JPS63275256A - Use rate display method for data communication terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To eliminate the need for calculation of a rate and to show the use rate before transmission by once accumulating transmission data in a memory and calculating the communication rate required from a communication time which has been obtained on a condition that data transmission speed is the lowest from the data quantity and from the communication rate of a unit time. CONSTITUTION:A communication distance is discriminated from an outgoing destination telephone number and the communication rate per unit time is obtained. Transmission data is once accumulated in the memory and the communication rate required is calculated from the communication time which has been obtained on the condition that the data transmission speed is the lowest from the data quantity and the communication rate per unit time, whereby the use rate is displayed based on the communication rate which has been obtained before data transmission. In case the rate is paid on the other hand, data transmission is started and repayment is executed when the actual communication rate is decided. Since a trouble for calculating the rate is eliminated and the use rate is displayed before transmission on the condition that the rate becomes the highest, a user can previously be informed of the rate and he can use a terminal at ease.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Technical Field] The present invention relates to a usage fee display of a data communication terminal when charging a usage fee to a user when a data communication terminal device is installed and a data transmission service business is performed. Regarding the method.

[Prior Art] One of the well-known data communication terminal devices is a facsimile device. Until now, facsimile machines have generally been installed mainly in offices and used only by the office staff. However, in recent years,
For example, stationery stores and the like have installed facsimile machines to provide document transmission services to general customers.

When providing such a transmission service, the store must pay communication fees to NTT depending on the time the telephone line is used and the distance to the destination. Therefore, the customer is charged a device usage fee and a communication fee, which are set according to the number of originals, for example.

For this purpose, the clerk operates a facsimile machine to process the outgoing call according to the user's request, measures the communication time, and calculates the communication fee by referring to a pre-prepared rate list for each destination area. The transmission service usage fee is determined by adding the predetermined device usage fee.

As described above, in the past, when providing a service for transmitting documents, etc., it was troublesome for the clerk to operate a facsimile machine and calculate fees. Also,
There was an inconvenience for the user in that the usage fee was not known until the sending process was completed.

Incidentally, there is known a general facsimile device that has a function of calculating a communication fee with a communication destination after executing a transmission process and outputting a communication fee management report. However, in this case, the charges were calculated based on the communication time after the end of the communication, so it was not possible to know the charges in advance. Further, even if an attempt was made to calculate the fee in advance, there was a problem in that the transmission speed of image information was determined after communication started, and the communication time varied depending on the transmission speed, so it was impossible to calculate the fee.

In addition to facsimile machines, there are other data communication terminals that can provide data transmission services for users, such as Teletex, but these also have similar troubles and inconveniences.

[Objective] In view of the above points, it is an object of the present invention to provide a usage fee display method for a data communication terminal that does not require calculation of fees and allows usage fees to be known before transmission.

[Configuration] For this purpose, the present invention determines the communication distance from the destination telephone number to obtain the communication fee per unit time, stores a portion of the transmitted data in memory, and calculates the data transmission speed based on the amount of data. The necessary communication fee is calculated from the communication time calculated under the slowest conditions and the communication fee for the above unit time, and the usage fee is displayed based on the calculated communication fee before data transmission starts. When data transmission starts and the actual transmission speed is determined, communication charges are calculated again.
The difference in usage fees that decreases is refunded.

Examples of the present invention will be described in detail below.

FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a facsimile machine according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, a reading unit 1 reads a transmission document at a predetermined line density and extracts image information, and a line buffer 2 temporarily stores the extracted image information for one line. C0
The DEC (encoding/decoding unit) 3 conforms to Gu of the CCITT recommendation.
It encodes image information to be transmitted and decodes image information received in accordance with the lf standard. The line buffer 4 temporarily stores one line of received image information, and the recording section 5 records the image information on recording paper.

