METHOD AND SYSTEM TO ENABLE COMMUNICATION THROUGH SMS COMMUNICATION CHANNEL

• US 20080032718A1
• Filed: 04/12/2007
• Published: 02/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Anuwave LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Telibrahma Convergent Communications Private Limited
• Inventors: SURESH, Narasimha
• Granted Patent: US 8,295,862 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/466
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/20 Services signaling; Auxiliary data signalling, i.e. transmitting data via a non-traffic channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/12 using downlink control channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/20 Manipulation of established connections

Abstract

The present invention provides a method and system to provide network aware applications on a mobile device that can communicate using existing SMS communication channels without resorting to other IP based communication channels that are costlier and are not available on many of the networks.

Claims

1. A method to enable communication through SMS communication channel comprising the steps of:

a) listing all the services at a terminal station that are available with an SMS gateway according to meta information available at the terminal station;

b) upon selecting a service, the network aware application displaying the associated parameters that the user needs to select or enter;

c) upon user selection, submitting request to SMS gateway; and

d) SMS gateway responding back with the response as it responds to request typed by users as SMS.

2. A method to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 1, the method further comprising the steps of:

a) receiving a message with a question and a set of options to be chosen at a terminal station;

b) a middleware checking the message and sending it to a network aware application before the message is processed by a standard SMS module on the terminal station;

c) the network aware application presenting an interface for the user to select or enter a choice;

d) converting the choice selected or entered by the user into a command that can be interpreted by the middleware;

e) middleware encoding the command and sending the command as an SMS through an SMS gateway;

f) gateway decoding the command of the message and handling the command to a middleware at a central station;

g) the middleware at the central station getting a response based on the command;

h) converting the response into a command that the network aware application can understand by the middleware at the central station;

i) encoding the command and sending the encoded command back to the terminal station as one or more SMS messages;

j) middleware at the terminal station decoding the command of the message and handling the command to a network aware application; and

k) the network aware application reconverting the command into a response, rendering the reponse and building a user interface to show the response to the user.

3. A method to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 1, where the response received at a terminal station is a set of questions and answers for retrieval of further information.

4. A method to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 1, the method further comprising the steps of:

a) middleware at a terminal station interrupting messages received by the mobile device;

b) middleware checking if the SMS message is intended for the plurality of Applications; and

c) middleware handles the message to the SMS module in the event of the message is not intended to the plurality of applications.

5. A method to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 1, the method further comprising the steps of a network aware application building an user interface using the meta data information according to the choice selected.

6. A method to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 1, where middleware at the terminal station is used to send messages to a short code or a value added service (VAS).

7. A system to enable communication through SMS communication channel comprising:

a) a plurality of network terminal stations each terminal station running a plurality of network aware applications managed by a middleware, the middleware listening to a specific port on the terminal station to check for incoming messages;

b) a central station to provide application services to the various network aware applications running on the plurality of network terminal stations;

c) an SMS gateway to facilitate SMS communication between a plurality of network terminal stations and the central station; and

d) a network connection connecting the plurality of network terminal stations, the central station, and the SMS gateway.

8. A system to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 7, where each terminal station essentially comprises of:

a) a user interface module;

b) a middleware; and

c) a transceiver.

9. A system to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 8, where said user interface module further comprises of a user interface builder comprising the meta information, the meta information comprising information at least of available SMS based services, mobile numbers for the SMS gateways that are delivering the services and parameters that a user needs to enter or select for each of a plurality of services to build user interface.

10. A system to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 8, where said middleware further comprises of:

a) a user action handler to display the associated parameters when the user has to enter an answer or select an option from available options;

b) a command generator to convert responses of users into command that can be decoded by the SMS gateway;

c) a Encryptor/Decryptor module to encode/decode commands; and

d) a response handler to receive the decoded response from the Encryptor/Decryptor and forward to the user interface builder.

11. A system to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 8, where said transceiver further comprises of:

a) a message sender to send the encoded command received from the Encryptor/Decryptor or the command which is not encoded received from the Command Generator as SMS by emulating the role of an SMS client; and

b) a message listener to receive the messages through telecommunication Network by listening to specific SMS ports and to interpret a received message.

12. A system to enable communication through SMS communication channel as claimed in claim 7, where a network aware application is a browser for accessing a plurality of short code based SMS services or VASs.