GB2463111A

GB2463111A - Information is incorportated in a communication initiation request to provide called party with additional information to determine whether to answer call.

Info

Publication number: GB2463111A
Application number: GB0816286A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Charles William Debney; Christopher Bryant; Benjamin Mark Elms; Shelia Janette Gordon
Original assignee: Vodafone Group PLC
Current assignee: Vodafone Group PLC
Priority date: 2008-09-05
Filing date: 2008-09-05
Publication date: 2010-03-10
Also published as: WO2010026431A1; GB0816286D0

Abstract

In a mobile telecommunications network, a method of effecting communication between a first device and a second device including: the first device initiating a communication request towards the second device, the request including contextual information; the second device receiving a notification of the request together with the contextual information. The first deice comprises an engine configured to identify initiation of communication towards the second device, determine contextual information relating to the first device and incorporate said information into the communication request. Preferably the contextual information is incorporated into the communications request using a presence client manager associated with the first device which obtains the contextual information from one of the following: user input; a remote presence server; a database associated with the first device. The contextual information may be transmitted as a component of calling line identification or, in a network comprising an IMS, immediately after a SIP call setup phase or during a SDP call setup phase.

Description

S

TELECOMMUNICATIONS METHODS AND ASSOCIATED SYSTEMS

The present invention relates to a telecommunications system and associated techniques. More particularly, the present invention relates to an arrangement and method for facilitating communications between communication devices, particularly between communication devices with a presence system enabled.

Field of the Invention

Modern communications is currently one of the fastest evolving technologies, particularly in regard to advancements made in transitioning users from communicating via wired telephones in fixed locations, to communicating via mobile handsets in mobile telecommunications networks. The actual location of the users communicating is now unimportant in terms of receiving and initiating communications; provided a user's handset is within range of a mobile base station of an appropriate network, communications are possible.

Mobile devices are in turn becoming more and more advanced, providing users with not just the ability to communicate wirelessly, but with additional services and functions such as instant text messaging arid mobile internet access.

In a similar manner, computing devices are now evolving into communication devices and are also capable of communicating with mobile devices across the telecommunications network.

The greater range of communication options, however has created its own problems, as people are now contactable in virtually any situation, which isn't always desirable. A person receiving an incoming communication will generally be able to see who the person calling is, and make a decision on whether or not to accept that call based upon the person's identity, and their own situationlcircumstances. The person receiving the call, however, may not always make the best decision, particularly if the call is an urgent one, but they are unaware of the urgency.

It has been proposed in 3GPP TS 23.14! to allow a particular user's communication device to provide other parties with "presence attributes" allowing the other parties to see the particular user's status, such as that they are willing to take a call or are busy. In a networked computing sense, this approach is similar to that utilised by the MSN TM product.

Whilst this provides the other parties with greater awareness of the particular user's status, there is still a need for improved information delivery. This is particularly the case if the called party does not have a presence client installed on their communication device.

Summary of the Invention

According to a first aspect the present invention provides, in a mobile telecommunications network including a plurality of communication devices each in communicable relation to the network, a method of effecting a communication between a first communication device and a second communication device, the method including: the first communication device initiating a communication request towards the second communication device, the communication request including contextual information; and the second communication device receiving a notification of the communication request together with the contextual information.

Preferably the contextual information is incorporated into the communication request by a presence client manager associated with the first communication device.

By providing a called party with relevant contextual information, particularly in regard to the purpose of the call, the chances of a successful communication being established are enhanced.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Figure 1 illustrates a mobile telecommunications network useful in explaining the operation of the embodiments of the invention.

Detailed Description

Key elements of a mobile telecommunications network, and its operation, will now briefly be described with reference to Figure 1. Figure 1 incorporates elements from a GSM network, a UMTS network and an LTE network. These are just examples of a configuration within which the present invention may be implemented, and other network formats are possible.

Each base station (BS) in the network serves a respective cell of its cellular or mobile telecommunications network and receives calls from and transmits calls to a mobile device in that cell by wireless radio communication in one or both of the circuit switched or packet switched domains. Such a subscribers mobile device (UE) is shown at 1. The mobile device may be any form of mobile communications device, including a handheld mobile telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a laptop computer (e.g. a laptop equipped with a mobile telecommunications network datacard, a laptop having an attached dongle modem, or indeed a laptop with an embedded mobile telecommunications network modem chipset).

In a GSM mobile telecommunications network, each base station includes a base transceiver station (BTS) and a base station controller (BSC). A BSC may control * more than one BTS. The BTSs and BSCs comprise the radio access network.

In a UMTS mobile telecommunications network, each base station comprises a node B and a radio network controller (RNC). An RNC may control more than one node B. The node Bs and RNCs comprise the radio access network.

