Side channel for membership management within conference control

• US 20040071099A1
• Filed: 10/11/2002
• Published: 04/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/11/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Koskelainen, Petri, Almar, Ignacio, Ribera, Oriol, Costa-Requena, Jose, Espigares, Immaculada
• Granted Patent: US 8,589,547 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/260
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1818 Conference organisation arrangements, e.g. handling schedules, setting up parameters needed by nodes to attend a conference, booking network resources, notifying involved parties
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A method and system of providing group management for IMS conferencing services involves creating side control channels for membership control services. The membership control channel can use Client Group Management Protocol (CGMP) or alternate group management protocols. The membership channel can use HTTP, SIP, or other transport protocols. Group management protocol primitives and procedure calls can be communicated using SOAP or other XML-based protocols.

Claims

1. A method for group management of multimedia conference sessions between at least one conference server and a plurality user terminals coupled to the conference server via a network, the method comprising:

creating a conference request at a moderator terminal;

configuring the conference request by specifying a member list comprising a plurality of user identity records;

communicating the conference request to the conference server over a membership control channel; and

creating a publishable reference to the member list at the conference server, the publishable reference defining a conference session.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating a floor control list from the member list, the floor control list usable for allowing floor control access to the conference session as part of floor control management.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the member list comprises a mass invitation list.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the member list comprises an access list.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the membership control channel uses HTTP as a transportation protocol.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the membership control channel uses SIP as a transportation protocol.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the membership control channel uses an XML based protocol for group management.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the membership control channel uses CGMP for group management.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the membership control channel uses SOAP for group management.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying the member list to add and remove user identity records from the member lists.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein modifying the member list further comprises modifying the member list to add and remove user identity records from the member list while the plurality of user terminals are engaged in an active multimedia conference.

12. A conferencing server coupled to a plurality of devices capable of communication over a network, each device coupled to the conferencing server via concurrently active control channels and media channels, the conferencing server comprising:

a memory configured to store a plurality of member lists, each member list comprising one or more user identity records;

a processing system coupled to the memory and configured to identify at least one member list and publish the at least one member list to one or more of the devices; and

a data transmission module coupled to the processing system to communicate with the at least one member list to a device over one of the control channels defined as a membership management channel to establish a multimedia conference over the membership management channel.

13. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein one of the control channels is defined as a floor control channel, and wherein the processing system is configured to create a floor control list from the at least one member list, the data transmission module communicating the floor control list to a device over the floor control channel.

14. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein the member list comprises a mass invitation list.

15. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein the member list comprises an access list.

16. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein the membership management channel uses SIP for transport.

17. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein the membership management channel uses HTTP for transport.

18. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein the membership management channel uses an XML-based protocol for group management.

19. The conferencing server of claim 18, wherein the membership management channel uses CGMP for group management.

20. The conferencing server of claim 18, wherein the membership management channel uses SOAP for group management.

21. The conferencing server of claim 12, wherein the processing system is configured to add and remove user identity records from one or more of the member lists.

22. The conferencing server of claim 21, wherein the processing system is configured to add and remove user identity records from one or more of the member lists while users corresponding to one or more identity records are engaged in an active multimedia conference.

23. A multimedia system, comprising:

a plurality of user agents, the user agents engagable in a multimedia conference;

at least one moderator terminal configured to create a member list request; and

at least one conference server configured to;

receive a member list request from the at least moderator terminal over a membership management channel established between the conference server and the at least one moderator terminal;

store the member list request as a member list, the member list comprising one or more user identity records; and

communicate the member list to the plurality of user agents.

24. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the at least one conference server is configured to create a floor control list from the member list and communicate the floor control list to at least one of the user agents over a floor control channel.

25. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the member list request comprises a mass invitation list request.

26. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the member list comprises an access list request.

27. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the membership management channel uses SIP for transport.

28. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the membership management channel uses HTTP for transport.

29. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the membership management channel uses an XML-based protocol for group management.

30. The multimedia system of claim 29, wherein the membership management channel uses CGMP for group management.

31. The multimedia system of claim 29, wherein the membership management channel uses SOAP for group management.

32. The multimedia system of claim 23, wherein the conference server is configured to add and remove user identity records from the member list.

33. The multimedia system of claim 32, wherein the conference server is configured to add and remove user identity records from the member list while user agents are engaged in an active multimedia conference.

34. The multimedia system of claim 32, wherein the conference server is configured to receive a subscription for conference status changes and membership status changes.

35. The multimedia system of claim 32, wherein the conference server is configured to send a synchronous membership status change notification.

36. The multimedia system of claim 32, wherein the conference server is configured to send an asynchronous membership status change notification.