Method of providing tone information to nodes in a packet network
First Claim
1. A method of providing tone information to at least one of a plurality of nodes in a packet network over which telephone services are transmitted, each of said nodes having one or more attributes comprising one or more of node location, node type and node manufacturer, said method comprising the steps of:
- a) accessing tone information;
b) accessing a plurality of rules about which tone information is to be provided to nodes with which attributes in the communications network, the nodes being tone recipients selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones;
c) obtaining information about one or more attributes of a particular node in the communications network;
d) determining which tone information is to be sent to the particular node on the basis of the rules and the obtained information about the one or more attributes of the particular node; and
e) sending the determined tone information to the particular node in a format dependent on said one or more attributes of the particular node.
6 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Telephone tones such as dialing tones and busy or engaged tones differ in different countries and in traditional telephone networks it has been possible to deal with this because national telephone networks have been used. However, with the advent of next generation communications networks in which telephone services are transmitted over a packet network, a need has arisen to manage telephone tones in a more sophisticated manner. To address this, a tone service provides telephone tone information to tone recipients such as media gateways, session initiation protocol (SIP) phones and virtual media gateways. In the event that a new tone recipient is added to the packet network, the tone service is able to automatically provide appropriate telephone tone information to that new tone recipient. Similarly, if telephone tones need to be upgraded or rolled back, the tone service is able to automatically provide appropriate telephone tone information to each of the tone recipients.
35 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method of providing tone information to at least one of a plurality of nodes in a packet network over which telephone services are transmitted, each of said nodes having one or more attributes comprising one or more of node location, node type and node manufacturer, said method comprising the steps of:
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a) accessing tone information; b) accessing a plurality of rules about which tone information is to be provided to nodes with which attributes in the communications network, the nodes being tone recipients selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones;c) obtaining information about one or more attributes of a particular node in the communications network; d) determining which tone information is to be sent to the particular node on the basis of the rules and the obtained information about the one or more attributes of the particular node; and e) sending the determined tone information to the particular node in a format dependent on said one or more attributes of the particular node. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of operating a tone recipient in order to obtain tone information said method comprising the steps of:
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a) sending a request for tone information to a tone server; b) receiving tone information from the tone server in a format dependent on one or more attributes of the tone recipient, said one or more attributes comprising one or more of tone recipient location, tone recipient type and tone recipient manufacturer, said tone information being suitable for use by the tone recipient to manage one or more tone users associated with the tone recipient, the tone recipient being selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12)
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13. A tone recipient arranged to obtain tone information, said tone recipient comprising:
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a) a processor arranged to send a request for tone information to a tone service in the case that the tone recipient has no appropriate tone information; b) an input arranged to receive tone information from the tone server in a format dependent on one or more attributes of the tone recipient, said one or more attributes comprising one or more of tone recipient location, tone recipient type and tone recipient manufacturer, said tone information being suitable for use by the tone recipient to manage one or more tone users associated with the tone recipient, the tone recipient being selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones.
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14. A tone server for providing tone information to at least one of a plurality of nodes in a packet network over which telephone services are transmitted, each of said nodes having one or more attributes comprising one or more of node location, node type and node manufacturer, said tone server comprising:
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a) an input arranged to access tone information; b) a store comprising a plurality of rules about which tone information is to be provided to nodes with which attributes in the communications network, the nodes being tone recipients selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones;c) an input arranged to receive information about one or more attributes of a particular node in the communications network; d) a processor arranged to determine which tone information is to be sent to the particular node on the basis of the rules and the obtained information about said one or more attributes of the particular node; and e) an output arranged to send the determined tone information to the particular node in a format dependent on said one or more attributes of the particular node. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A computer program stored on a computer readable medium and executable by a tone server in order to provide tone information to at least one of a plurality of nodes in a packet network over which telephone services are transmitted, each of said nodes having one or more attributes comprising one or more of node location, node type and node manufacturer, said computer program being arranged to control the tone server such that:
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a) tone information is accessed; b) a plurality of rules are accessed about which tone information is to be provided to nodes with which attributes in the communications network, the nodes being tone recipients selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones;c) information is obtained about one or more attributes of a particular node in the communications network; d) tone information is selected to be sent to the particular node on the basis of the rules and the obtained information about the one or more attributes of the particular node; and e) the selected tone information is sent to the particular node in a format dependent on said one or more attributes of the particular node.
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24. A method of providing tone information to at least one of a plurality of nodes in a packet network over which telephone services are transmitted, each of said nodes having one or more attributes, the packet network having a plurality of tone servers, said method comprising the steps of:
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a) accessing tone information; b) accessing a plurality of rules about which tone information is to be provided to nodes with which attributes in the communications network, the nodes being tone recipients selected from;
media gateways, virtual media gateways and session initiation protocol (SIP) telephones;c) obtaining information about one or more attributes of a particular node in the communications network; d) determining which tone information is to be sent to the particular node on the basis of the rules and the obtained information about the one or more attributes of the particular node; e) sending the determined tone information to the particular node; f) assigning one of the tone servers to be a master tone server and assigning the other tones servers to be slave tone servers; and g) sending a plurality of rules from the master tone server to each of the slave servers for use by those slave servers in providing tone information.
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Specification