JPH11205458A - Electronic mail transfer device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic mail transfer device capable of transferring electronic mail to an economical pager terminal dedicated to reception with excellent portability and reading the electronic mail outdoors. SOLUTION: A mail server 2 fetches the electronic mail transmitted from a transmission terminal first. This electronic mail transfer device 6 confirms that the electronic mail is terminated to the mail server 2 and reads the electronic mail to itself. Then, the read electronic mail is converted to a receivable format corresponding to the kind of the pager terminal 7 of a transmission destination address and the converted electronic mail is divided into appropriate length so as to be simultaneously received and displayed by the pager terminal 7, also divided into a plurality of data groups corresponding to the storage capacity of the pager terminal 7 and intermittently transmitted through a telephone line 5b to the pager terminal 7. Thus, by using the general purpose pager terminal 7 as it is, the electronic mail is received and displayed and the entire electronic mail is read.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an e-mail transfer device which enables a user to easily use an e-mail outdoors by using a pager terminal when traveling or going out.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Internet and LAN (Local Area N)
With the spread of etwork), e-mail for exchanging document data, image data, audio data, etc. between terminals via a mail server has been frequently used.

At present, to use e-mail outdoors,
Notebook personal computers (hereinafter referred to as notebook computers) and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants;
Devices that can handle e-mail, such as personal digital assistants, include mobile phones and PHS (Personal Handyphone System).
m; communication with a mail server at a remote place via a telephone line by using a two-way communication system to which a simple mobile phone is connected.

[0005] For example, as shown in FIG. 5, when checking an e-mail delivered to oneself while traveling or going out from outside, a two-way communication system including a mobile phone 24 and a notebook computer 25 is used. In FIG. 5, the mobile phone 24
Is connected to a notebook computer 25, and is connected to a wireless base station (not shown) from the mail server 21 via the telephone line 23.
The e-mail transmitted as a radio wave from the PC is received and transmitted to the notebook computer 25.

When trying to receive an e-mail,
First, a user's login account and password are input from the notebook computer 25, and the mobile phone 24 is used to access the mail server 21 via the telephone line 23 and the modem 22, and to the mail server 21 stored in the mail server 21. Read email.

[0006]

However, in order to read an e-mail by the above-described method, a device capable of handling the e-mail, such as the notebook personal computer 25 or PDA, and a portable device such as the mobile phone 24 or PHS are required. It is necessary to carry a portable telephone terminal. Although these devices are becoming lighter and smaller, there is a problem in that carrying them all is bulky and impairs portability. Further, there is an inconvenience that the user must access the mail server 21 in order to read the e-mail.

On the other hand, if a public telephone is used in place of the portable telephone 24 or the PHS, it is not necessary to carry a portable telephone terminal, but e-mail cannot be read at an arbitrary place outdoors.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and has as its object to transfer an e-mail to an economical and portable reception-only pager terminal so that the e-mail can be transmitted outdoors. A readable electronic mail transfer device is provided.

[0009]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic mail transfer device comprising: a reading unit for reading an electronic mail received by a mail server; and a pager terminal corresponding to a destination address for transmitting the electronic mail. phone number,
Storage means for storing a conversion method for converting the electronic mail into a format recognizable by the pager terminal according to the type of the pager terminal; and conversion means for converting the read electronic mail into the format according to the conversion method. When,
Transmitting means for transmitting the converted electronic mail converted to the format to the pager terminal via a telephone line.

[0010] According to the above invention, first, the reading means reads the electronic mail arriving at the mail server. Next, the conversion unit converts the read electronic mail into a format recognizable by the pager terminal corresponding to the destination address of the electronic mail according to the conversion method stored in the storage unit. Then, the transmitting means transfers the converted e-mail via the telephone line using the telephone number stored in the storing means.

In this case, the conversion method pre-stored in the storage means is to convert the format of the e-mail into an appropriate tone signal according to the type of the pager terminal to which the e-mail is transferred. According to such a conversion method, the conversion means converts the e-mail arriving at the mail server into a format receivable by the pager terminal to be transferred, dials the telephone number set by the transmission means, and connects the telephone line. From the paging station to the pager terminal.