In the proposed LTE mobile telecommunications network, each base station comprises an eNode B. The base stations are arranged in groups and each group of base stations is controlled by a Mobility Management Entity (MME) and a User Plane Entity (UPE).

Conventionally, in a GSMIUMTS network, the base stations are arranged in groups and each group of base stations is controlled by one mobile switching centre (MSC), such as MSC 2 for base stations 3, 4 and 5. As shown in Figure 1, the network has another MSC 6, which is controlling a further three base stations 7, 8 and 9. In practice, the network will incorporate many more MSCs and base stations than shown in Figure 1. The base stations 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 each have dedicated (not shared) connection to their MSC2 or MSC6 -typically a cable connection. This prevents transmission speeds being reduced due to congestion caused by other traffic.

The MSCs 2 and 6 support communications in the circuit switched domain -typically voice calls. Corresponding SGSNs 16 and 18 are provided to support communications in the packet switched domain -such as GPRS data transmissions. The SGSNs 16 and 18 function in an analogous way to the MSCs 2 and 6. For the sake of simplicity, all future references to an MSC are also to be taken as equivalently covering an SGSN or a Node B. Each subscriber to the network is provided with a smart card (or SIM card) which, when associated with the user's mobile device identifies the subscriber to the network. The SIM card is pre-programmed with a unique identification number, the "International Mobile Subscriber Identity" (IMSI) is not printed on the card, nor is it generally known to the subscriber. The subscriber is issued with a publicly known number, that is, the subscriber's telephone number, by means of which callers initiate calls to the subscriber. This number is the MSISDN.

The network includes a home location register (HLR) 10 which, for each subscriber to the network, stores the IMSI and the corresponding MSISDN together with other subscriber data, such as the current or last known location of the subscriber's mobile device. This information is used when paging a mobile device.

As is standard, current mobile devices include a graphical user interface (GUI), with icons for the user to select particular functions or fields, such as an address book, a calendar and menu defining settings for the device. The address book includes contact details for one or more entities or associated users, such as friends, acquaintances, business associates and the like. The contact details for each entity may include one or more mobile phone numbers, landline phone numbers, email addresses, website addresses, home address details and business address details, for example.

The device may be configured, such as by using the principles set down in 3GPP IS 23.141 and IS 24.141, to provide one or more remotely located contacts/associated users with location information of the user's device. These technical specifications define location information based on the identity of the last known Common Gateway Interface (CGI) or Service Area Identity (SAL) andlor corresponding geographic coordinates to a presence server, which is then made available to other users. A presence client manager installed on the device is typically used to provide this functionality.

The device may additionally or alternatively obtain positional information using the location of the base stationleNode B with which the user's mobile device is registered. Where the base station is a micro base station this information should provide location accuracy to within about 20 metres. This information can be obtained in the form of a cell ID of the serving cell, which is sent to the presence server from the network or from a presence client manager on the mobile device.

Alternatively, the handset may have a Global Positioning System (GPS) capability, or access to a GPS receiver, such as via Bluetooth {RTM] connection, from which to obtain positional information. Other approaches may also be used, for instance using "in building" localised wireless systems, such as Wi-Fl and near

field communication (NFC) wireless systems.

This positional information may be made available to contacts of the user, such as to contacts designated in the user's device address book, which themselves have a compatible presence client manager installed. The user is typically able to tailor which contacts in their address book are able see the positional information, and also the level of information detail able to be received by each contact and/or each group/collection of contacts.

With this background in mind, a first embodiment of the invention will be described.

As indicated above, in standard presence systems, a calling party A can be provided with information regarding the current situation/location of party B, whom A intends to call, so that A may have some idea of whether or not the present time is a suitable time for initiating a communication to B. In the present embodiment of the invention, the problem of B not having any information regarding an incoming communication is addressed, by the calling party A pushing status/context information to party B whom he is calling.

Therefore, A will initiate a communication to B, in this situation a voice call, such as by selecting B's contact number from a list of contacts in an address book on A's terminal. To incorporate the contextual information into the call initiation procedure, a widget for this purpose may be utilised. Alternatively, where A's terminal has a presence client manager installed, this may be configured to perform the functionality.

The widget may prompt the caller to enter any applicable contextual information (e.g. entered manually), or a presence client manager may at least partially deduce relevant information, such as by associating the call with a calendar entry of a scheduled meeting event. This not only enables A to explain the reason and importance of his call, but also provides B with information to allow him to make an informed decision as to whether or not to accept the call.

The information pushed by A may also include one or more documents. For instance, if A wishes to discuss a document with B, then A could push the document to B when initiating the communication, to aid in B seeing the relevance of the communication and also assisting in "see-what-I-see", The "pushing" of the information may be implemented by any technique able to transfer information to the called party including with CLI (Calling Line * Identification), particularly Rich CLI, 3GPP IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) or Enhanced Caller Waiting.

