text message needs to be sent to multiple recipients at present the sender is charged per number of recipients. This can lead to high billing costs if the sender wants to send the same piece of information to number of different recipients. This is particularly a problem where there is a need to quickly and cost-effectively update friends and family when travelling abroad, for example with progress of ajourney. Similar problems arise, for example, when there has been an emergency and there are several people who need to be contacted to provide reassurance.

Although email provides an alternative to text messaging, in the circumstances envisaged it can be inconvenient or impossible to locate equipment capable of preparing and sending emails. Some recent mobile phones are able to create, send and receive emails. This has become relatively effective for business people wanting to keep in touch whilst out of the office but such services are not generally suitable for many users. An important difference here is that whilst many companies are willing to pay significant phone bills for the service, a non-business user can be faced with high charges, for example by having to download non-urgent or spam emails. Moreover these phones are also typically available only to users who wish to take out a fixed monthly contract with a network operator, so are not an effective solution to someone who prefers a pay as you go tariff.

A more user friendly system involves allowing the sender to write a text message in a specified way. Some currently developed systems enable the sender to have their text message converted into an email by writing the text in a set format so that the recipients email address is the first part of the body text. However this has its limitations because the sender needs to remember the email address that they wish to text, the number of characters available for the body text is also reduced from 160 (due to the email address being part of the SMS body), and the technique only allows the sender to send the message to a single email address.

Summary of the invention

Broadly, we will describe a system and method for converting an SMS/MMS message sent from a mobile device on a cellular network into email form and distributing the email to a user-specific predefined list of recipients. More particularly we describe systems and methods for sending a mobile device message to a predefined list of email addresses corresponding to a predetermined group of recipients, for example comprising close friends and family.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is therefore provided a method of updating one or more predetermined recipients with information sent from a mobile communications device, the method comprising: receiving a message from said device; reading said message to determine content of said message (such as a message header(s) and body) and one or more unique identifiers used to determine the sender of the message; reading a set of one or more predetermined email recipient addresses for said unique identifier from a data store (which may be indexed by the unique identifier(s)); and sending an email (which may or may not contain said content) to each of said recipient email addresses.

The unique identifier or identifiers obtained from the message could be the phone number of the SIM card from which the message was sent or some other identifier sent as part of the message (including both the header and body) which could be used to identify the sender of this message from another. For the remainder of this document the term identifier is used to represent one or more unique identifiers which are used to locate an associated set of email addresses.

In some embodiments the message may comprise an SMS message and said content may then comprise text content. Optionally the method may therefore include, receiving a plurality of successive messages from a said phone number, concatenating the text content of the plurality of messages, and sending the concatenated text content to the recipient email addresses, to overcome the 160 character maximum length of an SMS message.

The message may comprise an SMS or MMS message. Preferably the data store stores a plurality of sets of email addresses, and each said phone number has only a single associated set of said email recipient addresses.

Preferably the message receiving and reading is performed by a terminal system, the terminal system further creating a data file from the read message content. The method may then further comprise sending the data file to a web server, the web server reading the email addresses associated with the said unique identifier from a data store and sending an email (which may or may not contain the content of the text message) to the email recipient addresses. Optionally, other parts of the message header and body can be extracted and used for further information e.g. date stamp, time stamp, sender's message service centre number.

Preferably a user registration procedure is provided to allow the sender to register at the web server and set up his or her list of email addresses. This provides a user-validation system so that the list can be updated remotely by the sender once the sender's identity has been checked.

The invention further provides computer program code, in particular on a carrier, to implement the above method. The code may be provided separately for running on the terminal system and the web server. The carrier may comprise a disk, CD- or DVD- ROM, programmed memory such as read-only memory (Firmware), or on a data carrier such as optical or electrical signal carrier. The code may be written in any conventional programming language. As the skilled person will appreciate such code and/or data may be distributed between a plurality of coupled components in communication with one another, for example over a network.

The invention further provides the above described terminal system, which preferably has an input from or incorporates a modem for a communications network to which the mobile communications device is able to couple. The invention also provides the above described web server.

Embodiments of the system allow a text message to be sent from any mobile device to a predefined set of email addresses. This allows communication of information to a number of different recipients in a quick, affordable and reliable manner. it also aids the user by using the existing well recognised text message sending format rather than producing a new message sending protocol to learn about.

Embodiments of the system comprises a database of user details and a computer, running some bespoke software. The computer is also connected to a GSM modem with SIM card.

Embodiments of the system addresses the problem described in the introduction by allowing an email to be sent to multiple users by sending a text message from a mobile device. The user only gets charged for one text message whilst multiple users receive the information. Further, the user does not need to remember each and every email address to send to. All of their contact details are stored within a database and managed through a web site front end. The user only needs to store the phone number for this service as a contact on their mobile phone and send a text message to this number in order to get their message sent out to their email list.

