Push-to-talk event notification

• US 20060270430A1
• Filed: 05/27/2005
• Published: 11/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Criddle, Linda, Milstein, David
• Granted Patent: US 7,756,539 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/518
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 Optimizing the usage of the radio link, e.g. header compression, information sizing , discarding information system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/10 Push-to-Talk [PTT] or Push-On-Call services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/00 User notification, e.g. alerting and paging, for incoming communication, change of service or the like
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/00 Local resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/45 for Push-to-Talk [PTT] or Push-to-Talk over cellular [PoC] services

Abstract

A method and system for notifying a push-to-talk enabled user of an event. The method includes the steps of: receiving event data to be provided to a user; determining a push-to-talk configuration including carrier information for the user; and based on the push-to-talk configuration, providing the event data and user identification information to a carrier identified in the carrier information. The system may include an aggregation service controller; a text to speech converter; a user PTT connection mapping database; an online service interface; and a PTT service provider interface.

Claims

1. A method for notifying a user of an event, comprising:

receiving event data to be provided to a user;

determining a push-to-talk carrier associated with the user; and

providing the event data and a user identifier to a carrier identified in the carrier information based on the push-to-talk configuration.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the event data includes text data, and the method further includes the step of converting the text data to audio information for the user.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further includes receiving a response to the event data from the user from the carrier and forwarding the response to an event data sender.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the response comprises one of a voice packet, or text response.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of determining includes associating the PTT identifier with a communication interface for the carrier.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further includes receiving event data from at least two online service providers.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further includes providing event data to at least two different users, each user associated with a different carrier.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the method further includes the step of determining whether user data provided by said providing step has been accessed by the user.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the event data is one of an email message, a calendar reminder, an instant message, a voice message, or voice over IP data.

10. A notification event server, comprising:

an aggregation service controller;

a text to speech converter;

a user PTT connection mapping database;

a online service interface; and

a PTT service provider interface.

11. The server of claim 10 wherein the online service interface receives notification events from at least one online service provider.

12. The server of claim 11 further including a carrier inbound message queue and a carrier outbound message queue.

13. The server of claim 10 wherein the online service interface communicates with an online service provider via the internet.

14. The server of claim 10 wherein the connection mapping database includes routing information to a PTT carrier service.

15. The server of claim 10 wherein the text to speech converter includes two or more language options selectable by a user.

16. A method for providing an online service, comprising:

providing a online service generating events for users having accounts with the online service;

maintaining a push-to-talk configuration including carrier information for at least one the users having accounts with the online service;

generating a notification event for said at least one user; and

outputting the event data and user identification information to a PTT enabled device via a carrier identified in the carrier information.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the method further outputting the event data to an aggregation interface between the online service and the carrier.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the step of generating includes generating event data in text form.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein the method further includes notifying an event data sender whether the user has received the message data.

20. The method of claim 16 wherein the method further includes maintaining event filtering information indicating which events are to be delivered to the user.