Dynamic scrolling-ticker for initiating telecommunications services

Abstract

A system and method for initiating communications between a first wireless device and a second wireless device. The method includes the steps of detecting the status of the first wireless device, notifying the second wireless device via a scrolling ticker message based on the detecting step and establishing a communication session between the first and second wireless devices. The detecting step includes generating an alert based on a predefined event. The system for establishing a communication path between a first mobile device and a second mobile device includes an IMS core, a presence server communicatively coupled to the IMS core and in communication with the first mobile device, a scrolling ticker server in communication with the presence server and with the second mobile device, wherein the presence server communicates availability of the first mobile device and the scrolling ticker notifies the second mobile device of the availability of the first mobile device.

Claims

1. A method comprising: registering a first wireless device with an IP Multimedia Subsystem core and a presence server; attempting to establish a peer to peer communication session between the first wireless device that supports ticker technology configured to receive content streams from a ticker server configured as an IP Multimedia Subsystem application server and a second wireless device; receiving a communication from the presence server through an ISC interface between the presence server and the ticker server that the second wireless device is presently unavailable to establish the peer to peer communication session; selecting an option to have a ticker message streamed to the first wireless device when the second wireless device becomes available; when the second wireless device becomes available at a future point in time, receiving the ticker message from the ticker server on the first wireless device wherein the ticker message includes an indication that the second wireless device has become available, and wherein the ticker message includes an embedded pointer which, if selected by a subscriber associated with the first wireless device, offers a one-click invocation of the peer to peer session between the first wireless device and the second wireless device; displaying the ticker message on a display screen in the first wireless device; selecting the embedded pointer on the ticker message; and establishing the peer to peer communication session with the second wireless device in response to selecting the embedded pointer on the ticker message.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the ticker message is based on a predefined event.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the ticker message comprises a text stream based on a set of user-defined alerts.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the ticker message comprises an automatic generation of a call back signal upon receipt of the ticker message.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the text stream based on a set of user-defined alerts comprises the text stream selected from among a group comprising stock information, sports information, news information, and weather information.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the ticker message comprises a really simple syndication (RSS) communication protocol.

7. A wireless device that supports ticker technology, the wireless device comprising: a processor; and memory coupled to the processor, the memory comprising executable instructions that when executed by the processor cause the processor to effectuate operations comprising: registering a first wireless device with an IP Multimedia Subsystem core and a presence server; attempting to establish a peer to peer communication session between the first wireless device that supports ticker technology configured to receive content streams from a ticker server configured as an IP Multimedia Subsystem application server and a second wireless device; receiving a communication from the presence server through an ISC interface between the presence server and the ticker server that the second wireless device is presently unavailable to establish the peer to peer communication session; selecting an option to have a ticker message streamed to the wireless device when the second wireless device becomes available; receiving on the first wireless device the ticker message from the ticker server, wherein the ticker message includes an indication that the second wireless device has become available, and wherein the ticker message includes an embedded pointer which, if selected by a subscriber associated with the wireless device, offers a one-click invocation of the peer to peer session between the wireless device and the second wireless device; displaying the ticker message on a display screen in the first wireless device; selecting the embedded pointer on the ticker message; and establishing the peer to peer communication session with the second wireless device in response to selecting the embedded pointer on the ticker message.

8. The wireless device of claim 7 wherein the ticker message is based on a predefined event.

9. The wireless device of claim 7 wherein the ticker message comprises a text stream based on a set of user-defined alerts.

10. The wireless device of claim 7 wherein the ticker message comprises an automatic generation of a call back signal upon receipt of the ticker message.

11. The wireless device of claim 9 wherein the text stream based on a set of user-defined alerts comprises the text stream selected from among a group comprising stock information, sports information, news information, and weather information.

12. The wireless device of claim 7 wherein the ticker message comprises a really simple syndication (RSS) communication protocol.

13. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program to effectuate operations comprising: registering a first wireless device with an IP Multimedia Subsystem core and a presence server; attempting to establish a peer to peer communication session between a first wireless device that supports ticker technology configured to receive content streams from a ticker server configured as an IP Multimedia Subsystem application server and a second wireless device; receiving a communication from the presence server through an ISC interface between the presence server and the ticker server that the second wireless device is presently unavailable to establish the peer to peer communication session; selecting an option to have a ticker message streamed to the first wireless device when the second wireless device becomes available; receiving the ticker message from a ticker server on the first wireless device wherein said the ticker message includes an indication that the second wireless device has become available, and wherein the ticker message includes an embedded pointer which, if selected by a subscriber associated with the first wireless device, offers a one-click invocation of the peer to peer session between the first wireless device and the second wireless device; displaying the ticker message on a display screen in the first wireless device; selecting the embedded pointer on the ticker message; and establishing the peer to peer communication session with the second wireless device in response to selecting the embedded pointer on the ticker message.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the ticker message is based on a predefined event.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the ticker message comprises a text stream based on a set of user-defined alerts.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 13 the ticker message comprises an automatic generation of a call back signal upon receipt of the ticker message.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein the text stream based on a set of user-defined alerts comprises one selected from among a group comprising stock information, sports information, news information, and weather information.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

(1) Other features of the invention are further apparent from the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing.

(2) FIG. 1 illustrates a preferred embodiment of a communication network in accordance with the present invention;

(3) FIG. 2 illustrates an example of the system architecture of an IMS communication system in which peer-to-peer communications occurs;

(4) FIG. 3 illustrates a flow chart illustrating the establishment of peer-to-peer communications;

(5) FIG. 4 illustrates an alternative embodiment of the present invention which supports the operation, management and security of conference calling.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(6) Those skilled in the art will recognize that certain acronyms as used herein have industry standard meanings. For the convenience of the reader, the acronyms set forth below shall have the meanings as indicated, or if such acronyms are not listed, they shall have their industry standard meanings.

(7) ASApplication Server

(8) CSCFCall State Control Functions

(9) P-CSCFProxy Call State Control Functions

(10) I-CSCFInterrogating Call State Control Functions

(11) S-CSCFServing Call State Control Functions

(12) HSSHome Subscriber Server

(13) DNS/ENUMProvides the link between MSISDN and IP

(14) QoSQuality of Service

(15) GGSNGateway GPRS Support Node

(16) RANRadio Access Network

(17) RSSReally Simple Syndication

(18) SGSNServing GPRS Support Node

(19) SDPSession Description Protocol

(20) SIPSession Initiation Protocol

(21) UEUser Equipment

(22) With reference to FIG. 1, there is shown a functional block diagram of one embodiment of the present invention. There is shown user equipment (UE) 12, 14, which, in accordance with the present invention, are to communicate with each other using peer to peer protocols. Functions included in setting up the peer to peer communication include the IMS core 100, the presence server 30, and the scrolling ticket server 40. The UE 12, 14 may be any type of wireless communication devices, preferably with GPRS data capabilities. At least one of UE 12 or UE 14 supports scrolling ticker technology such as the afore-mentioned Motorola V577. For the purposes of this description, we will assume that at least UE 14 supports scrolling ticker technology. For convenience, the terms UE and wireless device may be used interchangeably throughout this specification.

(23) The presence server 30 is known in the art and is an application server located within the network and preferably designed in accordance with applicable Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) standards, preferably OMA-ERELD-Presence SIMPLE-VI 0-200602014-C, Enabler Release Definition for OMA Presence SIMPLE and references contained therein, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference. The presence server 30 collects information about the presence, or availability, of a set of wireless subscribers. Typically, such information may include, for example, whether a particular subscriber wireless device is powered on and within coverage range, whether the wireless device is accepting data messages or whether the wireless device is otherwise logged on to a particular application such as Instant Messaging. The presence server 30 communicates with the IMS core 100 as one of potentially several application servers.

(24) The scrolling ticker server 40 is preferably a content server configured to communicate with one or more wireless devices, such as UE 12 or UE 14. The scrolling ticker server streams content to wireless devices configured to receive such data. The scrolling ticker server 40 may, for example, provide text streams based on a set of user-defined alerts, such as stock information, sports scores, news, weather, and any other information. One communication protocol between the scrolling ticker server 40 to UE 12 or UE 14 may, for example, be really simple syndication (RSS), more specifically, the RSS 2.0 standard.

(25) The IMS core 100 communicates with UE 12 and 14. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, the IMS core 100 is described in relevant part with respect to FIG. 2. Those skilled in the art will understand that there may be other components within an IMS core not specifically shown in the drawing. Without limiting the generality of the invention, in order to describe the operation of the peer-to-peer network 10 in the context of this invention, an example will be used in which UE 14 will be assumed to be a wireless device 314 which initiates a communication in a peer-to-peer session with UE 12, assumed in this example to be wireless device 312, when the subscriber associated with wireless device 312 becomes available.