For instance, in IMS, the additional information could be transferred during or immediately after the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) call setup phase. The Session Description Protocol (SDP) which runs after the SIP part can also include the additional information, as well as other information that may be optionally provided such as bandwidth parameters to be used and free-format alpha-numeric data.

In this way, by A pushing contextual information to B, the chances of establishing a communication with B is improved. For example, A may initiate a call to B, and at the same time push a message, such as "It's urgent, I'm in a meeting at HQ, need sales info". Whilst A preferably has an awareness of 13 through B's contextual status information, B is unlikely to have any relevant information on A. Therefore, by pushing contextual information to B at the time of initiating a communication, A can improve the chances of a successful communication, as B is able to make an informed decision in regard to whether or not to accept the call, based upon his current situation and also A's needs.

An illustration of when this embodiment of the invention can improve the changes of a successful communication, would be in the situation of A determining that B is in a meeting, and therefore unlikely to accept a call from A, particularly when B does not know what it concerns. Therefore, by A pushing information regarding the purpose of the call, particularly in relation to the immediacy of A's needs, then B, seeing the incoming call, and seeing the purpose, is more likely to accept the call, if A's needs are important, and can be accommodated in B's current situation.

The embodiments described so far have been in relation to exchanging status information between mobile devices. However, contextual status information can also be obtained from devices in communication with the mobile telecommunications network, such as Personal Computers (PCs). In this way, a person using a phone call widget on their PC, such as SkypeTM can similarly push contextual information to their intended recipient in order to increase the changes of that person accepting the call.

Further, the embodiment of the invention has been described as having particular utility to devices with a presence client installed, so that the calling party has some knowledge of the intended callee's situation before initiating the communication.

It is not essential, however, that each party in the communication has such a presence client installed on their communication device or that each party is a "contact" of the other.

In this regard, another useful application of the present embodiment of the invention is in relation to establishing a called party as a contact with the calling party's presence client manager. For instance, the called party, B, may be an acquaintance of the calling party A, but not listed as a presence contact on A's terminal. Therefore, when initiating a call to B, A's presence client manager may note this fact, and put a question to A as to whether or not he wishes to establish B as a presence contact. If A agrees, then when the call is being initiated towards B, the presence client may push information to B regarding becoming a presence contact of A on the presence system and/or in regard to installing the presence system if B's device does not yet have a compatible presence system installed.

Alternatively the presence client manager may push the information without first consulting A. In this way, B, upon receiving an incoming call from A, will also be presented with information regarding the presence system. For instance, in addition to B's terminal displaying, say A's telephone number and identity (e.g. if A is listed in B's address book) and information such as "A would like to add you as a contact in the Presence System. If you do not have Presence System installed please visit www.presencesvstem.com." Preferably this additional information is retained on B's terminal after the call has been terminated, so that after dealing with the call from A, B can easily effect the client download/installation/service sign-up, thereby enabling B and A to be added as contacts of each other. For example, the data is preferably retained in B's terminal call history record.

These embodiments of the invention have predominantly been described in relation to enabling people to utilise and share contextual status information using a mobile telecommunications network. According to an alternative embodiment of the invention, however, other entities including animals, plants and inanimate entities, such as vehicles, goods and buildings, are configured to push information regarding their status when initiating a communication, such as to a management server or person compiling information regarding the entity's position/status.

The embodiments of the invention have predominantly been described in relation to their usage in conjunction with a presence client system. Whilst this is a preferred form of the invention, it is not an essential component, and the embodiments of the invention may be used in regard to standard communications.

Also, it is to be appreciated that in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the pushed information is presented to the receiving party as text information or in a data file. Other means of presenting the contextual information are possible.

According to a further embodiment of the invention, when initiating a communication between two terminals with presence client managers installed, the calling party's presence information may be pushed to the called party, so that they have a better understanding of the calling party's situation/location. From this the called party is likely to be able to make a more informed assessment of the purpose and/or importance of the call, In this regard the contextual information preferably provides a personalised description of availability capability and/or situation. For instance, a user device's presence client manager may extract an appointment from a user diary/schedule on the device and use this information in developing an appropriate contextual description for the user, such as "In a meeting in Newbury". In a further example, the presence client manager may recognise that the user device is plugged into a hands-free car kit. As this is a strong indication that the user is driving, the terminal may choose the availability

description as "Car kit enabled -driving".

Whilst the called party is likely to already have access to this contextual information through their presence client manager, they may not have recently checked the calling party's current contextual information. Therefore, by providing the information to the called party at the time of the incoming call, the called party is able to see the contextual information in conjunction with the call event, and make an informed decision with that contextual information, taken directly from the presence clientlserver, as to whether or not to take the call.

For instance, called party B may see that party A is calling him from the location of a hospital. If this is an unusual location for A, B may decide to take the call in case it relates to an emergency situation.