Embodiments of the system detect the unique identifier from the incoming message and use this to retrieve the registered user's details and their list of predefmed email addresses from the database, in order to create and send the email.

If the unique identifier is chosen to be the sender's phone number then the user can use all of the 160 characters for their text message. The system can also handle concatenated text messages where the length of the message is greater than 160 characters.

If the unique identifier is not the sender's phone number then this can be passed as part of the message body thereby reducing the number of remaining characters for the message to be sent. This method could be used if creating phone applications e.g. a Java applet which would use the text message protocol to send data.

As mentioned previously, embodiments of this method allow for one or more identifiers to be contained within the text message. Multiple identifiers may be used for a number of different reasons, for example a combination of the multiple identifiers may be used to retrieve the appropriate user details. One example of such a system uses one identifier to retrieve a company that has registered with the service and another identifier to retrieve an employee in that company. A second example of such a system, allows users to set up multiple groups of email addresses rather than just one. This may use one identifier to retrieve a user's details and another identifier to retrieve an appropriate set of addresses from the multiple groups.

These and other aspects of the 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 an embodiment of the system; Figure 2shows a flow chart of a user registration procedure; Figure 3 - shows a flow chart of software on a modem-linked terminal of an embodiment of the system; and Figure 4 - shows a flow chart of PHP script running on a web server of an embodiment of the system.

Detailed Description of a preferred embodiment

Referring to Figure 1 the steps are as follows: 1. One or many mobile phone users register for this service and send a text message to the service phone number.

2. The GSM modem attached to the computer receives incoming text messages.

3. The software running on the computer has a program running which listens for notifications from the GSM modem.

4. The software checks that the notification is an incoming text message.

5. The software then processes the incoming text message, converts it to a readable format and saves it to a unique filename.

6. An HTTP Post call sends this file to a PHP script running on the system's web server.

7. The PHP script extracts the unique identifier, finds the user and their email address list from the database and composes an email to this address list.

8. The email is sent to the predefined list of recipients for that user.

Users register for the service via a web site front end and their details are stored in an SQL database. The information stored includes any unique identifiers that are used as part of the text message in order to distinguish this user from another. It could be the mobile phone number itself or could be some other identifier sent as part of the message. The user will also enter a list of email addresses that they would like their text messages sent to.

Once registered, the user can send text messages whenever they choose to the phone number of this service i.e. the phone number of the SIM card in the CJSM modem.

The bespoke software running on the computer runs in two threads. Within the first thread, the software repeatedly listens for incoming notifications and when one arrives pushes it onto an internal queue. Within the second thread, the software will process any items that exist on the internal queue.

Text messages sent to the phone number of this service are received by the service SIM card in the GSM modem. The first thread receives the incoming AT command notification, pushes it onto the internal queue and carries on listening for more notifications. The second thread is notified that a request is on the queue, pops it off and processes it.

The processing in second thread starts by checking the type of incoming message. If the message is an incoming SMS, recognised by the starting "+ CMT" (as specified in the ETSI specifications 07.05 and 0707) processing of this message will continue. The structure of this incoming message can be in either protocol description mode (PDU) or text, and within it provides data such as the sender's phone number, message centre number, data length, date/time stamp and the message body data.

The software will check the length field and if the length of the data doesn't match this length then it will continue to pop and append messages from the message queue until it contains the full message that has been sent.

When a text message is sent from a mobile handset, the text that is being sent is converted into a 7-bit message to reduce the size of the data being passed. Therefore on the receiving side, the reverse procedure needs to take place in order to get the actual text message sent. Once the actual text message has been retrieved from the incoming string, this is stored within a new text file. The file is given a unique filename.

The program then makes an HTTP Post call to send this new file to a PHP script running on the web server that this service is hosted on. If the HTTP Post call fails, for example if the web server is down, the program will retry sending the saved file at a later time, safe in the knowledge that it will not be overwritten due to the uniquely created filename.

This thread then continues to handle any more requests that may exist in the internal queue.

It should also be noted that the PDU format also contains details on whether the incoming message is part of a concatenated SMS i.e. greater than 160 characters. If so, the thread continues to pop notifications off the queue and convert the data from 7-bit message to the actual text and stores this in same text file. This continues until the last part of the concatenated SMS is reached and the file contains the whole concatenated message that was sent.

The PHP script located on the web server receives the file that is sent from the PC, and stores it locally. It then extracts the unique identifier (e.g. phone number) from the file.

The script then searches through the database of users until it finds an entry that has this unique identifier registered to their account and returns the details of that database entry.

If the unique identifier does not exist in the database then someone has tried to use the service without registering so the file is discarded.

