Residential Gateway Translating Call Signaling Text Received With a Packet-Switched Telephony Call

• US 20080037520A1
• Filed: 07/31/2006
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Instrument Corporation (CommScope Holding Company, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Phillip Kent Freyman, Robert C. Stein
• Inventors: Stein, Robert C., Freyman, Phillip Kent
• Application Number:
  US11/461,187
• Publication Number:
  US 20080037520A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/2061 Language aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0069 comprising a residential gateway, e.g. those which provide an adapter for POTS or ISDN terminals

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided for presenting information associated with a packet-switched telephony call received over a broadband communications network. The method includes receiving a packet-switched telephony call that includes an incoming machine-readable text string incorporated in a signal that conforms to a packet-switched telephony signaling protocol. The incoming machine-readable text string is translated to a predefined corresponding text string that represents the machine-readable text string in a human-readable language. Finally, the corresponding text string is presented to an end user. The aforementioned method may be performed by a residential gateway or the like.

Claims

1. A residential gateway for providing packet-switched telephony service over a broadband communications network, comprising:

data terminal equipment having an interface for communicating with customer premises equipment; and

an electronic memory configured to store a directory that associates an incoming text string incorporated in a signal that conforms to a packet telephony signaling protocol with a corresponding text string, wherein the incoming text string is a machine-readable text string and the corresponding text string represents the machine-readable text string in a human-readable language; and

a processor configured to receive the incoming text string and retrieve from the memory the corresponding text string for presentation to customer premises equipment.

2. The residential gateway of claim 1 wherein the packet-switched telephony signaling protocol is an IP-based telephony signaling protocol.

3. The residential gateway of claim 2 wherein the IP-based telephony signaling protocol is NCS.

4. The residential gateway of claim 2 wherein the IP-based telephony signaling protocol is SIP.

5. The residential gateway of claim 2 wherein the residential gateway comprises an MTA.

6. The residential gateway of claim 1 wherein the incoming text string specifies that a phone number of an incoming caller is unavailable or blocked.

7. The residential gateway of claim 1 wherein the directory stored by the electronic memory associates the incoming text string with a plurality of different corresponding text strings.

8. The residential gateway of claim 7 wherein each of the corresponding text strings represents a human-readable text string in a different language.

9. The residential gateway of claim 1 further comprising a broadband modem for communicating data between the data terminal equipment and the broadband communications network.

10. The residential gateway of claim 1 further comprising a second electronic memory segment configured to store a directory that associates a telephone number incorporated in the signal with a name of a calling party associated with the telephone number.

11. The residential gateway of claim 1 wherein the customer premises equipment is a telephone.

12. The residential gateway of claim 1 wherein the packet-switched telephony connection conforms to a voice-over-IP protocol.

13. A computer readable medium containing instructions to cause a processor to perform a method of presenting information associated with a packet-switched telephony call received over a broadband communications network, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a packet-switched telephony call that includes an incoming machine-readable text string incorporated in a signal that conforms to a packet-switched telephony signaling protocol;

translating the incoming machine-readable text string to a predefined corresponding text string that represents the machine-readable text string in a human-readable language; and

presenting the corresponding text string to an end user.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the packet-switched telephony signaling protocol is an IP-based telephony signaling protocol.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14 wherein the IP-based telephony signaling protocol is NCS.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 14 wherein the IP-based telephony signaling protocol is SIP.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 14 wherein the packet-switched telephony call is received by an MTA.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the incoming text string specifies that a phone number of an incoming caller is unavailable or blocked.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 13 further comprising receiving a telephone number incorporated in the signal and retrieving from a database a name of a calling party associated with the telephone number and presenting the telephone number and the name of the calling party to the end user.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the packet-switched telephony call conforms to a voice-over-IP protocol.

21. The residential gateway of claim 13 wherein the directory stored by the electronic memory associates the incoming text string with a plurality of different corresponding text strings.

22. The residential gateway of claim 21 wherein each of the corresponding text strings represents the human-readable text string in a different language.

23. A method of presenting information associated with a packet-switched telephony call received over a broadband communications network, the method comprising:

receiving a packet-switched telephony call that includes an incoming machine-readable text string incorporated in a signal that conforms to a packet-switched telephony signaling protocol;

translating the incoming machine-readable text string to a predefined corresponding text string that represents the machine-readable text string in a human-readable language; and

presenting the corresponding text string to an end user.