In another embodiment of the invention, the information pushing mechanism is implemented outside a call, such as by using HTTP protocol, pop up windows and/or by SMS. For instance, users may register their mobile terminal phone numbers with certain entities or service providers, such as a car park or a restaurant, who then push information to those users, as and when desired.

Specific requirements may be associated with the information pushing service, such as only when the user is in the vicinity of the service provider's premises, or only in relation to certain products/services. For instance, the car park may have a communication device configured to recognise when a particular contact or "buddy" is in the vicinity, and push that contact an update of the car park's empty space status.

Similarly, a user may register an interest in a table for a certain day at a restaurant, and a communication device associated with the restaurant could be configured to push available table status information to that user, for example when a table comes available. The restaurant's communication device preferably has access to a table availability database and automatically pushes the availability information when the user's requirements are met. These are just example implementations of this embodiment of the invention, and that various other possibilities exist.

In this regard, an aspect of the invention relates to, in a telecommunications network including a plurality of communication devices each in communicable relation to the network, a method of effecting a communication between a first communication device and a second communication device, the method including: the first communication device monitoring one or more communication requirements of the second communication device; and the first communication device initiating a communication to the second communication device when at least one requirement is met, the communication including contextual information associated with the first communication device.

In summary, from these embodiments of the invention, it can be seen that the various presence client managers and presence server share data, and that the data can be obtained from various sources, such as from mobile devices, networks * including data networks, mobile and fixed communications networks, as well as other devices in communicable relation with the networks. In other words, the embodiments of the invention are applicable to any devicefterminal capable of interacting with a mobile network.

In this regard, mobile devices are able to provide data from their databases, such as calendar and contact databases, which may be unique to the device or synchronised with an office system. They can also provide data about user availability, such as being able to indicate when a user is on a call or in a meeting.

Contextual information, as used in this specification is intended to be interpreted broadly, and to cover various forms of information including user reachability, capability, contactability, situation/location, readiness to communication and scheduled availability. In this regard, capability is intended to be interpreted broadly and to cover situations such as a user's communication environment, a user's preferred communication media, user's device facilities and accessories, network access and network availability. Further, situationIlocation is intended to be interpreted broadly and to cover situations such as location in an absolute or relative sense, country location, time zone location and current user activity situation. The expression "user" is also intended to be interpreted broadly and is intended to cover any entity with which a suitable device might be associated and/or which may be represented within the presence service delivered by the invention: the ambit of the term includes both animate and inanimate entities and explicitly includes people, other living creatures, and places as well as static, mobile and moveable objects.

S The embodiments of the invention have also been described in relation to users communicating with known contacts/entities over a mobile telecommunications network. The present invention may also be implemented between entities for which no previous relationship has been established.

The embodiments of the invention have particularly been described in relation to a GSMJUMTS communication network, however the principles may readily be applied to other network configurations, including the proposed 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) network, which is not yet implemented.

The embodiments of the invention have also particularly been described in relation to their usage in conjunction with databases (such as a user's calendar) located on the mobile terminal, however such databases may also be located in the network or in a remote server accessible via the network. In this regard, most functionalities of the presence client manager may alternatively be performed by a remote presence server. This aspect is particularly applicable to older devices which do not have the ability to run client programs, and hence are not capable of having their own presence client manager.

Claims

S CLAIMS: 1. In a telecommunications network including a plurality of communication devices each in communicable relation to the network, a method of effecting a communication between a first communication device and a second communication device, the method including: the first communication device initiating a communication request towards the second communication device, the communication request including contextual information; the second communication device receiving a notification of the communication request together with the contextual information.
2. The method of claim 1 further including the contextual information being incorporated into the communication request by a presence client manager associated with the first communication device.
3. The method of claim 2 further including the presence client manager obtaining the contextual information from one or more of the following sources: a) a user input; b) a remote presence server; c) a database associated with the first communication device, such as a user calendar or schedule.
4. The method of any one preceding claim further including transmitting the contextual information to the second communication device as a component of Calling Line Identification (CLI).
5. The method of any one preceding claim wherein the communication network includes an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), and the contextual information is transferred during or immediately after a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) calE setup phase of the communication request.
6. The method of any one preceding claim wherein the communication network includes an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), and the contextual information is transferred during a Session Description Protocol (SDP) call setup phase of the communication request.
7. In a telecommunications network including a plurality of communication devices each in communicable relation to the network, an engine configured for operation on a first communication device, the engine configured to: identify the initiation of a communication request towards a second communication device; determine contextual information relating to the first communication device or a user of the first communication device; incorporate the contextual information into the communication request, such that a user of the second communication device, upon receiving a notification relating to the communication request simultaneously receives the contextual information.
8. A communication device including the engine according to claim 7.
9. The communication device of claim 8 wherein the device is a mobile terminal, a PC or a FDA.