The image memory 6 temporarily stores image information to be transmitted. The modem 7 transmits and receives transmission procedure signals under the control of the transmission procedure control section 8, and also modulates image information to be transmitted and demodulates image information received. Note that this modem 7 supports 9600BPS, 7200BPS,
It has the function of transmitting data at four types of transmission speeds, 4800 BPS and 2400 BPS, and is set to one transmission speed by sequentially falling back from 9600 BPS to a possible transmission speed through modem training executed in the transmission control procedure. The NCU (network control unit) 9 performs outgoing operations such as seizing a line and sending out a selection signal that is a dial number, and detects incoming calls and performs incoming calls.

The automatic transmitter 10 outputs a predetermined selection signal at this time.

The information counting unit 11 detects all encoded image information to be transmitted, that is, the amount of data stored in the image memory 6. The communication time counting section 12 calculates the communication time with the destination before starting the transmission operation. here,
Assuming that the data amount is D, the time required for the transmission control procedure is T1, and the data transmission speed is S, the communication time T is calculated by the following equation.

T, = (D/S) + T, ... (1) The above time T
0 is slightly different depending on whether the document has only one page or multiple pages, but is calculated as the average number of pages for the amount of data.

The device operating time counting section 13 counts the device operating time from the start of operation by the user operating the facsimile device to the end of communication. The device usage fee calculation unit 14
The device usage fee is calculated by multiplying the device operating time by a preset fee per unit time.

The telephone number storage section 15 stores the telephone number of the destination to be called, and the unit charge storage section 16 stores the communication charge per unit time when calling from the installation location of this facsimile machine to all over the country, that is, the communication charge to be paid to NTT. This is to store the call charge and obtain the communication charge per unit time to the other party based on the above-mentioned call destination telephone number. The communication charge calculation unit 17 calculates the charge per unit time and the communication time T.
0 to calculate the actual communication fee required.

The display control unit 18 adds up the communication fee and the device usage fee, and displays the transmission service usage fee charged to the user on the display unit 19. The display section 19 is a CRT.
or a liquid crystal display that can display characters.

The fee payment section 20 is for the user to pay the displayed fee in coins or banknotes, and the fee counting section 21 is for counting the paid amount. The difference calculation unit 22 is for refunding a predetermined difference from the fee refund unit 23 when the paid amount exceeds the usage fee.

The operation unit 24 is used to input an instruction to read a transmission document 9, input a destination type telephone number, and instruct to start transmission processing. The system control unit 25 controls each of the above units, collects a predetermined usage fee, and executes a predetermined image transmission.

The facsimile device of this embodiment has the above configuration and is installed in an unmanned place, such as a public telephone, and the user operates it himself when he wants to use it and pays a predetermined fee each time he wants to use it. It is something that

When performing transmission processing using this facsimile device, the user first sets the transmission document on the reading section 1, inputs the destination telephone number on the operation section 24, and performs a startup operation (process 31), as shown in FIG. ). As a result, the system control unit 25
The reading section 1 is activated under the control of the image information controller 1, and the image information read is encoded by the C0DEC3 and sequentially stored in the image memory 6 (processing 32). The information counting section 11 counts the amount of data sequentially stored in the image memory 6 and detects the total amount of data to be transmitted.

The communication time counting unit 12 calculates the above (1) based on the amount of data, the data transmission speed, and the time required for the transmission control procedure.
) Calculate the communication time using the formula. In this case, the data transmission rate is determined by the transmission control procedure after the start of communication processing, so here, the lowest data transmission rate is 2400B.
Calculated using PS. On the other hand, the unit charge storage unit 16 calculates, for example, the communication charge per second from the input telephone number of the other party. The communication fee calculation unit 17 calculates the necessary communication fee by multiplying the communication fee per unit time by the communication time.

Further, the device operating time counting section 13 measures the time from the time when the user first sets a document on the reading section 1 until the time when the image information of the document is finished being stored in the image memory 6, and also measures the time. The communication time calculated by the communication time counting section 12 is added to calculate the device usage time. The device usage fee calculation unit 14 calculates a predetermined device usage fee from the device usage time.