As a result, it is possible to provide an e-mail transfer device which transfers an e-mail to an economical and highly portable pager terminal dedicated to reception and which can read the e-mail outdoors.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the electronic mail transfer device according to the first aspect, the storage means stores the first data amount which is a message length that can be received by the pager terminal at one time. When the converted e-mail exceeds the first data amount, the conversion means divides the converted e-mail for each of the first data amounts and stores a plurality of converted e-mails. A converted electronic mail is created, and the transmitting means sequentially transmits the plurality of converted electronic mails to the pager terminal.

In a small pager terminal pursuing portability, the amount of data that can be received or displayed at one time is small. There is a possibility that it cannot be displayed.

On the other hand, according to the present invention, when transferring a large amount of data, the first data amount, which is the message length that can be received at one time by the pager terminal, is stored in the storage means. Then, the converting means divides the converted electronic mail for each first data amount, and the transmitting means sequentially transfers each of the plurality of converted and formed electronic mails to the pager terminal.

As a result, even if the length of the e-mail exceeds the maximum message length of the pager terminal, the pager terminal can receive the e-mail.

It is more preferable to use a data amount equal to or less than the maximum display length that can be displayed on the display of the pager terminal at a time as the first data amount because the divided electronic mail becomes easy to read.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the electronic mail transfer device according to the second aspect, the storage means stores the second data amount, which is a data amount that can be stored by the pager terminal, in the pager terminal. When the total data amount of the converted e-mail converted into the format and divided for each of the first data amount exceeds the second data amount, the conversion unit stores the converted data. A plurality of data groups are created by dividing the converted e-mail for each second data amount, and the transmitting means intermittently transmits the plurality of data groups to the pager terminal at predetermined time intervals. And

In a small pager terminal pursuing portability, the amount of data that can be stored at one time is small because of its small memory capacity. Therefore, even if an e-mail composed of a lot of data such as a long sentence is transferred, there is a possibility that the e-mail cannot be accumulated at a time.

When the data cannot be stored at one time, old data is replaced with new data in the pager terminal, so that it may be impossible to read the entire transmitted e-mail. Furthermore, when an e-mail to be retained is stored in the pager terminal in a state where it cannot be erased, the remaining memory capacity is further reduced, so that it becomes inconvenient to receive a new e-mail.

According to the above invention, on the other hand, when an electronic mail composed of a large amount of data is transferred, the converting means converts the converted electronic mail into the second data which is the amount of data that can be stored at one time by the pager terminal. Divide by volume to create multiple data groups. And the transmission means,
Each of the plurality of divided data groups is intermittently transferred to the pager terminal at predetermined time intervals. Here, if the second data amount is set to the remaining memory capacity or the like that is not normally used in the pager terminal, one data group can be received smoothly.

As a result, even if the length of the electronic mail exceeds the total amount of data that can be stored in the pager terminal, the entire electronic mail can be transferred.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the electronic mail transfer device according to any one of the first to third aspects, the electronic mail transfer device includes a discriminating means for discriminating the electronic mail to be transferred. Is transmitted to the pager terminal.

According to the above invention, the electronic mail transfer device discriminates only a specific electronic mail by the discriminating means,
Transfer to pager terminal. Specific emails include:
For example, an e-mail from a specific transmission source address, an e-mail in which a specific character string is included in a subject part, a title part, and a text may be considered. If such information is stored in the storage means, the discrimination means can discriminate a specific e-mail based on the information in the storage means.

As a result, the pager terminal can receive only the e-mail to be read, so that the memory consumption of the pager terminal can be reduced.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic mail transfer device according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, further comprising an extracting means for extracting a part of the electronic mail to be transferred. Only a part of the e-mail is transmitted to the pager terminal.

[0027] According to the invention, the electronic mail transfer device extracts only the important part in the electronic mail by the extracting means and transmits it to the pager terminal. Important parts of the e-mail include, for example, a predetermined word / phrase and a predetermined number of characters in the body of the e-mail, the size of the e-mail, the source address, the subject part of the e-mail header, etc. Can be considered. If such information is stored in the storage means, the extraction means can extract an important part based on the information in the storage means.

As a result, the amount of data to be transferred can be reduced, and the memory consumption of the pager terminal can be reduced.

