Voice quality on a communication link based on customer feedback

• US 7,542,761 B2
• Filed: 10/06/2004
• Issued: 06/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/06/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Sarkar, Falguni
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; John J
• Application Number:
  US10/959,553
• Publication Number:
  US 20060073786A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,700 Days
• Field of Search: 455/7, 455/24, 455/418, 455/420, 455/423, 455/432.3, 455/446, 455/452.2, 455/63.1, 455/517, 455/67.11, 455/423.425, 455/69, 455/456.1, 455/456.3, 455/67.13, 4554141- 2, 455/456.5, 455/421, 455/425, 370/352, 370/356, 370/401, 379/221.01, 379/265.02, 379/265.06, 379/1.01, 379/1.04, 709/223, 709/221
• US Class Current: 455/423
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2236 Quality of speech transmission monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0084 Network monitoring; Error detection; Error recovery; Network testing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

Architecture that facilitates initiation of a user feedback signal during a telephone call when perceiving reduced voice quality. In response to receiving the feedback signal, the telephone network performs a number of measurements on the system and related to the user device that can be analyzed to determine the problem, and potentially resolve the problem. The feedback signal can be initiated by any number of user input means, including selection of a key or combination of keys on a cell phone keypad that generate signals which can be interpreted by the telephone network as the feedback signal, e.g., a DTMF signal.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates management of audio signal quality of a communications link, comprising:

a communications component that facilitates communication over the communications link;

a feedback component that facilitates generation of a user feedback signal when the communications link is active;

a user input component which receives user input that initiates generation of the user feedback signal upon detection of voice quality degradation; and

a location tracking component that facilitates determining a geographic location of the origin of the user feedback signal.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the audio signal is a voice signal transmitted over the communications link, which is a telephone call.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications link is established between a wireless telephone and a wired telephone.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the communications link is established between at least two cellular telephones.

5. The system of claim 1, the user input component includes a keypad which facilitates manual generation of the user feedback signal, which user feedback signal is a DTMF (Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency) signal.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the user input is a voice signal that initiates generation of the user feedback signal.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the user feedback signal is a DTMF signal that is generated by a party to the communications link.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to generation of the user feedback signal, one or more parameters of a communications system are measured and recorded.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of:

a cell site identification, a calling telephone number, a called telephone number, or a current time.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of:

a signal strength value, a bit-error rate (BER), a type of codec employed, or number of codec conversions.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more parameters include at least one of:

packet loss data, local exchange carrier (LEC) information, competitive LEC (CLEC) information, incumbent LEC (ILEC) information, or long distance (LD) carrier information.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more parameters include a device type of a wireless communications device of a party to the communications link, which link is a telephone call.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the one or more parameters include load information of a cell site when the communications link is active.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to generation of the user feedback signal, a communications system that facilitates the communications link provisions additional communications equipment.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein in response to generation of the user feedback signal, a communications system that facilitates the communications link adjusts signal strength of the communications link.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the feedback component automatically generates the user feedback signal in response to detection of a degraded voice signal.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein a location tracking component includes a Global Positioning System (GPS) component to facilitate determining the geographic location of the origin of the feedback signal.

18. A method for facilitating user feedback of voice quality of a communication system, the method comprising:

establishing an active communications link with a mobile communication device;

generating a feedback signal from the mobile communication device when a user indicates degradation of signal quality over the link;

receiving the feedback signal to begin analysis of the communication system parameters;

retrieving a geographic origin of the feedback signal from the mobile communication device;

measuring the communication system parameters associated with the geographic origin of the feedback signal;

storing the measured parameters associated with the geographic origin of the feedback signal; and

processing the stored parameters to improve the communication system performance.

19. The method of claim 18, the act of processing the stored parameters further includes provisioning additional equipment in response to the processing of the stored parameters.

20. The method of claim 18, the act of processing the stored parameters further includes adjusting the signal strength of the communications link in response to the processing of the stored parameters.

21. The method of claim 18, the signal quality is the voice signal quality of the communication link.

22. The method of claim 18, the signal quality is the messaging signal of the communication link.

23. The method of claim 18, the feedback signal includes at least one of:

a voice signal or a DTMF signal.

24. The method of claim 18, further comprising the act of:

automatically generating a feedback signal from the mobile communication device when a messaging signal on the communication link begins to degrade.

25. The method of claim 18, the act of retrieving further employs Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality to determine the geographic location of the mobile communication device.

26. The method of claim 18 further comprising the act of:

receiving information of a drop of the mobile communication device from the active link as feedback to begin analysis, the analysis includes, at least in part, the latitude and longitude of mobile communication device when the active link dropped.

27. The method of claim 18, wherein the measured parameters include a signal strength value, a bit-error rate (BER), a type of codec employed, or number of codec conversions.

28. The method of claim 18, wherein the measured parameters include a cell site identification, a calling telephone number, a called telephone number, or a current time.

29. The method of claim 18, wherein the active communication link established is a multiparty conference call, the multiparty conference call having more than two communication devices.

30. The method of claim 29, the act of measuring the communication system parameters includes measuring the parameters of each communication device when a feedback signal is initiated by at least one party to the conference call.

31. A method for processing user feedback in a mobile communications device, the method comprising:

receiving a feedback signal provided by a user during an active communication link as a trigger that the active communication link is degraded;

performing measurements of the device associated with the degraded active communication link, the measurements include the location of the device, temporal information related to the receipt of the feedback signal, and device parameters;

storing the measurements on the device; and

transmitting the measurements for processing to a network system associated with the active communication link.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the active communication link includes at least one of:

a voice signal or a messaging signal.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the location of the device includes the latitude and longitude of the device.

34. The method of claim 31, wherein the temporal information related to the receipt of the signal includes the time that the feedback signal was provided by the user.