Architecture for the rapid creation of telephony services in a next generation network

• US 20010028654A1
• Filed: 02/14/2001
• Published: 10/11/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures II LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Telcordia Technologies Incorporated (Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson)
• Inventors: Jain, Ravi, Anjum, Farooq, Caruso, Francesco, Missier, Paolo, Zordan, Adalberto
• Granted Patent: US 6,967,957 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/126 Interworking of session control protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/128 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0045 involving hybrid, i.e. a mixture of public and private, or multi-vendor systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0054 Service creation techniques

Abstract

A service architecture for the rapid development of next generation telephony services that overcomes the limitations of the current closed PSTN architecture and service model. In this architecture services are provided by multiple cooperating distributed service providers. This architecture is built upon an object-oriented call model which is defined as a small set of extensions to the standard Java Telephony API call model. This new object-oriented call model hides the detail of the underlying call-state management protocols and hardware from applications.

Claims

1. A method for providing additional services while a communication is being set up or is in progress between a calling and a called party, said method comprising the steps of:

establishing a communication connection between a calling party and a called party;

suspending said connection;

under control of either the calling or the called party, establishing a separate connection to a resource providing the additional service; and

providing said resource to said communication between said calling party and said called party.

2. The method in accordance with

claim 1

wherein said step of providing comprises

providing said resource to a control platform;

and

under control of said control platform, making said service available to either said calling or called party.

3. The method in accordance with

claim 2

wherein said control platform includes a call model including a Sender_Consult state, a Sender_Suspend state, a Receiver_Consult state, and a Receiver_Suspend state.

4. A system for activating additional services from one or more independent service providers while a telephone communication is being established or is already in progress between a calling party and a called party, said system comprising:

a smart user terminal having an application programming interface call model;

a session control protocol;

a call control program and call control platform; and

means for inserting into said platform service control protocols for one of said additional services from one of said service providers.

5. A system in accordance with

claim 4

wherein said means includes terminal managers.

6. The system in accordance with

claim 4

wherein said call model is a Java Telephone application-programming interface call model.

7. A service architecture for activating additional services from one or more independent service providers for a telecommunications session while a telephone communication is being established or is already in progress between a calling party and a called party, said architecture including:

a plurality of terminals;

terminal managers associated with said terminals;

a plurality of service providers; and

software objects containing call control programs for executing software objects within said terminals or said terminal managers to insert service control protocols from said providers for execution by said terminals or said terminal managers.

8. The service architecture in accordance with

claim 7

wherein said software objects are comprised of:

Call objects;

Connection objects;

Address objects; and

Terminal Connection objects, wherein the state of the telecommunications session is maintained by finite state machines associated with the Connection and Terminal Connection objects.