WO2000019670A1

WO2000019670A1 - Active channel virtual office

Info

Publication number: WO2000019670A1
Application number: PCT/US1998/020356
Authority: WO
Inventors: Wai Pak
Original assignee: Harris Corporation
Priority date: 1998-09-30
Filing date: 1998-09-30
Publication date: 2000-04-06
Also published as: AU9672198A

Abstract

A method and system in which a subscriber (12) in a prepaid telephony system is provided with a personal home page in the prepaid system database so that all relevant information stored in the prepaid telephone database since the subscriber's last access to his prepaid home page will be pushed to him automatically every time the subscriber accesses his home page.

Description

ACTIVE CHANNEL VIRTUAL OFFICE

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The Internet is well known and countless organizations and individuals have home pages thereon accessed by an internet address.

Prepaid telephone systems are also well known in which a subscriber uses a telephone to access a remote data base for various services available to him as a subscriber.

The present invention adapts the home page concept to prepaid telephony and permits a subscriber to access a personal home page within the prepaid telephone system.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method by which subscribers in a prepaid telephone system are provided with a personal home page which is accessible from the Internet.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide access to the information in the personal home page by telephone .

It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method by which subscribers to a personal home page within a prepaid telephone system automatically receives information upon access without the necessity of making a request .

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method to allow subscriber to stay in touch with his home base virtual office without long distance phone charges because the internet is locally accessible . It is still another object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method to allow subscriber to have a mobile home office anywhere in the world with all the essential business functions on a notebook computer.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method having access to the mobile home office through either telephone or computer.

These and many other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims, the appended drawings, and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a functional block diagram showing the access by a subscriber from both a telephone and personal computer to personal home page information maintained within the prepaid telephone system.

Figure 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating the basic organization of the prepaid system/switch of the embodiment of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention showing the voice application server (VAS) embedded within the switching platform.

Figure 4 is a functional block diagram illustrating the individual components and the interconnection thereof for one embodiment of the present invention. Figure 5 is a functional block diagram illustrating the various ways to access the home page of the present invention via computer.

Figure 6 is a pictorial representation illustrating a menu sequence displayed for the home page of one embodiment of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS When a prepaid user subscribes to the active channel virtual office feature, he will be provided with a personalized home page in the prepaid system which will give him all the information about his voice mail, fax mail, email, and current account information. This home page will be available to him anywhere in the world as long as he can access the internet or the prepaid intranet.

As shown in Figure 1, a subscriber may access his personal home page in the prepaid system 14 via the Internet 10 using web browser software resident within a personal computer 12.

Upon access, the subscriber will automatically be provided with the information accumulated in the prepaid data base since his last access thereto. In addition to the email, fax mail, voice mail, and account history information previously mentioned, other services may be provided such as enhanced dispute resolution with respect to charges through the immediate notification of the dispute to an operator upon the "marking" of the disputed charges by the subscriber while accessing account information through his home page. Further services/information associated with home page access may include control of the PrePaid Card including the activation and recharging thereof, and rate quotes including the first minute and additional minutes rates for a specified destination.

With continued reference to Figure 1, the subscriber may alternatively access the prepaid system 14 from anywhere in the world using telephone 16 via the public switched telephone network ("PSTN") 18. Where access to the subscriber's home page information is desired via telephone instead of the Internet, e-mail and fax mail can be read to the subscriber and certain account information may be automatically provided or accessed by a voice prompt menu.

Figure 2, elaborating on the switch/prepaid system 14 of Figure 1, shows a suitable conventional telephone switch 20 such as the Harris Corporation 20/20 switch in a conventional PSTN connected to large numbers of subscriber telephones such as the caller telephones 22 and the called party telephones 24. Also connected to the switch 20 may be a bank of voice application servers (VASs) 26 on which the prepaid call processing application 28 resides. Further, to provide the IP capability needed for the internet phone and internet conferencing of the present invention, an Internet Telephony Gateway ("ITG") functional unit 30 is incorporated into the switch 20, thereby effecting the direct conversion within the switch 20 of the PCM signal from the PSTN to the internet packets necessary for acceptance by the Internet. Alternatively as shown in Figure 3, the VASs 26 may be embedded within the architecture of an integrated network server (IN Server) 32 which is physically mounted on the back plane of the telephone switch 20. The embedding of the VAS in the switch platform effects seamless transfer of information and may be accomplished by means of an adaptor card with the elimination of the Tl and El circuits. To provide the necessary IP capability in this configuration, an ITG card such as the IP Telephony card available from Analogic Corporation may be inserted directly into the IN Server 32 as discussed in application serial number 09/139,414, "Integration of ITG to Hardware", the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.

The management of a prepaid system is generally under the control of a call processing application resident within the VAS. The call processing application, in association with peripheral equipment, determines the action to be taken (e.g., determining the correctness of a PIN entry, the prompting of users for destination numbers or desired services, outdialing to a requested telephone number, etc.) during the processing of a call request.

