GB2439179A

GB2439179A - Telecommunications services apparatus and method

Info

Publication number: GB2439179A
Application number: GB0710968A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Jeffrey Wilson
Original assignee: Intellprop Ltd
Current assignee: Intellprop Ltd
Priority date: 2006-06-13
Filing date: 2007-06-07
Publication date: 2007-12-19
Anticipated expiration: 2027-06-07
Also published as: GB0710968D0; GB2439179B; GB0611635D0

Abstract

A telecommunications services apparatus for providing communication between a telephone user and a service provider. The apparatus comprises a mobile telephone network and an Internet connection. Voice communications addressed to a voice destination number of the service provider are made through the mobile telephone network in the conventional manner, whereas text message communications addressed to a text message destination number of the service provider are identified and routed to the service provider over the Internet connection. Thus a service provider is able to receive both voice communication and text communications without having to invest in the conventional equipment required for text message delivery to service providers. Furthermore, the voice destination number and the text message destination number of the service provider may be the same number.

Description

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TITLE OF THE INVENTION

TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES APPARATUS AND METHOD

BACKGROUND ART

This invention relates to a telecommunications services apparatus and methods for use with a telecommunications system, such as a telephone system, and in particular to the use of voice and text messaging on such networks. J0

Premium rate voice communication is known in the prior art, and refers to scenarios where callers may dial directly into a voice service at a premium tariff, where the service is normally provided by an automatic voice services equipment usually referred to as an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) unit. Services may be interactive using voice recognition and/or DTMF tone detection. A wide range of information and entertainment services is available via this medium to customers of fixed or mobile networks at any time. Services may comprise pre-recorded material or live-feed audio from a concurrent event. Premium rate services usually operate on a revenue-share basis with the network operator, with a proportion of revenue being paid to the service provider.

Premium rate text messaging is also known, but operates with a different principle known as reverse billing. Reverse billing is an unsatisfactory mechanism whereby a customer action, such as sending a request message or replying to an unsolicited advertising message, causes a host-originated message to be sent in the reverse direction (from the service provider to the customer), which generates a premium charge on the customer's account. Due to widespread abuse of this mechanism, and the high charges frequently levied for content services, many mobile customers avoid using text content services altogether. Part of the difficulty in reverse charging is that it allows future charging of the customer, for example as a subscription, and so the ongoing cost of a content request can therefore be unknown. Consequently customers i.,.. *I,.

are discouraged from using content services that they might otherwise consider, due to uncertainty about the cost and lack of transparency in the charging mechanism.

For these and other reasons, a charging regime based on mobile originated billing, such as is the case for both premium and non-premium voice telephony and for non-premium text, is preferable also for all forms of text messaging including premium rate, but at present most mobile operators are unable or unwilling to offer this. The key advantage of mobile originated charging is that the charge occurs at and only at the time of origination, and cannot be levied repeatedly by a service provider. The cost may also be known in advance and in some cases may be determined or bounded by the destination number range. The billing aspect has discouraged the growth of text messaging as a means of accessing services.

Text services are usually provided by service providers (SPs) or Host Applications that is are closely associated with the mobile telephone networks. Typically direct links are required between the service provider and the mobile network using a protocol such as SMPPIIP and with tightly defined service agreements between the operator and the service provider. Billing and numbering for such mobile text services is completely separate from the premium rate voice world, and there is little if any cross-over between text services providers and voice service providers.

At present there are no service providers that combine voice and text premium rate services. Nor are there services where the voice part is premium rate but the text part is standard rate. Service providers for voice have different interconnects from those that provide text services. Typically voice service providers require ISDN (Integrated Systems Digital Network) trunks connected to a fixed operator, while text service providers connect over IP to a mobile operator.

Voice service providers do not want the complexity and cost of SMPPIIP connections to additional network operators and do not want to be tied to contracts for low volume text that only provide a very small cut of the revenue to the service provider but attract ** * a significant monthly charge. However, it is considered service providers would adopt a low cost text capability if it could drive their voice revenues.