[0029]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of an electronic mail transfer device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 1 shows a computer network 1 using an electronic mail transfer device 6 according to the present embodiment. The computer network 1 includes a main network including a mail server 2, an Ethernet cable 3, a modem 4, telephone lines 5a and 5b, and an electronic mail transfer device 6, and a network terminal device including a pager terminal 7.

The mail server 2 is, for example, a computer for Internet mail, and provides e-mail transmitted from a transmission terminal (not shown) connected to the main network via the telephone line 5a for each destination address. In a designated mailbox (not shown). The mail server 2 transmits the stored e-mail to the e-mail transfer device 6 according to a request from the e-mail transfer device 6 described later.

The Ethernet cable 3 is connected to one LAN.
Is a cable for physically connecting the computers constituting the e-mail server. In the case of FIG. 1, the mail server 2 and the e-mail transfer device 6 are connected by this cable.

The modem 4 converts an electronic mail or the like represented by a digital signal by a transmitting terminal into an analog signal so that it can be transmitted through the telephone line 5a, and receives an analog signal transmitted through the telephone line 5a. They are converted into digital signals so that they can be processed by the terminal.

As shown in FIG. 2, the electronic mail transfer device 6 comprises a storage unit 6a, a reading unit 6b, a control unit 6c, and a transmitting unit 6d. The storage unit 6a corresponds to a storage unit, and is realized by a RAM or the like. The storage unit 6a
Are SMTP, P, which are communication protocols for e-mail.
A TCP / IP communication protocol group such as OP3, a login account and a password registered in the mail server 2 for each user are stored, and the reading unit 6b described later accesses the mail server 2 using these. Has become.

The storage unit 6a includes a discrimination criterion for discriminating an e-mail to be transferred, a conversion method for converting the e-mail into a format recognizable by a pager terminal 7, which will be described later, and a pager terminal 7 capable of receiving at one time. It stores a first data amount, which is an appropriate message length, a second data amount, which is an amount of data that can be stored by the pager terminal 7, and an extraction method for extracting an important part in the electronic mail. Are used to process e-mail into a form to be sent. Further, it stores the telephone number of the pager terminal 7 and the source address to which the e-mail is to be transferred, and the transmitting unit 6d described later transmits the e-mail to the pager terminal 7 using these.

The reading unit 6b corresponds to a reading unit, and sends the mail server 2 via the Ethernet cable 3.
Can communicate with The reading unit 6b accesses the mail server 2 at regular intervals according to the TCP / IP communication protocol group stored in the storage unit 6a, and determines whether an e-mail has arrived at a user of the pager terminal 7 described later. In addition to confirming whether the e-mail has arrived, the e-mail server 2 requests the mail server 2 to transmit the e-mail and reads it.

When e-mails from a plurality of source addresses arrive at the mail server 2, the e-mails from the source address to be transferred stored in the storage unit 6a, or It also has a function as discriminating means for discriminating and reading only those satisfying the discrimination criteria.

The control unit 6c is realized by a CPU or the like, and serves as a conversion unit for converting the electronic mail read by the reading unit 6b into a format recognizable by the pager terminal 7 according to the conversion method stored in the storage unit 6a. It has the function of
If the data amount of the read e-mail is large, prior to the above-mentioned format conversion, only the important part in the e-mail is stored in accordance with the extraction method stored in the storage unit 6a for the purpose of saving the transfer data amount. It has a function as extraction means for extracting.

Further, when the converted e-mail converted as described above has a data amount that is too large for the pager terminal 7 to receive at one time, the converted e-mail is stored in the storage unit 6a. The first data amount is divided into a plurality of electronic mails. Further, when the total data amount of the plurality of electronic mails exceeds the amount of data that can be stored in the pager terminal 7, the converted electronic mail is divided for each second data amount stored in the storage unit 6a. Create a data group of.

The transmitting section 6d is connected to a telephone line 5b via a modular jack connector (not shown).
The transmitting unit 6d replaces the converted e-mail subjected to the conversion, division, extraction, and the like by the control unit 6c with a tone signal, and uses the telephone number stored in the storage unit 6a to transmit the pager terminal. 7 has a function as a transmitting means for transmitting via the telephone line 5b. In particular, when the total data amount of the converted e-mail exceeds the data amount that can be stored in the pager terminal 7, the control unit 6c divides a plurality of data groups created for each second data amount at predetermined time intervals. The data is intermittently transmitted to the pager terminal 7.