(26) Wireless device 312, upon power-up, registers with the IMS core 20 and the presence server 30, indicating the subscriber of wireless device 312 is online and available for communication. The presence server 30 sends a communication to the scrolling ticker server 40 indicating the availability of subscriber wireless device 312. This communication may be through an ISC interface between the presence server 30 and the scrolling ticker server 40, assuming that the scrolling ticker server 40 is configured as an IMS application server. Alternatively, a SIP interface may be added to the scrolling ticker server 40 to enable communication to proceed between the scrolling ticker server 40 and the presence server 30 through the IMS core 100. There may also be other interfaces that do not traverse the IMS core, again including, but not limited to a SIP interface. Alternatively other protocols utilizing SUBSCRIBE/NOTIFY capabilities may also be implemented. Based on pre-defined criteria on the part of the subscriber of wireless device 314, a message from the scrolling ticker server 40 indicating the presence of wireless device 312 is sent to the subscriber of wireless device 314. The scrolling ticker transmission may, for example, contain a data message indicating that subscriber associated with wireless device 312 is available, or alternatively, it may contain data which includes a pointer which, if selected by the subscriber associated with wireless device 314, offers a one-click invocation of a peer-to-peer session between wireless device 312 and wireless device 314.

(27) With reference to FIG. 2, there is shown, by way of example, an embodiment of a peer-to-peer session and protocol between wireless devices 312 and 314. In this example, wireless device 314 is the calling party and wireless device 312 is the called party, and in the context of the present invention, it will be assumed that the subscriber of wireless device 314 has just been notified that the user of wireless device 312 has become available. Dashed lines between elements indicate control signal flow, while solid lines between elements indicate data flow. Wireless device 314 is located within a calling party visited network 102 which will communicate with the calling party home network 103 to authenticate the user of wireless device 314. The calling party home network 103 communicates with the called party home network 120 to locate the wireless device 312 which is found in the called party visited network 104.

(28) The wireless device 314 is connected to the backbone packet network 108 though the radio access network (RAN) interface 106. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the RAN may, in a GPRS environment, typically contain elements such as the serving GPRS support node (SGSN) and the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN). The packet network 108 may be any type of network, including GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, or any other type of wireless data network. The packet network communicates with the proxy call state control function (P-CSCF) 110 which is typically the first contact point into the IMS core 100 for the wireless device 314. The P-CSCF 110 initiates a SIP session with the serving call state control function (S-CSCF) 112 by issuing a SIP invitation. The S-CSCF 112 communicates with the home subscriber server (HSS) 114 from which the subscriber profile, including permissions and other control parameters, are retrieved. The S-CSCF 112 also communicates with one or more application servers 114 which may, for example, be presence servers or any other type of application server. The S-CSCF 112 also resolves the address destination of the called party home network through DNS server 118.

(29) Continuing with reference to FIG. 2, the peer-to-peer communication setup continues through the S-CSCF communicating with an interrogating call state control function (I-CSCF) 122 within the called party home network 120. The IMS architecture within the called party home network 120 and the called party visited network 104 is similar to that described above in the calling party visited network 102 and the calling party home network 103. The I-CSCF 122 communicates with the S-CSCF 124 within the called party home network 120, which in turn retrieves called party subscriber information from the HSS 128, including the current location of the called party visited network 104 in which subscriber using wireless device 312 is located. The S-CSCF 124 also communicates with any application servers 126 required for operation of various applications. The S-CSCF 124 communicates with the P-CSCF 130 found within the called party visited network 104, through the backbone packet network 130 and RAN 134 to the wireless device 312.

(30) All of the afore-mentioned communications interfaces within the IMS Core 100 relate to control data and are used to set up a peer-to-peer communications session between wireless devices 312 and 314. Once the control is set up, peer-to-peer communications between wireless devices 312 and 314 may occur on bearer channels 202, 204, 206, 208, 210 over which data is transmitted between the wireless device 312 located within the calling party visited network 102 and the called party visited network 104.

(31) It will be understood that variations in the peer-to-peer set-up may exist based on implementation of the network and options selected by the users. For example, upon notification of the availability of wireless device 312, wireless device 314 may initiate the peer-to-peer session via an interactive selection process or alternatively, initiate such a session at some other point in the future. By way of further example, the peer-to-peer session may be initiated automatically with no intervention by wireless device 314, with wireless device 314 will simply be notified via a scrolling ticker message that wireless device 312 has become available and the peer-to-peer session request has been initiated. Yet another example would involve wireless device 312 initiating a peer-to-peer session, either upon registration or on user command, with wireless device 314 being notified via a scrolling ticker message that wireless device 312 has initiated such a session.