As described above, due to billing issues, premium text services are not well supported. This is in contrast to voice premium rate services which remain popular and widespread. However, the growth of premium rate voice services is severely limited by the need to advertise service numbers. Typically one service is provided on each number, and so there is a huge number of different service destinations that can be dialled. Customers cannot hold more than a few such numbers in their heads, and so premium rate service providers must constantly advertise their service numbers. Such advertising is very expensive, and in a competitive market only the most prominent and best-placed advertisements will be successful. Hence, it is only economical for service providers to advertise mass-market services, where the return on advertising investment justifies the business. Premium rate services are therefore not presently suited to niche or minority interests, merely because of the difficulty of notifying a potential customer of a number that he could use.

Furthermore, voice services today have very limited interaction capability, being restricted to DTMF (Dual Tone Multi-Frequency) arid voice recognition with no alphanumeric interaction capability. This leads to the use of complex, multi-level menus. Not only do users generally dislike complex menus, but they also make the services very difficult to update or change for the service provider, which increases costs and time to market.

Hence it can be seen that in the present environment it is not feasible for a service provider to offer a service such as a game where both text and voice are combined in the same service, using the same number, and where the text is charged on submission and not reverse billed, while the voice may be charged at premium rate. 4. ..

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a telecommunications services apparatus for providing communication between a telephone user and a service provider, the apparatus comprising a mobile telephone network and an Internet connection, wherein a voice communication addressed to a voice destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network, and a text message communication addressed to a text message destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network and the Internet connection.

By using the Internet in this way, a service provider is able to receive both voice communications and text communications without having to invest in the conventional equipment required for text message delivery to service providers. All the service provider requires for receiving text communication is an internet connection, e.g. a conventional broadband link.

The mobile telephone network may comprise a mobile switching centre (MSC) for receiving a communication request addressed to the service provider from the telephone user and for deteimining whether the communication request is for a voice communication or a text message communication. The determination may, for example, be based on the destination number to which the communication request is addressed, or in embodiments where the voice destination number of the service provider and the text message destination number of the service provider are the same number, the determination may be based on other characteristics of the communication request.

The telecommunications services apparatus may further comprise a text message router (SMS router) for receiving a text message communication from the telephone user addressed to the text message destination number of the service provider and delivering the text message communication to an interface configured to convert the text message communication into a form suitable for transmission over the Internet connection. I.

The form suitable for transmission over the Internet connection may be one that allows immediate confirmation of successful or unsuccessful delivery of message packets. This allows the telephone user to know "in real time" whether their text message communication has been delivered.

The text message router may be configured to route the text message communication in such a way that it does not pass through a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) of the telephone network.

The telecommunications services apparatus may be configured to employ a protocol for ext message delivery to the service provider that is different from the SMPP (short message peer-to-peer), OIS (open interface specification), UCP (universal computer protocol) and CIMD2 (computer interface to machine distribution, version 2) protocols.

The service provider may be configured to support a host application, wherein the host application is operable to utilize information transmitted from the telephone user to the service provider in both voice communications and text message communications.

The host application may be configured so that the contents of a text message communication from the telephone user to the service provider determine the behaviour or context of the host application in a subsequent voice communication between the telephone user and the service provider.

The voice communication may comprise a communication based on voice recognition and/or dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) menu selection.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of routing communications between a telephone user of a telephone network and a service provider, wherein a voice communication addressed to a voice destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network, and a text message communication addressed to a text message destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network and an Internet connection.

4. .. ,. I. According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a method for delivering text messages to a premium-rate voice service provider using the same destination numbers for both the voice and text communications, wherein information transmitted either via text or voice media can be utilised by the same application or service.

According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a telecommunications services apparatus for delivering text messages to a premium-rate voice service provider using the same destination numbers for both the voice and text communications, wherein information transmitted either via text or voice media can be utilised by the same application or service.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, text messages sent to the voice number may be groomed by the apparatus and delivered over an Internet Protocol to the voice service provider.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the destination numbers used by both the voice and text services may be fixed line numbers.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the destination numbers used by both the voice and text services may be non-geographic numbers.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the destination numbers used by the voice services may attract a premium rate call tariff.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the destination numbers used by the text services may be charged at non-premium rates.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the destination numbers used by both a voice and a text access to the same service may be the same number.

4. . I. According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, a text messages sent to the service does not pass through an SMSC (Short Message Service Centre) in the home mobile network of the sender.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the service provider may receive text messages from the mobile network operator without implementing any of the standard SMSC host interface protocols such as SMPPIIP, OIS/IP, OIS/X.25, UCP/IP or CIMD2TIP.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the service provider may receive text messages from a caller whilst the caller is engaged in a voice call.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, text messages may be sent to a premium-rate voice number without the text message being charged at a text premium rate.

According to embodiments of the various aspects of the invention, the service provider may receive text messages from a mobile operator without the operator or the service provider being required to support the technique known in the art as virtual mobile'.

According to a virtual mobile technique, telephone numbers within the mobile operator's numbering range are not associated with real handsets, but instead communications addressed to those numbers are received by the mobile network and directed to fixed applications, hosts or service providers. p.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the invention and to show how the same may be carried into effect reference is now made by way of example to the accompanying Figure 1 which shows a telecommunication network according to an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Figure 1 shows a fixed network 1, a mobile network 2, an Internet 3, and a service provider 4. Fixed telephone users 11 are connected via local exchanges 12 and can access voice services provided by the service provider using voice services equipments 41. Advanced services may be provided in conjunction with an application server 42.

Mobile customers 21 can connect using voice via a Message Service Centre (MSC) 22 and a Gateway MSC 26 to the voice services equipment 41. Text messages addressed to service numbers are routed via the MSC 22 and an SMS Router 23 where these messages are groomed off (i.e. picked out for further routing), possibly under the control of an SMS Service Control Point (SCP) 24. Groomed messages are delivered through an Internet gateway 25 and over the Internet 3, preferably over a broadband link, to the application server 42. Other broadly similar network architectures with detail differences are also possible.

Embodiments of the present invention provide means to realise the concept of text message delivery over the Internet to a service provider whose primary business may have previously comprised only voice premium rate services. This can be achieved without incurring the cost and training requirements associated with entering into a text message delivery contract with a mobile network involving complex SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) or similar interfaces. Neither are service level agreements required that pay the service provider a small cut per message delivered, while constraining the service provider to generate large numbers of delivered texts in order to avoid losing money on the rental of the connection.

It is envisaged that in embodiments of the invention, the texts will be sent to premium rate fixed line numbers (e.g. 0900x numbers) and groomed (i.e. identified and selected for further routing in accordance with embodiments of the invention) by a mobile telephone network and delivered over the Internet via broadband to the service provider. The texts represent additional traffic, since these numbers are not presently usable as text destinations. The operator can charge standard rate for the texts and still make additional revenue. The service provider may or may not be charged a small termination charge for having the texts delivered to it; on the one hand traditional service provider connections allow a service provider to be paid a small cut of communication revenue generated for the network operator, while on the other hand, text messages delivered to another network operator attract a termination charge in most cases. In a preferred embodiment, the delivery of messages over the Internet to service providers is neutral for charging purposes as between the service provider and the network operator.

l'his allows the service provider to use the same premium rate voice number for both texts and voice calls, but while the voice calls are still charged at premium rate, texts may be charged to the user at standard rate. In alternative embodiments the text rate for these texts could be adjusted up or down, or even be free, or free at certain times, according to commercial choices. Voice calls to the numbers could be made from either fixed or mobile lines.