The display control unit 18 adds the device usage fee and the communication fee to calculate the usage fee C8 (processing 33). As shown in Figure 3, the communication fee (a), the device usage fee (b), the usage fee (C) which is the total amount of both, and the charge request message (d) and the destination (e) of the same figure are displayed (processing 34).

The user pays the fee displayed on the display section 19 through the fee payment section 20. The charge counting unit 21 counts the paid charges. The difference calculation unit 22 checks the result (process 35). If the fee is paid here (Y in process 35), the fee refund unit 23 is controlled as necessary to return the change.

Next, the automatic calling section 10 reads the destination telephone number from the telephone number storage section 15, and controls the NCU 9 to perform a predetermined calling process. When the other party's facsimile machine responds,
A predetermined transmission process starts (process 36).

FIG. 4 shows an example of the transmission control procedure executed here. That is, from the receiving side RX, the CHD signal, D
Upon receiving the NS signal, the transmitter TX sends out a DC8 signal and a modem training signal. This modem training signal was initially transmitted at the fastest transmission speed, 96008PS.
The signal is sent.

This allows the receiving side RX to perform modem training and, in cases such as poor line conditions and high data error rate, to
Returns T signal. When the transmitting side TX receives the FTT signal, it lowers the transmission rate by one step and sends the modem training signal again. This procedure is repeated, and the receiving side R
When X becomes able to receive normally, it returns a CFR signal.

The transmitting side TX receives this and determines a specific transmission rate S1. The figure shows a case where the speed is determined to be 4800 BPS.

The system control unit 25 monitors the progress of this transmission control procedure (process 37), and when the transmission speed S4 is determined (process 37).
Y), the transmission speed S1 is compared with the transmission speed of 2400 BPS used in the fee calculation (process 38). here,
When the transmission speed S1 is not 2400 BPS (N of process 38), the communication fee C1 is reduced at that transmission speed S1 as described above.
is calculated (process 39). Then, the charge C calculated last time
0 and the current charge C□ is calculated, and the charge refund section 2
3, the difference is refunded' (process 40). At this time, the display unit 19 displays the fee calculated this time.

In parallel with the above processes 37 to 40, image information in the image memory 6 is sent from the transmitting side TX via the modem 7 as shown in FIG. 4, and an EOP signal is sent after the image information.

The receiving side RX returns the MCF signal, and the sending side TX returns the DCN.
The signal is sent and the transmission process ends.

On the other hand, if the fee is not paid in the above manner (N in process 35), the transmission process is not executed. Also, the transmission speed S1 is 2
400BPS ti:r ff=casec (processing 38)
v), the transmission process is executed directly. By the way, if the destination line is busy or there is no response after calling for a certain period of time after entering the calling process, the fee refund unit 23 will refund the paid fee.

As described above, in this embodiment, part of the image information of the transmitted original is stored in the dual image memory 6, and the communication time is determined based on the amount of data, the lowest transmission speed, and the time required for transmission control. The communication charge per unit time to each region is stored, the region is determined from the input destination telephone number, and the necessary communication charge is calculated from the charge per unit time and the communication time. In addition, we count the operating time of the device, calculate the device usage fee according to that time, and add the above communication fee as the usage fee for the document transmission service.
It is displayed before the sending process starts. After the fee is paid, the transmission process is started, and once the data transmission speed is determined, the fee is calculated again and the excess amount is refunded.

As described above, charge calculation is performed by the facsimile machine, so by allowing the user to perform the operation himself/herself, there is no need for a clerk or the like to perform the operation on his/her behalf or calculate the charge. Further, since the usage fee is displayed before sending, the user can know the fee in advance and can perform the sending process after paying the fee, so the user can use the service with peace of mind.

By the way, in the above-mentioned embodiment, since the usage fee is calculated based on the highest condition first, there is an inconvenience that the user always needs more money than the amount actually required.

Figure 5 shows 1. This figure shows the operation of a facsimile machine according to another embodiment of the present invention that improves this disadvantage.

In the figure, the same reference numerals as in FIG. 2 indicate the same processing. In this case, after setting the original, inputting the destination telephone number (process 31), and reading the original (process 32), the usage fee C2 is calculated at the transmission speed S2 most used by the facsimile machine (
Processing 41). In the modem training described above, the transmission speed S1 to be used is determined depending on the line condition during communication, but here, the transmission speed that is generally most determined is set in advance as 82.

When the fee is paid (Y in process 35), the transmission process is started. When the transmission rate S is determined (Y in process 37), the transmission rate S and the above transmission rate S2 are determined. If they do not match, the usage fee 01 is calculated again using the transmission speed S□ (process 43).

Next, the difference is calculated by subtracting the usage fee 01 obtained this time from the usage fee 02 obtained earlier, and if this difference is positive, the entire refund is processed 45), and the predetermined transmission process is executed to send the full screen information. is transmitted (process 46).

On the other hand, if the above-mentioned difference is negative, based on the difference between the above-mentioned transmission speed S2 and transmission speed S1, calculate the limit time T for how much further transmission can be continued using the previously paid usage fee of 02 minutes. Calculate (process 47).

As shown in FIG. 6, the display section 19 displays the paid fee (f in the same figure) and the confirmed fee (g in the same figure), which is the usage fee 01.
) and displays the difference between the two (h in the figure) and a message (i in the figure) to urge the user to pay the shortfall fee within the time limit T (process 47).
).

Next, the payment of the fee is carefully processed 49), and if the predetermined fee is paid within the time T, the transmission process is executed as usual (process 46). On the other hand, if the fee is not paid, the transmission process is executed for the above-mentioned time limit T (process 5).
0).

In this way, in this embodiment, the usage fee to be collected initially is calculated at the most frequently used transmission speed, so that the user can calculate the usage fee that is actually required, as in the case of Fig. 2. This eliminates the inconvenience of having to pay the amount that will not be paid once.

In addition, in the above embodiment, the transmission speed for fee calculation, S2
Although I decided to set the communication distance 9 to a fixed value in advance, I investigated the most commonly used transmission speed for each communication time zone and communication destination area, and stored the results in memory, so that the input destination An appropriate transmission rate may be determined each time based on the telephone number and charges may be calculated.

Furthermore, if the paid amount is less than the requested usage fee, the communication may be performed for a time corresponding to the amount of the fee. Furthermore, in that case, the image information may be transmitted by changing to a transmission mode with a coarse linear density to shorten the communication time.

Furthermore, in the embodiment shown in Fig. 2, the communication time is calculated at the time when the data transmission speed is determined, and the usage fee is calculated again based on this. By recalculating the usage fee based on the communication time, it becomes possible to collect an accurate fee according to the actual communication fee.

Furthermore, if the transmission process is interrupted due to a transmission error after the predetermined fee has been paid, the fee may be obtained in accordance with the percentage of images that were successfully transmitted. Further, although the apparatus usage fee is obtained according to the operating time of the apparatus, it may be determined according to the number of originals.

Needless to say, you can decide freely.

By the way, although the case of a facsimile machine has been described above, it is natural that similar effects can be obtained by applying the present invention when such a data transmission service is provided by, for example, teletex.