Pager terminal (commonly called pager; trademark)
Reference numeral 7 denotes a reception-only device that converts a tone signal transmitted by being modulated by radio waves from a radio paging station (not shown) via a telephone line 5b into a character or a number and displays the code. Since the device is small in pursuit of portability, a memory for storing data and a display such as a liquid crystal panel for displaying data are small, and data that can be received or displayed at one time is limited.

For example, the maximum number of display characters is about 20 to 50 characters in kana and about 100 characters in alphabet.

Therefore, when e-mails are transmitted to the pager terminal 7 at one time, the e-mails cannot be received frequently. However, since the converted electronic mail having a large data amount is divided into a plurality of electronic mails by the control unit 6c of the electronic mail transfer device 6, the above problem can be avoided.

When the total data amount of the plurality of electronic mails exceeds the data amount that can be stored in the pager terminal 7, each of the plurality of data groups divided and created by the control unit 6c is transmitted to the transmission unit 6d. Thus, the data is intermittently transmitted to the pager terminal 7 at predetermined time intervals. Therefore, by reading a plurality of transmitted data groups at the above-mentioned time intervals, the entire electronic mail to be transferred can be confirmed by using the general-purpose pager terminal 7.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 5, when a conventional mobile phone 24 or notebook computer 25 is used as the network terminal device, the capacity of the memory such as the RAM included in the notebook computer 25 is sufficient compared with the pager terminal 7. Because it ’s big
This is advantageous for receiving e-mails all at once. Also, the display is sufficiently large as compared with the pager terminal, and there is no difficulty in displaying long document data. The use of the notebook personal computer 25 has such advantages, but it is necessary to combine it with the mobile phone 24 or the like, and there is a problem in portability. In addition, if the user does not access the mail server 21 to read e-mails, There is the inconvenience of not becoming.

In this regard, in the computer network 1 according to the present embodiment, the pager terminal 7 is very small and excellent in portability, and is convenient because the electronic mail is automatically transmitted from the electronic mail transfer device 6.

The above-described computer network 1
In the above, the mail server 2 and the e-mail transfer device 6 are arranged in the same LAN, but the present invention is not limited to this, and they are connected via the telephone lines 5a and 5b as shown in FIG. Of course, it is good. in this case,
The e-mail transfer device 6 operates the telephone line 5 at predetermined time intervals.
It is necessary to access the mail server 2 via a.5b and confirm the arrival of the e-mail. However, if the mail server 2 is operated by an Internet connection company and the user has the e-mail transfer device 6, there is an advantage that the operation cost of the mail server 2 is reduced from the viewpoint of the communication line maintenance cost. is there. Further, since the e-mail transfer device 6 is provided on the user side, there is no need to select limited functions provided by the Internet connection company, and the e-mail transfer device 6 that is convenient for the user can be formed, which is convenient. .

Further, in the above-described computer network 1, the mail server 2 and the e-mail transfer device 6 are provided separately, but both may be integrated. By doing so, the e-mail transfer device 6 as well as the mail server 2 can be used.
Since it is not necessary to provide the system, the system is simplified and the cost is reduced.

Here, the format of the transmitted e-mail will be described. Email is divided into a header and an email body. Both are separated by blank lines. The header is “Dat” indicating the date and time when the e-mail is sent.
e: ”, and“ Fro ”representing the source address
Line starting with "m:", line starting with "To:" indicating the destination address, line starting with "Subject:" indicating the subject (subject) of the e-mail, and people who want to read the e-mail except at the destination address And a line beginning with "Bcc:" indicating a destination address to which the e-mail is to be sent confidentially, etc. The contents of the header must be described in alphanumeric characters. Usually, the format is automatically assembled by a mailer or browser, which is software used to send and receive e-mail,
The sender fills in only the minimum necessary parts in a selection format or the like.

Next, a process in which the transmitted e-mail is received by the pager terminal 7 in the computer network 1 having the above configuration will be described with reference to FIG.