With regard to the virtual office feature, a Web server and a home page control server control the subscriber's access to the prepaid system along with the access of certain features within the system such as voice mail, fax mail, and internet phone and conferencing. These applications are illustrated in Figure 4. More specifically, the home page control server 38 manages the information flow to and from the home page 50 while the Web server 34 services the subscriber requests from web browser 42 regarding the home page 50. Further illustrated in Figure 4 is a database server 36 such as a SQL server which stores and retrieves (upon request from the web server or the prepaid call processing application) prepaid subscriber information maintained within the prepaid database 48. Functionality may also be included to allow direct contact with live operators upon subscriber request.

A prepaid home page is accessed through the prepaid Web server with which the subscriber initially subscribed to the prepaid system. A subscriber access his home page via computer in three ways as illustrated in Figure 5. The subscriber can access the home page through his internet service provider, through a local prepaid Web server, or by contacting the desired prepaid Web server directly; the latter two options accomplished via PSTN.

To implement the virtual office feature of the present invention, the Internet Explorer 4.0 Active Channel software application disclose is used to program an active channel for a web site such that every time the subscriber accesses his prepaid home page, the subscribed information is "pushed" to the subscriber instead of waiting for the subscriber to request the data. With Voice Active control and Fax Active control (i.e., audio and fax capability) automatically downloaded in his local computer system, a subscriber, by browsing through his prepaid home page, could download and access his voice mail and fax mail from his own computer. Figure 6 illustrates voice mail access via a home page for one embodiment of the present invention. Upon accessing the subscriber's home page of the prepaid system, the subscriber is prompted for a Personal Identification Number ("PIN") (100) . Upon PIN validation, the subscriber will automatically be provided a menu indicative of the information accumulated in the prepaid data base since his last access to the home page (102) . Selection of a menu option results in the display of header information pertaining to the topic (103) . For example, only the header of the voice mail or fax mail will be downloaded ("pushed") to the subscriber, providing the nature of the mail to the subscriber, without incurring any unwanted expense on the subscriber's part, given the prepaid environment, for a complete download. Upon subscriber request, the entire content of the mail will be downloaded (104) .

While accessing his home page, the subscriber can perform other functions including the construction and faxing of fax mail, outdialing from the computer to either a telephone or another computer, and video conferencing between computers; all functions accomplished via the prepaid system. Further, additional virtual office functionality such as weather reports, sports news, and stock quotes could easily be made available in the web page.

While preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described, it is to be understood that the embodiments described are illustrative only and the scope of the invention is to be defined solely by the appended claims when accorded a full range of equivalence, many variations and modifications naturally occurring to those of skill in the art from a perusal hereof .

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:

1. In a prepaid telephone system accessible from anywhere in the world by a computer through the Internet in which a subscriber may access the database of the prepaid telephone system for information relating to the subscriber's account , the improvement wherein the telephone data base includes a personal home page for each subscriber and to which the data base associates information received from other subscribers; and wherein information associated in the prepaid telephone data base with the subscriber's home page is automatically pushed to the subscriber's computer without request upon access by the subscriber to his personal home page.

2. The system of Claim 1 wherein the information includes e-mail, fax mail, and voice mail.

3. The system of Claim 1 wherein the information includes prepaid telephone account information.

4. The system of Claim 1 including means through which the subscriber may control the activation and recharging of his prepaid telephone card.

5. A method of establishing a virtual office for a prepaid telephone system subscriber comprising the steps of:

(a) providing a personal home page for a subscriber in a prepaid telephone system;

(b) associating internal information regarding the subscriber's prepaid telephone system account and information received from external sources with the subscriber's personal home page; (c) accessing from anywhere in the world by a computer through the Internet the subscriber's personal home page over an active channel between the prepaid telephone system and the subscriber's Internet home page;

(d) automatically transmitting information associated with the subscriber's personal home page in the data base of the prepaid telephone system to the subscriber's computer upon access of the subscriber's personal home page.

6. In a prepaid telephone system accessible from anywhere in the world by telephone in which a subscriber may access the data base of the prepaid telephone system for information relating to the subscriber's account, the improvement wherein the telephone data base includes a personal home page for each subscriber and to which the data base associates information received from other subscribers; and wherein all of the information associated in the prepaid telephone data base with the subscriber's personal home page is provided via a voice application server to the subscriber upon the subscriber's access to the prepaid system by telephone .

7. The system of Claim 6 wherein the information includes voice mail and fax mail .

8. The system of Claim 6 wherein the information includes prepaid telephone account information.

9. The system of Claim 6 including means through which the subscriber may control the activation and recharging of his prepaid telephone card.

10. A method of establishing a virtual office for a prepaid telephone system subscriber comprising the steps of :

(b) associating internal information regarding the subscriber's prepaid telephone system account and information received from external sources with the subscriber's personal home page ;

(c) accessing from anywhere in the world by telephone the prepaid system; and,

(d) transmitting information associated with the subscriber's personal home page in the data base of the prepaid telephone system to the subscriber' s telephone via a voice application server upon access to the prepaid system.