[Effects] As explained above, according to the present invention, the communication distance is determined from the destination telephone number to obtain the communication fee per unit time, and a portion of the transmitted data is stored in the memory to reduce the amount of data. Calculate the necessary communication fee from the communication time calculated under the slowest data transmission speed condition and the communication fee for the above unit time,
The usage fee is displayed based on the communication fee calculated before starting data transmission, and if the fee is paid, data transmission is started and the refund is refunded when the actual communication fee is determined. By allowing users to perform the operations themselves, there is no need for store staff to perform operations on their behalf or to calculate fees, and the usage fees are displayed before sending based on the highest conditions, making it easier for users to perform the operations themselves. You can know the fee in advance, and the transmission process will be performed after paying the fee, so you can use it with confidence.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block configuration diagram of a facsimile device according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the facsimile device, FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of displaying transmission service usage charges, and FIG. The figure is an explanatory diagram of the transmission control procedure,
FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the facsimile machine in another embodiment, and FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of displaying insufficient usage charges in that embodiment. l...Reading unit, 2, 4...Line buffer, =19
- 3...C0DEC (encoding/decoding unit), 5...recording unit, 6...image memory, 7...modem, 8...transmission procedure control unit, 9...NCU (network control device), 10
...Automatic transmission section, 11...Information amount counting section, 12...
・Communication time counting unit, 13...Device operating time counting unit, 1
4... Device usage fee calculation unit, 15... Telephone number storage unit, 16... Unit fee storage unit, 17... Communication fee calculation unit, 18... Display control unit, 19... Display Part, 20
...Charge delivery department, 21 ...Charge counting department, 22...
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Claims (3)

[Claims] (1) A destination specifying means for specifying a destination telephone number, a communication charge determination means for determining communication distance based on the input telephone number and obtaining a communication charge per unit time, and an input means for inputting data to be transmitted. , a data storage means for temporarily storing input data, a data transmission means for transmitting the stored data at various transmission speeds depending on the line condition, and the data transmission speed and the total amount of data to be transmitted. A communication time calculation means that calculates the communication time based on the time required for the transmission control procedure, and a use that calculates the usage fee for the data transmission service based on the communication fee obtained from the calculated communication time and the communication fee per unit time. It is equipped with a fee calculation means, a fee display means for displaying the calculated usage fee, a fee payment means for paying the usage fee, and a refund means for refunding a portion of the paid fee as necessary, and starts data transmission. While displaying the usage fee calculated under the condition of the lowest transmission speed among the above-mentioned transmission speeds, data transmission will start when the displayed fee is paid, and once the actual transmission speed is determined, the data transmission will start. A usage fee display method for a data communication terminal characterized in that the actual required usage fee is calculated again based on the speed, and the difference between the usage fee and the previously calculated usage fee is refunded. (2) In claim 1, the usage fee calculation means has a function of calculating the actually necessary usage fee based on the actually measured communication time, and the usage fee calculation means has a function of calculating the actually necessary usage fee based on the actually measured communication time, and A usage fee display method for a data communication terminal, characterized in that the difference between the usage fee calculated based on the above and the usage fee calculated previously is refunded. (3) A destination specifying means for specifying a destination telephone number, a communication charge determination means for determining communication distance based on the input telephone number and obtaining a communication charge per unit time, and an input means for inputting data to be transmitted. , a data storage means for temporarily storing input data, a data transmission means for transmitting the stored data at various transmission speeds depending on the line condition, and the data transmission speed and the total amount of data to be transmitted. A communication time calculation means that calculates the communication time based on the time required for the transmission control procedure, and a use that calculates the usage fee for the data transmission service based on the communication fee obtained from the calculated communication time and the communication fee per unit time. It is equipped with a fee calculation means, a fee display means for displaying the calculated usage fee, a fee payment means for paying the usage fee, and a refund means for refunding a portion of the paid fee as necessary, and starts data transmission. The usage fee calculated previously under the conditions of a specific transmission speed is displayed, and data transmission starts when the displayed fee is paid, and when the actual transmission speed is determined, the data transmission starts. The usage fee will be calculated again based on the speed, and if the usage fee is less than the usage fee calculated earlier, the difference will be refunded, but if it is more than the usage fee calculated earlier, the difference will be displayed as a shortfall fee and the fee will be refunded. A usage fee display method for a data communication terminal characterized in that when a terminal is delivered, a predetermined transmission process is executed to the end.