First, in step S1, the reading unit 6b of the electronic mail transfer device 6 logs into the mail server 2 at regular time intervals using the account of each user of the pager terminal 7 stored in the storage unit 6a. Check if there is an e-mail addressed to the user. Step S
If the electronic mail addressed to the user has not arrived in step 2, the process returns to step S1. When the e-mail addressed to the user is transmitted from the transmitting terminal to the mail server 2 via the telephone line 5a by the sender, the mail server 2 stores the transmitted e-mail in a unique mailbox corresponding to the destination address. store. At this time, since the e-mail addressed to the user has arrived in step S2, the process proceeds to step S3. Instead of steps S1 and S2, when an e-mail arrives at mail server 2, mail server 2 may notify reading unit 6b of the fact. This arrangement is efficient because the reading unit 6b does not have to access the mail server 2 to confirm the incoming of the electronic mail one by one.

Next, in step S3, if the incoming e-mail is not to be transmitted to the user of the pager terminal 7, the process returns to step S1, whereas if it is to be transmitted, the process proceeds to step S4, where the reading unit 6b sends the e-mail from the mail server 2 to Read email.

That is, in steps S3 and S4,
The reading unit 6b discriminates the electronic mail to be transmitted. As a method of discriminating the e-mail, it is conceivable to perform the method based on the source address of the e-mail or the content of the e-mail. When discriminating based on the transmission source address, a list of transmission source addresses for which the electronic mail needs to be transferred is stored in the storage unit 6a for each user of the pager terminal 7. Then, the reading unit 6b may recognize the source address of the electronic mail stored in the mail server 2 and read the electronic mail only when this address is included in the list.

When discrimination is performed based on the contents of the e-mail, a predetermined participant such as "urgent" included in the subject part, the title part, or the body of the e-mail for each user of the pager terminal 7 is used. A character string or the like is stored in the storage unit 6a as a discrimination standard. Then, the reading unit 6b may read the e-mail only when recognizing the discrimination criterion included in the e-mail stored in the mail server 2.

Next, in step S5, if there is a portion to be extracted according to the extraction method stored in the storage unit 6a of the electronic mail transfer device 6 in the read electronic mail, the process proceeds to step S6, where the electronic mail is read. The control unit 6c of the transfer device 6 extracts this part.

On the other hand, if there is no portion to be extracted in step S5, the process proceeds to step S7. The parts to be extracted include the data size of the email, the source address,
The subject part of the e-mail or the predetermined number of characters at the head of the e-mail body may be considered. The data size of the email is received by the reading unit 6b together with the email from the mail server 2, or is calculated from the read email. If you do this,
Even in the pager terminal 7 that can display only numbers,
It can tell at least the data size of the email.

The source address is, specifically, a part of the header of the e-mail that is enclosed by <> in the line beginning with “From:”. You can see if the email was sent from. In particular, when it is desired to save the display of the entire source address, it is possible to display only the user ID of the source address or up to several characters at the head of the domain name.

Further, the subject part of the e-mail, specifically, in the header of the e-mail, begins with “Sub”.
In the line starting with “ject:”, “Subject
This part is a part after "t:". By sending this part, it is possible to know what the e-mail is. In particular, since this part is often written in alphabets, only alphanumeric characters can be displayed. It can be used with pager terminals that cannot.

Further, in the method of extracting a predetermined number of characters at the beginning of the body of an e-mail, it is necessary to request the sender of the e-mail in advance to describe the important characters at the beginning of the body of the e-mail. Thus, the recipient can grasp the contents of the e-mail relatively easily.

The extraction method as described above uses the pager terminal 7
May be performed alone or in combination as appropriate according to the memory capacity. In any case, if only the important part is extracted in this way, the amount of data to be transferred can be reduced, and the memory consumption of the pager terminal can be reduced.

In step S7, the control unit 6 converts the entire electronic mail read or a part extracted from the electronic mail into a format recognizable by the pager terminal 7. Depending on the type of pager terminal 7, only numbers, only kana, only katakana, only alphabets, mixed kana and kanji can be considered, and the format information and conversion method of all the pager terminals 7 to be used are transmitted by e-mail in advance. It is registered in the storage unit 6a of the device 6.

Originally, there is no need to perform format conversion if an e-mail is created in accordance with the format of the destination pager terminal 7. However, if format conversion is performed, for example, the pager terminal 7 that can only display kana characters For example, the kanji in the e-mail can be excluded and a format of only kana can be used.