(32) It may be that for time sensitive alerts, options whereby such alerts are sent out quickly by obtaining the IP address of the receiving device from the IMS core 100 and then pushed to the scrolling ticker server. Conversely, one of the UEs 12, 14 may periodically poll the presence server 30 to determine the presence status of the other UE, receiving either a positive or negative response via a scrolling ticker message, or a response only when the other UE is present and available. Thus, the invention is adaptable to either push or pull type of alerts.

(33) With reference to FIG. 3, there is shown by way of example and not limitation a flow chart that describes the steps taken to establish a peer-to-peer communication session through an IMS core 100 as described in the context of the architecture of FIG. 2. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, variations of these steps are both possibly and likely based on the implementation of the network and user options selected. At step 220, an initiate SIP invitation is generated. At step 222, the subscriber profile of the initiating subscriber is retrieved. At step 224, service logic is applied through access to one or more application servers 114. At step 226, the address of the called party is retrieved from the DNS server 118. At that point, the SIP invite is forwarded at step 228. At step 230, the identity of the registrar of the called party is determined. At step 232, the profile of the called subscriber is retrieved from the HSS 128. At step 234, service logic determined from communication with application servers 126 is applied. At step 236, the invite is forwarded to the called party. At step 238, session description protocol (SDP) negotiations with the subscriber wireless device 312 occur. As will be understood by those skilled in the art, SDP may involve session announcement, session invitation, and other forms of multimedia session initiation. Step 238 is followed by the ring/answer/connect process at step 240.

(34) There are multiple events that could cause a trigger to send a message to subscriber of wireless device 314 via a scrolling ticker message. For example, a triggering event may comprise posting of new content by a subscriber, power-on of a subscriber, login of a subscriber, or signing up for new service by a subscriber. Additionally, trigger events could be periodic or time-based, and could be generated by servers in the network or wireless devices with or without subscriber intervention.

(35) By way of yet another example, alerts may be generated when subscriber using UE 14 attempts a call to the subscriber using UE 12 and UE 14 is busy or otherwise unavailable. Rather than continuing to re-try establishing a call with UE 12, UE 14 may opt to have an alert be scrolled to UE 14 when UE 12 becomes available. That alert may include text only (indicating that the subscriber is available and should be re-dialed), a text message with an embedded pointer to one click invocation of a call back, or an automatic generation of a call back signal upon receipt of the scrolling ticker message.

(36) With respect to FIG. 4, there is shown an alternative embodiment of the present invention in which instead of a presence server 30, a conference server 130 is attached as an application server to the IMS core 100. In this example, a user may be hosting a conference call. A trigger action may be set up such that when another party joins or leaves the call, the scrolling ticker server will send a message to the host and/or other participants indicating the person who has just joined or left the call. As such, instead of a peer-to-peer network protocol session being initiated, the invention is used to manage access to and participation in a conference call. In this case, there is a conference server (bridge) 130 in the network. The conference server 130 interfaces to the IMS core 100 and the scrolling ticker server 140. The scrolling ticket server 140 operate substantially similar scrolling ticket server 40 with modifications to account for the different network interfaces.

(37) In this embodiment, the scrolling ticker server 140 may, for example, send messages each time a participant connects or disconnects from the conference call. Alternatively, a host of the conference call may use the notification from the scrolling ticker server 140 as a security feature, choosing to admit or deny a would-be conference participant. The notification would be provided through the scrolling ticker server 140 to the wireless device 314. The wireless device 314 may control the access to the conference directly through communication with the IMS core functionality 100.

(38) Thus, there have been described systems and methods for generating alerts to a subscriber using a scrolling ticker server 40 upon the occurrence of certain events and using such alerts for the provision of telecom services. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that numerous changes and modifications can be made to the preferred embodiments of the invention, and that such changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. An alert may be scheduled for when a previously unavailable party becomes available, thereby generating a scrolling ticker message indicating that party's availability and offering the option to connect either interactively based on the message or automatically with the message serving as notification only. In addition to simply receiving a scrolling text message or a scrolling text message with an embedded pointer, the receiving wireless device may also generate a vibration and/or audible alert based on the content or changes thereto. The selection of such an alert is configurable on the wireless device or based on commands from the network. It is intended, therefore, that the appended claims cover all such equivalent variations as fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention.