Method and apparatus for facilitating the ultimate making of wireless calls to unavailable wireless telephones
First Claim
1. A method for use in providing wireless telephone service, comprising the steps of:
- marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed;
waiting for the wireless telephone to signal its availability to receive calls;
receiving a registration signal from said wireless telephone; and
in response to receipt of said registration signal, notifying the caller of said wireless telephone call that could not be successfully completed, that said wireless telephone is now available, wherein the notifying the caller is conducted independent of the wireless telephone call that could not be successfully completed.
4 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The problems with reaching unavailable mobile telephones, and the unnecessary costs associated therewith are avoided by a) marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed; b) waiting for the wireless telephone to register, i.e., signal its availability to receive calls; and c) notifying the caller of the wireless telephone call that could not successfully complete that the wireless telephone is now available. Optionally, any call attempts to the wireless telephone during this waiting period are disallowed, i.e., no attempt is made to contact the wireless telephone over the wireless telephone service provider'"'"'s network. Furthermore, resources of the wireless telephone service provider may be conserved, and unnecessary costs avoided, by disallowing call attempts to the wireless telephone during the waiting period, even if the caller of the wireless telephone call that could not successfully complete is not notified of the availability of the wireless telephone upon its registration. Additionally, if the wireless telephone shares communication facilities with a wireless data station, no attempt is made to transfer data to or from the wireless data station during the waiting period. Instead, the data is queued and the queued data is transmitted after the registration is received.
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Citations
16 Claims
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1. A method for use in providing wireless telephone service, comprising the steps of:
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marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed; waiting for the wireless telephone to signal its availability to receive calls; receiving a registration signal from said wireless telephone; and in response to receipt of said registration signal, notifying the caller of said wireless telephone call that could not be successfully completed, that said wireless telephone is now available, wherein the notifying the caller is conducted independent of the wireless telephone call that could not be successfully completed. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A method for use in providing wireless telephone service, comprising the steps of:
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marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed; waiting for the wireless telephone to signal its availability to receive calls; and receiving an availability signal from said wireless telephone; and in response to receipt of said availability signal, notifying the caller of said wireless telephone call that could not be successfully completed, that said wireless telephone is now available. - View Dependent Claims (6)
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7. A method for use in providing wireless telephone service, comprising the steps of:
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marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed; waiting for the wireless telephone to signal its availability to receive calls; and disallowing call attempts to said wireless telephone that are received during said waiting step.
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8. Apparatus for use in providing wireless telephone service, comprising the steps of:
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means for marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed; and means for disallowing call attempts to be sent through to said wireless telephone that are received while said wireless telephone is marked as unavailable.
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9. A method for use in a vehicle location and communications system, comprising the steps of:
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receiving from a requester a request to establish a voice communication telephone call with a vehicle; determining that said vehicle was unavailable at the time that an immediately preceding request to communicate with said vehicle was made and that said vehicle has not registered since then; and transmitting to said requester a notification that said voice communication telephone call with said vehicle cannot be established, wherein the transmitting is conducted independently of the voice communication telephone call with the vehicle that could not be established. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12)
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13. Apparatus for use in providing wireless voice telephone service, comprising the steps of:
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means for marking as unavailable a wireless telephone to which a wireless telephone call could not successfully be completed; and means for disallowing call attempts to be sent through to said wireless telephone that are received while said wireless telephone is marked as unavailable. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16)
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Specification