Then, in step S8, step S7
It is determined whether or not the converted e-mail created in step 1 exceeds the first data amount stored in the storage unit 6a. If the first data amount is exceeded, the process proceeds to step S9, in which the converted e-mail is divided for each first data amount, and one converted e-mail is regarded as a plurality of converted e-mails. If the data amount does not exceed the first data amount, the process directly proceeds to step S12, where the transmitting unit 6d converts the converted electronic mail into a tone signal and transmits it to the pager terminal 7.

Generally, the amount of data that can be received at one time in the pager terminal 7 is limited. Therefore, when a long e-mail is sent to the pager terminal 7 at a time, a portion after a certain point in the e-mail is not received and may not be read.

Therefore, in step S9, the converted electronic mail is divided for each first data amount that can be received at one time. In particular, it is more preferable to set the first data amount to be equal to or less than the maximum displayable length that the pager terminal can display on the display at one time, because the e-mail becomes very easy to read.

In step S10, it is determined whether or not the total data amount of the plurality of converted e-mails divided and created in step S9 exceeds the second data amount stored in the storage unit 6a. If it exceeds the second data amount, the process proceeds to step S11, where a plurality of converted e-mails are divided for each second data amount to create a plurality of data groups. If the data amount does not exceed the second data amount, the process directly proceeds to step S12, where the transmitting unit 6d transmits the converted electronic mail to the pager terminal 7 in the form of a tone signal.

Each of the plurality of data groups created in step S11 is transmitted to the transmitting unit 6d in step S12.
It is transmitted to the pager terminal in the form of a tone signal intermittently at predetermined time intervals such as 0 minutes and 1 hour.

Since the pager terminal 7 generally has a small memory capacity, it cannot store an e-mail that is too long. For example, when the memory capacity is 5 kB, 7 k
When the e-mail with the data amount of B is transmitted to the pager terminal 7, the first 5 kB of data is accumulated first, and the remaining 2 kB of data is transmitted.
The kB data is accumulated while erasing old data.
Therefore, in such a case, the entire e-mail cannot be confirmed.

When there is an e-mail to be retained and the e-mail is stored in a non-erasable form, the remaining memory capacity becomes smaller, so that it becomes more difficult to grasp the entire e-mail.

Therefore, in step S11, the second data amount is set to a data amount smaller than the remaining memory capacity of the pager terminal 7. However, bidirectional communication cannot be performed between the e-mail transfer device 6 and the pager terminal 7, and the remaining memory capacity of the pager terminal 7 cannot be notified to the e-mail transfer device 6. Therefore, regarding the setting of the second data amount, a memory capacity not normally used in the pager terminal 7 is empirically determined, and this value is stored in the storage unit 6a.

The converted electronic mail transferred through the telephone line 5b is modulated by a radio calling station and transmitted to the pager terminal 7 as radio waves. And the pager terminal 7
Upon receiving this radio wave, a ringing tone or the like is generated to notify the user of the arrival of the e-mail, and the tone signal is converted into character data according to the conversion table and displayed on the display. For e-mail that cannot be received at once, read the e-mail divided into multiple e-mails one after another. For e-mail that cannot be stored in memory at one time, e-mail is divided into a plurality of data groups and a predetermined time interval The user can grasp the whole of the e-mail by reading in order what is transferred in the e-mail.

As described above, according to the computer network 1 using the e-mail transfer device 6 of the present embodiment, the reception-only pager terminal 7 that is economical and highly portable.
You can read emails at Therefore, unlike the related art, it is not necessary to carry the mobile phone 24 or the notebook computer 25 to read the e-mail, and an environment where the e-mail can be received outdoors can be constructed at low cost.

Further, unlike the related art, it is possible to transmit a plain document message without using an incomprehensible numeric message or encryption due to the limitation of the amount of data received / displayed by the pager terminal 7.

[0074]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic mail transfer device, comprising: a reading unit that reads an electronic mail received by a mail server; and a pager terminal corresponding to a destination address to which the electronic mail is transmitted. Phone number,
Storage means for storing a conversion method for converting the electronic mail into a format recognizable by the pager terminal according to the type of the pager terminal; and conversion means for converting the read electronic mail into the format according to the conversion method. When,
Transmitting means for transmitting the converted electronic mail converted to the format to the pager terminal via a telephone line.