This offers customers a greater range of options for communication with telecommunications services and offers the service provider the possibility of offering a wider range of services on fewer numbers, thus providing more efficient use of the number(s) available to the service provider.

In some embodiments, voice calls could be free to the caller, e.g. using 0800 numbers, perhaps as part of a sponsored promotion. As with normal Freephone services, the call cost is then paid for by the recipient. There are many different charging models that could be applied to either the text or the voice part of the present invention, but regardless of the charging model, the combination of text and voice communication enabled by the invention can add value to the service provided.

Embodiments of the invention provide the customer with the flexibility of using either SMS or voice, or both, to communicate with a service that would traditionally only be available on premium rate voice. Greater flexibility comes from the power of alpha entry (i.e. use of alphabetical symbols) which is possible using text messaging but is not conveniently possible with voice. DTMF and voice recognition are very restrictive.

Furthermore, with the need for fewer numbers, service providers can now more effectively advertise all of their services at lower cost than before. Since it is the high cost of advertising service numbers that limits the applicability of premium rate services only to truly mass-market applications, the present invention has the potential to unlock a wide range of new service applications in the premium rate voice market.

In some embodiments, Transaction Mode' delivery of the text message can be used, so that message sent' on a user's text messaging device indicates that the message has been received and acted upon by the remote application, not merely that it has been accepted by an intermediate node. Transaction mode is implemented by passing the message acknowledgement back from the remote end to the sending end, rather than by acknowledging the message on arrival at an intermediate node.

Transaction mode is preferable, because for example in a service where a user sends a text message with the intention of setting up the behaviour or context of a subsequent voice call, it is key that when the user receives message sent' this indicates that the system is now ready to receive the voice call. Without transaction mode, the user would not be sure that the text message had been acted upon before making the voice call.

An example service using the invention could be a service where a user texts the name of a Racecourse to a service number. On receipt of message sent' the user can then call the same service number and hear the latest recorded information relating to the selected Racecourse, without the need to navigate complex menus within the voice call or to remember multiple numbers.

This example illustrates the unique advantage of text in specifying one of a virtually limitless range of topics while only requiring a single service number to be advertised.

Since advertising of service numbers is the limiting factor in premium rate promotion, for reasons of advertising cost, the invention opens up the possibility of a huge step in premium rate growth and revenue for both networks and service providers.

f... * 12 -In an example embodiment, a premium rate number (for example 0900 123456) is owned by a certain service provider, which means that voice calls from any network are routed to that service provider for termination. Text messages from subscribers of a mobile operator implementing the present invention (preferably in the same country as the 0900 123456 number is registered) are groomed by the mobile network operator.

This means that the SMS infrastructure of the operator matches the destination number against a list of stored numbers and determines that the message should be routed to a particular interface that results in the message being delivered to the service provider over the Internet. Subscribers of other mobile operators would generally not benefit unless either an embodiment of the present invention was also implemented in their home network, or the premium rate number used was also a virtual mobile number, which would allow the use of the invention by customers of networks other than the implementing network.

In one embodiment the SMS grooming is carried out using an SMS Router, and optionally centralised control of multiple SMS Routers may be provided by an SMS SCP. Messages that match grooming criteria are routed to an interface that causes the message to be converted into a form suitable for Internet transmission.

A suitable protocol for Internet transmission is one that causes one or more message packets to be delivered over the Internet Protocol (IP) transport with a mechanism for an immediate confirmation of successful or unsuccessful delivery to be sent back to the sending application. It can be advantageous if the protocol does not store and forward the message at an intermediate node, which could cause a delay. The IP protocol can thus be said to be operating in a transactional' mode, such that the sequence of transmitting a complete message to the remote IF destination and immediately receiving a success or failure acknowledgement can be treated as an atomic (single) operation by the sending application. The IP packets may be addressed in both directions either to an IF address and port number, or to a fully qualified domain name. * e.

p -13-Other types of protocol could be used such as SMTPIIP, which is used for email sending. However this may not provide the rapid transactional performance that is preferred, since email passes via SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) servers that can cause significant delays.

