EFFICIENT AND ON DEMAND CONVERGENCE OF AUDIO AND NON-AUDIO PORTIONS OF A COMMUNICATION SESSION FOR PHONES

• US 20110164107A1
• Filed: 01/06/2010
• Published: 07/07/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bhandarkar, Tejas, Tian, Yongjian, Yuan, Zheng
• Granted Patent: US 8,446,453 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/14.08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1073 Registration or de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1083 In-session procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1089 by adding media; by removing media
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1094 Inter-user-equipment sessions transfer or sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4015 where at least one of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. white board sharing, collaboration or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/4025 where none of the additional parallel sessions is real time or time sensitive, e.g. downloading a file in a parallel FTP session, initiating an email or combinational services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

In one embodiment, source data for a communication session may be split into an audio portion for transmission on a phone channel and a non-audio portion for transmission on a data channel. A server and a phone may accordingly establish an audio portion of a communication session on the phone channel. In response to a trigger, the server may provide a push notification on the data channel to the phone, where the push notification is associated with an application executing on the phone that is configured to participate in the non-audio portion of the communication session on the data channel with the server. Upon obtaining the push notification on the data channel during the audio portion on the phone channel, the application may correspondingly activate on the phone to participate in the non-audio portion of the communication session during the phone'"'"'s participation in the audio portion (e.g., merging the portions).

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

obtaining, on a phone, a push notification associated with an application during active participation by the phone in an audio portion of a communication session on a phone channel, the application configured to participate in a non-audio portion of the communication session on a data channel, the push notification provided on the data channel by a server participating in the audio portion and the non-audio portion of the communication session; and

activating the application on the phone in response to the push notification to participate in the non-audio portion of the communication session during active participation by the phone in the audio portion of the communication session.

2. The method as in claim 1, further comprising:

prompting for acceptance of participation in the non-audio portion of the communication session in response to the push notification and prior to activating the application.

3. The method as in claim 1, further comprising:

logging in to the communication session by the application prior to the phone participating in the audio portion of the communication session; and

terminating the application in response to initiation of the audio portion, which is initiated in response to the login, wherein the push notification is provided after the termination of the application and during the audio portion of the communication session.

4. The method as in claim 3, further comprising:

storing, by the application, login information used to log in to the communication session; and

entering the login information during activation of the application to authenticate the participation in the non-audio portion of the communication session.

5. The method as in claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining login information by the application from the push notification; and

entering the login information during activation of the application to authenticate the participation in the non-audio portion of the communication session.

6. The method as in claim 1, wherein the push notification is provided in response to an audio code sent over the phone channel from the phone to the server during the audio portion of the communication session.

7. The method as in claim 1, wherein the communication session is selected from a group consisting of:

an online collaborative computing session;

an online meeting;

a video;

a video call; and

a video over internet protocol call.

8. The method as in claim 1, further comprising:

synchronizing the non-audio portion of the communication session with the audio portion of the communication session.

9. A method, comprising:

establishing, by a server, an audio portion of a communication session with a phone on a phone channel;

obtaining a trigger by the server to provide a push notification on a data channel to the phone, the push notification associated with an application executing on the phone configured to participate in a non-audio portion of the communication session on the data channel with the server, the push notification to instruct the application to activate participation in the non-audio portion of the communication session during participation by the phone in the audio portion of the communication session; and

providing the push notification from the server to the phone on the data channel during the established audio portion on the phone channel.

10. The method as in claim 9, further comprising:

establishing the non-audio portion of the communication session with the application in response to the application obtaining the push notification.

11. The method as in claim 9, wherein establishing the audio portion comprises:

calling the phone from the server on the phone channel.

12. The method as in claim 11, further comprising:

obtaining a login from the application for the communication session; and

authenticating the login of the application for the communication session, wherein calling the phone is in response to the authenticating.

13. The method as in claim 11, further comprising:

obtaining an invitation to include a particular phone participant in the communication session, wherein calling the phone comprises calling the particular phone participant in response to the obtained invitation.

14. The method as in claim 11, further comprising:

storing a preset time to call a particular phone participate for the communication session, wherein calling the phone comprises calling the particular phone participant at the preset time.

15. The method as in claim 9, wherein obtaining the trigger comprises:

determining that the audio portion of the communication session is established.

16. The method as in claim 15, wherein the audio portion of the communication session is established in response to authentication of the phone.

17. The method as in claim 9, wherein obtaining the trigger comprises:

detecting an audio code obtained over the phone channel from the phone during the audio portion of the communication session.

18. The method as in claim 9, wherein providing the push notification comprises:

including login information correlated with the communication session for use by the application to log in to the non-audio portion of the communication session.

19. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more phone network interfaces configured to communicate audio transmissions on a phone channel over a phone network;

one or more data network interfaces configured to communicate data transmissions on a data channel over a data network;

a processor configured to execute one or more processes; and

a memory configured to store a process, the process when executed operable to;

establish an audio portion of a communication session with a phone on the phone channel;

obtain a trigger to provide a push notification on the data channel to the phone, the push notification associated with an application executing on the phone configured to participate in a non-audio portion of the communication session on the data channel, the push notification to instruct the application to activate participation in the non-audio portion of the communication session during participation by the phone in the audio portion of the communication session; and

provide the push notification to the phone on the data channel during the established audio portion on the phone channel.

20. The apparatus as in claim 19, wherein the process when executed is further operable to:

establish the non-audio portion of the communication session with the application in response to the application obtaining the push notification.