Therefore, it is possible to provide an electronic mail transfer device that transfers an electronic mail to an economical and portable reception-only pager terminal and can read the electronic mail outdoors.

As described above, in the electronic mail transfer device according to the second aspect of the present invention, in the electronic mail transfer device according to the first aspect, the storage means has a message length that the pager terminal can receive at one time. The first data amount is stored according to the type of the pager terminal, and the converting means divides the converted electronic mail for each of the first data amounts when the converted electronic mail exceeds the first data amount. Then, a plurality of converted e-mails are created, and the transmitting means sequentially transmits the plurality of converted e-mails to the pager terminal.

Therefore, even if the length of the e-mail exceeds the maximum message length of the pager terminal, the pager terminal can receive the e-mail.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, as described above, in the electronic mail transfer device according to the second aspect, the storage means is a data amount which can be stored by the pager terminal. The data amount is stored in accordance with the type of the pager terminal, and the converting means converts the total data amount of the converted e-mail into the format and divided into the first data amount and the second data. If the amount exceeds the amount, the converted e-mail is divided for each second data amount to create a plurality of data groups, and the transmitting means intermittently transmits the plurality of data groups to the pager terminal at predetermined time intervals. This is a configuration for transmission.

Therefore, even if the length of the e-mail exceeds the total amount of data that can be stored in the pager terminal, the whole e-mail can be transferred.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, as described above, the electronic mail transfer device according to any one of the first to third aspects has a discriminating means for discriminating an electronic mail to be transferred. In this configuration, only the identified specific e-mail is transmitted to the pager terminal.

Therefore, since the pager terminal can receive only the e-mail to be read, the memory consumption of the pager terminal can be reduced.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, as described above, in the electronic mail transfer device according to any one of the first to fourth aspects, the extracting means for extracting a part of the electronic mail to be transferred. And transmitting only a part of the extracted e-mail to the pager terminal.

Therefore, the amount of data to be transferred can be reduced, and the memory consumption of the pager terminal can be reduced.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of a computer network using an electronic mail transfer device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of the electronic mail transfer device of FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of another computer network using the electronic mail transfer device according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a procedure for transmitting an electronic mail to a pager terminal.

FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of a conventional computer network.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 computer network 2 mail server 5a telephone line 5b telephone line 6 electronic mail transfer device 6a storage unit (storage unit) 6b reading unit (reading unit) 6c control unit (control unit) 6d transmission unit (transmission unit) 7 pager terminal 24 mobile Phone 25 Note PC

──────────────────────────────────────────────────の Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code FI H04Q 7/12 H04Q 7/04 F H04L 12/54 12/58 H04Q 7/38

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A reading means for reading an e-mail arriving at a mail server, a telephone number of a pager terminal corresponding to a destination address to which the e-mail is transmitted, and the e-mail according to a type of the pager terminal. Storage means for storing a conversion method for converting into a format recognizable by the pager terminal; conversion means for converting the read e-mail into the format according to the conversion method; and telephone conversion of the converted e-mail into the format An e-mail transfer device having transmission means for transmitting the data to the pager terminal via a line. 2. The storage means stores a first data amount, which is a message length that can be received by the pager terminal at a time, according to the type of the pager terminal. When the first data amount is exceeded, the converted e-mail is divided for each of the first data amounts to generate a plurality of converted e-mails. The electronic mail transfer device according to claim 1, wherein the electronic mail is transmitted to a pager terminal. 3. The storage means stores a second data amount, which is a data amount that can be stored by the pager terminal, according to the type of the pager terminal. When the total data amount of the converted e-mail divided within the data amount exceeds the second data amount, the converted e-mail is divided for each of the second data amounts to create a plurality of data groups, 3. The electronic mail transfer device according to claim 2, wherein the transmission unit intermittently transmits the plurality of data groups to the pager terminal at predetermined time intervals. 4. The electronic device according to claim 1, further comprising a discriminating means for discriminating the e-mail to be transferred, and transmitting only the discriminated specific e-mail to the pager terminal. Mail transfer device. 5. An apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an extracting means for extracting a part of the electronic mail to be transferred, and transmitting only a part of the extracted electronic mail to the pager terminal. An e-mail transfer device according to claim 1.