VOICE-OVER-IP-(VOIO-) TELEPHONY COMPUTER SYSTEM

• US 20090219920A1
• Filed: 02/28/2008
• Published: 09/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HOB GmbH & Co. KG
• Original Assignee: HOB GmbH & Co. KG
• Inventors: BRANDSTATTER, Klaus
• Granted Patent: US 9,307,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/029 Firewall traversal, e.g. tunnelling or, creating pinholes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1059 End-user terminal functionalities specially adapted for real-time communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/65 Network streaming protocols, e.g. real-time transport protocol [RTP] or real-time control protocol [RTCP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

A Voice-over-IP-(VoIP-) telephony computer system includes a client computer (1) with a web browser (20) installed and which is connectable to a network (4) with access to the public Internet (6), a web server (101) which can be reached over the public Internet (6) from said client computer (1), a gateway computer (102) which can be reached over the public Internet (6) from said client computer (1), a VoIP private branch exchange (PBX) device (9) which can be reached from said gateway computer (102), wherein the VoIP telephone computer system is adapted to run following steps of establishing and maintaining a VoIP telephone connection between the client computer (1) on the one hand and the gateway computer (102) and the VoIP PBX device (9) on the other hand:

• • the client computer (1), using the web browser (20), downloads an applet type application (30), which is adapted to establish a VoIP telephone connection from said web server (101),
  • said downloaded applet type application (30) establishes a tunnel connection (50) to said gateway computer (102) and installs a SIP telephony client (40) on said client computer (1), and
  • all VoIP telephone connection related data between the client computer (1) and the gateway computer (102) and vice versa are transferred using the tunnel connection (50).

Claims

1. A Voice-over-IP-(VoIP-) telephony computer system comprising

a client computer (1) with a web browser (20) installed and which is connectable to a network (4) with access to the public Internet (6),

a web server (101) which can be reached over the public Internet (6) from said client computer (1),

a gateway computer (102) which can be reached over the public Internet (6) from said client computer (1),

a VoIP private branch exchange (PBX) device (9) which can be reached from said gateway computer (102),

wherein the VoIP telephone computer system is adapted to run following steps of establishing and maintaining a VoIP telephone connection between the client computer (1) on the one hand and the gateway computer (102) and the VoIP PBX device (9) on the other hand:

the client computer (1), using the web browser (20), downloads an applet type application (30), which is adapted to establish a VoIP telephone connection from said web server (101),

said downloaded applet type application (30) establishes a tunnel connection (50) to said gateway computer (102) and installs a SIP-telephony client (40) on said client computer (1), and

all VoIP telephone connection related data between the client computer (1) and the gateway computer (102) and vice versa are transferred using the tunnel connection (50).

2. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the VoIP telephone connection related data are transferred in a way that only one commonly used TCP or UDP port for the connection is necessary.

3. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the tunnel connection (50) between the client computer (1) and the gateway computer (102) is secured by use of an SSL encryption.

4. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the web server (101) and the gateway computer (102) are implemented on the same hardware device (110).

5. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the applet type application (30) first tests if UDP-traffic can be exchanged between the client computer (1) and the gateway computer (102) by sending and receiving UDP discovery packets to the gateway computer (102).

6. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 5, wherein the tunnel connection (50) is used for transport of real-time audio data if no UDP reply packets are received by the client computer (1).

7. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 5, wherein in case the client computer (1) receives UDP reply packets from the gateway computer (102) the client computer (1) sends real-time audio data directly to a phone partner via a direct data connection bypassing the tunnel connection (50).

8. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the applet type application (30) on the client computer (1) checks if the phone partner has an IP-address that is reachable over the public Internet (6) by comparing the IP-address of the phone partner with a list of predefined IP-addresses used for private networks.

9. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 8, wherein real-time audio data are transferred directly to the phone partner in case the phone partner has a publicly reachable IP-address.

10. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 8, wherein real-time audio data are sent via the tunnel-connection (50) to the phone partner in case the phone partner has a private IP-address that is not reachable over the public Internet (6).

11. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 10, wherein the client computer (1) sends a control message to the gateway computer (102) in order to open UDP ports for RTP and RTCP type data transmission.

12. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the tunnel connection (50) uses sub-channels (50.1, 50.2, 50.3, 50.4) for control information, SIP packets, RTP packets and RTCP packets.

13. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 2, wherein a type-field is used to distinguish the different sub-channels (50.1, 50.2, 50.3, 50.4).

14. A VoIP telephony computer system according to claim 1, wherein the gateway computer (102) distinguishes different SIP sessions by searching for the SIP-identifier in SIP-packets received from the VoIP-PBX device (9) to get information to which client computer (1) said SIP-packets have to be sent.