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The service provider destination address is preferably identified by an IP address and port number, which provides a unique Internet destination address for the packets. This destination address may be stored by the mobile network, for example in the SMS SCP, associated with the 0900 number, so that the IP address may be looked up from the telephone number.

The service provider preferably has a fixed IP address, with access from the Internet over a broadband connection, for example using DSL. It is likely that most service providers would have such a connection already, which means that the cost of implementation to the service provider is minimal. A typical broadband connection has a bandwidth of 2Mbitls in the downstream (to service provider) direction, which is sufficient for roughly 600 Short Message deliveries per second. Hence one broadband link will be more than adequate for the capacity needs of combined voice and text services for most service providers.

In certain applications it may be necessary to enhance the security of messaging, for example between the mobile network and the service provider especially for implementations that utilise the public Internet. It would be possible to authenticate the sending network for a message sent to a service provider, for example using known public key certificate techniques, or by using a proprietary technique such as a one-time pad.

The message could be sent to the service provider by alternative means. For example, a text message sent by the user could undergo number translation in the mobile network, which would allow the message to be delivered by normal over-the-air means to a radio terminal associated with the translated number and with the service provider.

The terminal could be a computer with an attached GSM module, or could be a mobile phone. Mobile phones can be connected to external data processing devices by means of a data cable, which allows text messages to be received and passed to the data processing device, albeit at low rates. This alternative embodiment would allow the network to determine that the message had been delivered to the GSM terminal, but may not allow the network to determine successful or unsuccessful delivery to the data processing device, i.e. to the service provider's application.

Alternatively, the message could be sent to an operator with a GSM licence using one of the mobile numbers allocated to that operator. Routing of the message could then be by normal GSM means, and the operator could then use a text message grooming or filtering approach to capture all of the text messages related to a particular application.

In a preferred embodiment these text messages would relate to a voice premium-rate service associated with the GSM operator or one of its service providers.

The particular manner in which a service provider is configured text message content in association with voice calls to the same number is not relevant to the principles underlying embodiments of the invention. It may be noted, however, that commercial advantages of being able to achieve this association could be significant.

Embodiments of the invention may also be applied to non-premium rate voice services such as information lines.

The transmission of Calling Line Identity (CLI) when a call or text is initiated from a mobile telephone potentially allows the service provider to personalise the service provided to the user.

Many mobile handsets allow text messages to be sent during a voice call. This feature can be used in conjunction with the invention to allow an interaction between text and voice in a service provided to the user. Since DTMF and voice recognition have severe limitations as means for controlling interactive services, text may be used to provide a more flexible alphanumeric means to provide input to such services.

In so far as the embodiment(s) of the invention described above may be implemented, at least in part, using software controlled processing apparatus, it will be appreciated 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.

Thus a telecommunications services apparatus for providing communication between a telephone user and a service provider is described. The apparatus comprises a mobile telephone network and an Internet connection. Voice communications addressed to a voice destination number of the service provider are made through the mobile telephone network in the conventional manner, whereas text message communications addressed to a text message destination number of the service provider are identified and routed to the service provider over the Internet connection. Thus a service provider is able to receive both voice communication and text communications without having to invest in the conventional equipment required for text message delivery to service providers. Furthermore, the voice destination number and the text message

destination number of the service provider may be the same number. -16-

Claims

CLAIMS

I. A telecommunications services apparatus for providing communication between a telephone user and a service provider, the apparatus comprising a mobile telephone network and an Internet connection, wherein a voice communication addressed to a voice destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network, and a text message communication addressed to a text message destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network and the Internet connection.

2. A telecommunications services apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the mobile telephone network comprises a mobile switching centre (MSC) for receiving a communication request addressed to the service provider from the telephone user and for determining whether the communication request is for a voice communication or a text message communication.

