Method for the transmission of multimedia data utilizing a signaling signal in a telecommunications network

• US 8,131,824 B2
• Filed: 08/01/2002
• Issued: 03/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Rainey Circuit LLC (IP Edge LLC)
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Laumen, Josef, Schmidt, Andreas, Trauberg, Markus
• Primary Examiner(s): Pwu, Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): MUSA, ABDELNABI O
• Application Number:
  US10/486,284
• Publication Number:
  US 20040249864A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,505 Days
• Field of Search: 709/219, 709/227, 709/205, 709/204, 709/216, 709/217, 709/218, 370/328, 370/401, 370/260
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 19/04 the ringing-current being generated at the substations
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/12 Application layer protocols, e.g. WAP [Wireless Application Protocol]

Abstract

The invention aims at providing a method, a subscriber terminal, a computer program product and a communication system, wherein a sender has the possibility of influencing the signaling signal in a terminal of a recipient and configuring individually and with greater freedom a signaling signal by choosing one or more data formats that can be sent in an MM standard, particularly when transmitting an MM. According to the invention, this is achieved in that an element causing immediate display of said element is identified as a signaling signal (S) when the data and/or a predetermined partial amount of data have arrived.

Claims

1. A method for transmitting a multimedia message with a plurality of multimedia components from a sender to a recipient in a communication system, the method comprising the steps of:

specifying, via at least one multimedia component of the multimedia message, an immediate display of the at least one multimedia component one of before and on arrival of the remaining multimedia components;

identifying, by a sender, a predefined subset of the multimedia components of the multimedia message as a signaling signal;

transmitting information to a recipient with the aid of a notification signal, wherein the notification signal indicates that the multimedia message is ready in the communication system for downloading, and wherein the multimedia message ready for downloading comprises at least one multimedia component which has been identified as a signaling signal;

initiating one of immediate and preferred downloading when the notification signal is received by the recipient, showing that a multimedia component is identified within the multimedia message ready for downloading as a signaling signal.

2. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the signaling signal is delivered to the recipient one of before and on arrival of the remaining multimedia components of the multimedia message or of the complete multimedia message and thereafter is immediately played back.

3. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the multimedia message with a multimedia signaling signal is first inserted before one of an incoming call and incoming multimedia data transmission in order to signal the one of the incoming call and the incoming multimedia data.

4. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein one of optical, acoustic and tactile multimedia components are played back by the signaling system.

5. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein information about the size of the data, awaiting transmission, for the multimedia message to be transmitted is added to the signaling signal.

6. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the signaling signal delivered to the recipient is used as an aid in deciding whether the multimedia components of the multimedia message are downloaded immediately to the recipient (6).

7. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the multimedia message with the multimedia component identified as a signaling signal is sent by the sender to a MMS Relay/Server responsible for the sender.

8. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 7, wherein identification of the multimedia component is coded in data that is sent from a sending MMS User Agent of the sender to the MMS Relay/Server responsible for the sender in order to send the multimedia message.

9. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 7, wherein the multimedia message with the multimedia component identified as a signaling signal is passed by the MMS Relay/Server responsible for the sender to an MMS Relay/Server responsible for the recipient.

10. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 9, wherein the notification signal is sent by the MMS Relay/Server responsible for the recipient to the recipient, wherein the recipient is informed that the multimedia message is ready to download in the MMS Relay/Server, and that the multimedia message ready for downloading contains at least one multimedia component which has been identified by the sender as a signaling signal.

11. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 9, wherein the identification of the multimedia component is coded in the data that is sent from the MMS Relay/Server assigned to the recipient to a receiving MMS User Agent of the recipient in order to notify the receiving User Agent of the presence of the multimedia message.

12. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 9, wherein the identification of the multimedia component is coded in the data that is sent from the Relay/Server assigned to the recipient to a receiving MMS User Agent of the recipient in order to deliver the multimedia message.

13. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein a storage location of the signaling signal is displayed to the recipient in the notification signal.

14. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 13, wherein a reference to the storage location of the remaining multimedia components of the waiting multimedia message is also transmitted to the recipient in the delivery signal when the signaling signal is delivered.

15. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 13, wherein the storage locations of the signaling signal and of the remaining multimedia components of the waiting multimedia message are transmitted to the recipient in the notification signal.

16. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the download of the signaling signal takes place without interaction with the recipient.

17. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein an additional header field is integrated into the header of the multimedia message to be transmitted in order to identify the multimedia component as a signaling signal.

18. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 17, wherein the coding of the header field is carried out as coding of one of the field name and of the field value.

19. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 17, wherein the additional header field is inserted into one of a WAP messages MSend.req, M-Notification.ind and M-Retrieve.conf of the communication system with the designation X-Mms-Signaling-Element.

20. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 19, wherein the header field X-Mms-Signaling-Element is coded as 0x87.

21. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 19, wherein the value of the header field X-Mms-Signaling-Element is coded as a text string.

22. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 19, wherein a parameter set in the header field of one of the WAP messages M-Send.req, M-Notification.ind and M-Retrieve.conf with the designation X-Mms-Content-ID is extended to include an additional parameter with the designation Signaling-Element, by means of which at least one multimedia component of the multimedia message to be transmitted is identified as a signaling signal.

23. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 19, wherein the header field in WAP is coded performing one of the following steps:

coding of the field name X-Mms-Content ID as Ox19; and

coding of the field value of X-Mms-Content ID as a text string with 25 designation of at least one multimedia component of the multimedia message to be transmitted.

24. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 19, wherein the header field of the multimedia message to be transmitted is evaluated by the MMS service provider of the recipient in order to find out whether the respective multimedia message present contains a multimedia component which has been identified as a signaling signal.

25. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, further comprising the steps of adapting the identified multimedia component of the respective multimedia message to be transmitted, for transmission to the recipient.

26. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the multimedia component is identified as a signaling signal in the multimedia message to be transmitted as being resistant to any conversion of one of medium type and medium format.

27. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the multimedia component of the respective multimedia message to be transmitted identified by the sender as a signaling signal, replaces a signalling signal preset by the recipient.

28. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 11, wherein the signaling signal is extracted from the respective multimedia message to be transmitted by one of the receiving MMS User Agent of the recipient, the sender-side MMS Relay/Server and the receive-side MMS Relay/Server.

29. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the signaling signal accesses multimedia components which are one of (a) permanently preinstalled in the equipment of the recipient, and (b) stored as a result of a previous transmission so that only changes to these multimedia components are transmitted.

30. The method for transmitting a multimedia message as recited in claim 1, wherein the sender and recipient comprise respective WAP-capable mobile terminals.

31. A communication system for transmitting a multimedia message with a plurality of multimedia components, comprising:

means for specifying, via at least one multimedia component of the multimedia message, an immediate display of the at least one multimedia component one of before and on arrival of the remaining multimedia components;

means for identifying, by a sender, a predefined subset of the multimedia components of the multimedia message as a signaling signal;

means for transmitting information to a recipient with the aid of a notification signal, wherein the notification signal indicates that the multimedia message is ready in the communication system for downloading, and wherein the multimedia message ready for downloading comprises at least one multimedia component which has been identified as a signaling signal;

means for initiating one of immediate and preferred downloading when the notification signal is received by the recipient, showing that a multimedia component is identified within the multimedia message ready for downloading as a signaling signal.