From the returned details the PHP script extracts the list of email addresses that has been registered to this users account. The script then composes an email addressed to this list of recipients. The email body is composed, and may include the text string retrieved from the file i.e. the original text message sent by the mobile device, optionally with a date andlor time stamp. The script sends the email to the recipients and may also send an email to the user's email address to inform them that their text message was sent successfully. The script then ends and is executed again on the next HTTP post call from the bespoke software.

Examples:

1) Staying in touch whilst travelling around the world.

John decides that he wants to go travelling around the world for a year. He recognises the fact that he wants to keep his costs to a minimum yet he wants to keep his friends, family and colleagues up to date with his whereabouts. He realises that he could phone or text his father to let him know he has arrived safely at his destination - but then he would need to do the same for each of his friends and family. He also realises that he could email from an Internet café. However, he believes that sometimes he may just want to send a short quick piece of information without having to take time out to write a long email or find an appropriate place to email from. John also doesn't want to take his monthly contract mobile phone away on his travels. If it gets stolen or lost he could end up with a very large bill to pay.

John chooses to buy a cheap phone on a pay as you go tariff. He decides to register with a service which uses this idea as he knows he can send an email to as many people as he wishes just by sending one text message, allowing everyone to hear any of his news quickly and cheaply. The service he registers with has decided to take the sender's phone number as being the unique identifier.

John sets up his account, entering his name, address, date of birth and his personal email address. He stores the phone number of the service SIM on his mobile phone so that he doesn't have to remember it offhand. He then registers his unique identifier e.g. mobile phone number (+ 447900123456) and his list of email addresses. He adds a total of 17 email addresses including his parents, his sister, his brother, some other family members, some friends and some colleagues. Each of these email address contacts will receive an email infonning them that John has registered them with this service so that he can inform them of any news whilst on his travels. The contacts of course can unsubscribe from receiving this information if they so wish.

John sets off on his travels and lands in Sydney, Australia the following day. He texts the service phone number that he has previously stored on his phone saying: "Hello. Just to let you know! have landed in Sydney. Have fun at work!" He then continues to settle in knowing that people back home will be able to check their email to find his news.

A text is then received by the service SIM card and is pushed onto the internal message queue. Here is the message that is received: +CMT:81\j\n07914477581 00650040C9144970021436500004021 010280730346C8329 BFD768 I 94F53 91 D447F83 D8653A28FFAE83D6EEF7 1 D9404A 1 C3 F63288 I D7693 C B645ODAOD9AE6C9EE72DEO54286ED6S9OB9EEO685E9AOFBS BBEOEO I The software will then pop this message from the message queue and commence processing it. It recognises the "+CMT:" characters and starts to process the PDU message received. The data directly after the "+CMT:" and before the "\r\n" gives the length of the PDU message i.e. in this example, the PDU message length is 81 bytes.

The message above provides the following information: 07 Length of the message service centre header.

91 Type of the message service centre number (91 means international format) 447758100650 - The service centre number (semi-octets swapped to give 447785016005 - i.e. Vodafone (registered trade mark) message centre number 04 The SMS deliver message OC Length of the sender number in hex bytes 91 Type of the sender number (91 means international format) 449700214365 - The senders mobile number(semi-octets swapped to give 447900123456 - John's phone number) 0000 Protocol identifier and coding scheme 4021001 Date stamp (swap semi-octets to give 041210 to represent 10/12/04) 02807303 Time stamp (swap semi-octets to give 20083730 to represent 20:08:37 is the count of 15 minutes difference to GMT so here it is 12 hours) 46 Length of the actual text message (this is 46 (hex) septets rather than 46 (hex) octets) C8329BFD768 I 94F539 1 D447F83D8653A28FFAE83D6EEF7 1 D9404A 1 C3F63288 1 D 7693CB6450DA0D9AE6C9EE72 DE054286ED6590B9EE0685E9A0FB5 BBEOEO I - This is the actual text message in 7-bit storage.

Some of the data in the above message requires the swapping of the semioctet data in order to present the information to us in a more readable form (for example, timestamp 02807303 is swapped to 20083730 to represent 20:08:37 30) The total length of the data to be processed is given by the length of the PDU added to the length of the message service centre data, and one more byte also needs to be added for the byte that stores the length of the message service centre length. Therefore the total length of this message is 89 bytes (81 + 7 + 1).

Note: The whole length of the message needs to be read in and processed at the same time. If this isn't the case then the next message from the queue would be popped and appended to the end of the current data until this was the case.

Each two characters (after the "\.r\n" characters) in the full string above represent one byte of data, so as we have 178 characters we know we have 89 bytes of data so we can continue processing with no further popping of the queue required.

The message shows the 7-bit data which stores the actual text message sent from John.

This is converted from 7-bit storage to 8-bit octets as specified in the ETSI GSM 03.38 specification. Each of the 8-bit octets (two characters) represent the characters of our actual readable string (Hex to ASCII conversion) e.g. 0x48 = H', 0x65 = e', 0x6c='1': The unique identifier e. g. sender phone number and the date and time stamps are extracted from the PDU message in order to create the filename, in this case 4479001234561 0120420083730.txt and the readable text is saved into this file. The filename is then uniquely identifiable as being the file that stores John's text message as his phone number isn't capable of producing two different texts at the same time on the same day.

The program then sends this file to the web server PUP script using an HTTP Post call.

The PHP script receives the file that is sent from the PC, and stores it locally. It then extracts the unique identifier (sender phone number) from the file i.e. in this case 4407900123456. It searches through the database of users until it finds an entry that has this identifier registered to their account. If the phone number doesn't exist in the database then someone has tried to use the service without registering so the file is discarded. In this example, John Smith's details are returned from the database query.

From these details the PHP script extracts the list of email addresses that John has registered as his email address recipients. The script then composes an email to this list of email recipients and, as part of this chosen service, sets the email body to the text data stored within the file along with the date and time stamp.

This email is then sent. John also receives a confirmation email from the PHP script letting him know his text message has been converted to an email and sent to his list.

John's family, friends and colleagues are now able to check their email to find out any news or information that John has sent them.

The system/service can be extended to allow MMS messages to be sent from a mobile device to multiple email addresses using a similar method. This enables users to send photographs taken from their mobile phones as an attachment to the email sent out.

2) A bespoke and cheap system for a small delivery company.

ABC Deliveries' registers with this service providing only one email address as their registered list of email addresses. Each of their drivers is then allocated a cheap mobile phone. These telephone numbers are used as a unique identifier to distinguish each driver. The drivers are told that once a delivery has been made, they should send a text message to this service number providing any necessary details e.g. order number, next job.

The system will recognise the incoming message and retrieve all the data. On parsing the message it will remove the sender's phone number and locate the particular driver's details. It will then email the specified email address and thereby provide a cheap and effective delivery logging system rather than having to retrieve any texts from a mobile device manually.

3) Multiple identifiers for subsets of local business customers.

A tennis coach wanting to contact all the members of their Thursday afternoon group to let them know that next weeks lesson will actually be at a different location. In this case, they could register with their mobile number as identifier I so that any text messages from their mobile number located that user's details. Identifier 2 could then be used to locate a subset of pre-defined email addresses representing those members of the Thursday afternoon group.

No doubt many other effective alternatives will occur to the skilled person. It will be understood that the invention is not limited to the described embodiments and encompasses modifications apparent to those skilled in the art lying within the spirit and scope of the claims appended hereto.

Claims (15)

1. CLAIMS: 1. A method of updating one or more predetermined recipients with

   information sent from a mobile communications device, the method comprising: receiving a message from said device; reading said message to determine at least a unique identifier of a user or device, from which the message was sent; reading a set of one or more predetermined recipient email addresses for said unique identifier from a data store; and sending an email to each of said recipient email addresses.
2. 2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said reading of said message further determines a content of said message, and wherein said email sending sends said read content to each of said recipient email addresses.
3. 3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein said unique identifier of a user or device comprises a phone number from which the message was sent, and wherein said data store is indexed by said phone number.
4. 4. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said data store stores a plurality of sets of email addresses, and wherein each said unique identifier has only a single associated set of said email recipient addresses.
5. 5. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said message comprises an SMS or MMS message.
6. 6. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said message comprises an SMS message and said content comprises text content, the method further comprising receiving a plurality of successive messages from a said unique identifier, concatenating said text content of said plurality of messages, and sending said concatenated text content to said recipient email addresses.
7. 7. A method as claimed in any preceding claim wherein said message receiving and reading is performed by a terminal system, said terminal system further creating a data file from read content of said message, the method further comprising sending said data file to a web server, said web server reading said email addresses associated with said unique identifier and sending an email to each of said email recipient addresses.
8. 8. A method as claimed in claim 7 further comprising providing a user registration procedure at said web server; registering a sender of said message at said web server; and inputting recipient data from said registered sender at said web server to define said set of email addresses.
9. 9. A method as claimed in claim 7 or 8 further comprising formatting said content as an email at said web server.
10. 10. A method as claimed in claim 9 wherein said content includes text and wherein said formatting comprises providing said text as the body of said email.
11. 11. A method as claimed in claim 9or 10 wherein said message comprises an MMS message and wherein said formatting includes providing said audio and/or image data as an attachment to said email.
12. 12. Computer program code to, when running, implement the method steps of any one of claims Ito 11.
13. 13. Computer program code to, when running, implement the method steps of any one of claims 7 to 11 performed by said terminal system.
14. 14. Computer program code to, when running, implement the method steps of any one of claims 7 to 11 performed by said web server.
15. 15. A computer including the computer program code of claim 12, 13 or 14.