3. A telecommunications services apparatus according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising a text message router for receiving a text message communication from the telephone user addressed to the text message destination number of the service provider and delivering the text message communication to an interface configured to convert the text message communication into a form suitable for transmission over the Internet connection.

4. A telecommunications services apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the form suitable for transmission over the Internet connection is one that allows immediate confirmation of successful or unsuccessful delivery of message packets.

5. A telecommunications services apparatus according to claim 3 or 4, wherein the text message router is configured to route the text message communication in such a way that it does not pass through a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) of the telephone network. S. -17-

6. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the Internet connection comprises a broadband link.

7. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the voice destination number of the service provider and the text message destination number of the service provider are the same number.

8. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the voice destination number is a premium-rate tariff number.

9. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the text message destination number is a premium-rate tariff number.

10. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the apparatus is configured to employ a protocol for a text message communication delivered to the service provider that is different from the SMPP (short message peer-to-peer), OIS (open interface specification), UCP (universal computer protocol) and CIMD2 (computer interface to machine distribution, version 2) protocols.

II. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the service provider is configured to support a host application, wherein the host application is operable to utilize information transmitted from the telephone user to the service provider in both voice communications and text message communications.

12. A telecommunications services apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the host application is configured so that the contents of a text message communication from the telephone user to the service provider determine the behaviour or context of the host application in a subsequent voice communication between the telephone user and the service provider. -.

13. A telecommunications services apparatus according to claim 11 or 12, wherein the host application is operable to receive a text communication from a telephone user while the telephone user is engaged in a voice communication.

14. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the text message communication is made in a transactional mode.

15. A telecommunications services apparatus according to any preceding claim, wherein the voice communication comprises a communication based on voice JO recognition and/or duai-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) menu selection.

16. A method of routing communications between a telephone user of a telephone network and a service provider, wherein a voice communication addressed to a voice destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network, and a text message communication addressed to a text message destination number of the service provider is made through the mobile telephone network and an Internet connection.

17. A method according to claim 16, wherein a text message communication is converted into a form suitable for transmission over the Internet connection at an interface between the mobile telephone network and the Internet connection.

18. A method according to claim 17, wherein the form suitable for transmission over the Internet connection is one that allows immediate confirmation of successful or unsuccessful delivery of message packets.

19. A method according to any of claims 16, 17 or 18, wherein the text message communication does not pass through a Short Message Service Centre (SMSC) of the telephone network.

20. A method according to any of claims 16 to 19, wherein the Internet connection is a broadband link. S. -.

21. A method according to any of claims 16 to 20, wherein the voice destination number of the service provider and the text message destination number of the service provider are the same number.

22. A method according to any of claims 16 to 21, wherein the voice destination number is a premium-rate tariff number.

23. A method according to any of claims 16 to 22, wherein the text message destination number is a premium-rate tariff number.

24. A method according to any of claims 16 to 23, wherein the protocol for the a message communication delivered to the service provider is different from the SMPP (short message peer-to-peer), OIS (open interface specification), UCP (universal computer protocol) and CIMD2 (computer interface to machine distribution, version 2) protocols.

25. A method according to any of claims 16 to 24, wherein the service provider supports a host application that utilizes information transmitted from the telephone user to the service provider by both voice communication and text message communication.

26. A method according to any of claims 16 to 25, wherein the contents of a text message communication from the telephone user to the service provider determine the behaviour or context of a subsequent voice communication between the telephone user and the service provider.

27. A method according to any of claims 16 to 26 wherein the host application is operable to receive a text communication from a telephone user while the telephone user is engaged in a voice communication.

28. A method according to any of claims 16 to 27, wherein text message communications are made in transactional mode. I.

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-20 - 29. A method according to any of claims 16 to 28, wherein the voice communication comprises a communication based on voice recognition and/or dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) menu selection.

30. A telecommunications services apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawing.

31. A method of routing communications between a telephone user of a telephone network and a service provider substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawing.