Hospitality environment communications architecture

• US 20060069726A1
• Filed: 10/24/2005
• Published: 03/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/11/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Leader Technologies Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Leader Technologies Incorporated
• Inventors: Lamb, Jeffrey R., McKibben, Michael T.
• Application Number:
  US11/257,491
• Publication Number:
  US 20060069726A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4038 with floor control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/1083 for hotels
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42323 PBX's with CTI arrangements

Abstract

A hospitality teleconferencing architecture. A web-supported teleconferencing system interfaces to a hospitality communications system to facilitate teleconferencing capabilities in the hospitality network. The system can include a hospitality communications network component that facilitates hospitality communications, and a web-supported teleconferencing system component that interfaces to the hospitality communications network to facilitate the hospitality communications services. The web-supported teleconferencing system can also communicate via VoIP. The web-supported teleconferencing system facilitates communications to at least one of wired and wireless telephone communications systems and, one-way and two-way communications.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates hospitality teleconferencing services, comprising:

a hospitality communications component of a hospitality provider that facilitates hospitality communications for a user; and

a web-supported teleconferencing component that interfaces to the hospitality communications network to provide the hospitality communications services to the user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component communicates with the hospitality communications component via at least one of a packet-switched network and a circuit-switched network.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein web-supported teleconferencing component facilitates communications to at least one of wired and wireless telephone communications systems.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component communicates hospitality services information to a group of users via a single PIN.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component facilitates one-way and two-way communications.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising an artificial intelligence component that employs a probabilistic and/or statistical-based analysis to prognose or infer an action that the user desires to be automatically performed.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component dynamically binds two or more callers into a conference call session in response to processing a special code received from the hospitality provider.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the hospitality communications component communicates a guest code and a hospitality provider code to the web-supported teleconferencing component in order to gain access to a conference call session.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the guest code is a hospitality provider room number and the hospitality provider code is a unique PIN assigned to the hospitality provider.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component tracks call session data and communicates the call session data to a provider back-office system such that the user, who is a guest, can be invoiced at check-out time.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein a user message stored on the web-supported teleconferencing component is accessed and retrieved for presentation to the user, who is a guest of the hospitality provider.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component further comprises a dynamic port allocation device that dynamically binds a guest caller to a conference call session in response to receiving a special provider code.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component facilitates multimedia communications to a session participant during the session.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the web-supported teleconferencing component facilitates operator assistance on a same voice channel as the user in response to entering an assistance code.

15. A method of providing call management services for a hospitality provider, comprising:

programming a hospitality provider telephone system to automatically dial an access number in response to receiving an access code;

communicating a hospitality provider code to an Internet-based call management system in response to a guest selecting the access code for a guest call;

binding the guest call into a call session via the Internet-based call management system;

tracking call session data of the call session; and

invoicing the guest at check-out time based on the call session data.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising an act of communicating a guest room number along with the hospitality provider code, which hospitality provider code is a provider PIN that uniquely associates the guest call with the hospitality provider.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising an act of offering a calling card to the guest at check-out time, the calling card includes a PIN and a toll-free number that provides access to the Internet-based call management system such that the user utilizes call conferencing services of the Internet-based call management system after checkout from the hospitality provider.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising an act of initiating calling of a list of session participants by the Internet-based call management system, and binding the called session participants into the call session.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising an act of billing the hospitality provider for the guest call via the Internet-based call management system, which guest call forms a conference call.

20. A system that facilitates conference call management services for a hospitality provider, comprising:

means for programming a hospitality provider telephone system to automatically dial an access number in response to receiving an access code;

means for communicating a hospitality provider code to an Internet-based call management system in response to a guest selecting the access code for a guest call;

means for binding the guest call into a call session via the Internet-based call management system;

means for tracking call session data of the call session; and

means for invoicing the guest at check-out time based on the call session data.