Intelligent messaging system to convert email to SMS, EMS and MMS

• US 9,338,613 B2
• Filed: 08/14/2012
• Issued: 05/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Lin, Zhijian (Jeff)
• Primary Examiner(s): Fang, Keith
• Application Number:
  US13/585,452
• Publication Number:
  US 20130041964A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,365 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/08 Annexed information, e.g. attachments
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements

Abstract

Upon receiving an email for a mobile station containing a subject and a body, the subject and body are combined into a first message. If the email contains an attachment, the first message can be converted into a MMS message. If there is no attachment, the number of characters in the first message can be counted. If the number of characters is less than or equal to a first number of characters, the first message can be converted to a SMS message. If the number is greater than the first number of characters and less than or equal to a second number of characters, the first message can be converted to an EMS message. In addition, if the number of characters is greater than the second number of characters, the first message can be converted to the MMS message.

Claims

1. A method comprising steps of:

receiving for mobile message delivery, by an intelligent messaging system, from a plurality of email clients, email messages directed to a plurality of mobile stations having respective mobile station numbers, each email message using an email address including a mobile station number in combination with a common domain name,

wherein the common domain name of the email addresses of the email messages is universal to all of the plurality of email messages received by the intelligent messaging system from all of the plurality of email clients;

1) regardless of a plurality of mobile message types to be delivered by the intelligent messaging system to the plurality of mobile stations, and

2) regardless of the respective mobile station numbers of the plurality of mobile stations;

for one of the received email messages having an email address including one of the mobile station numbers in combination with a common domain name;

determining, at the intelligent messaging system, if the one email message contains an attachment; and

upon determining that the one email message does not contain the attachment, performing at the intelligent messaging system steps of;

analyzing the body of the one email message to retrieve a characteristic of the one email message;

comparing the retrieved characteristic of the one email message to first and second selection criteria;

determining, among a first, a second, and a third mobile message types, based on the comparison, the mobile message type into which the one email message and the attachment can be most effectively converted;

selecting, based on the determination, one of the first, the second or the third mobile message type into which to convert the body of the one email message;

converting the body of the one email message into the selected first, second, or third mobile message type; and

sending the converted message as a mobile message of the selected first, second, or third mobile message type through a mobile communication network to one mobile station of the plurality of mobile stations using the one mobile station number.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising steps of:

upon determining that the one email message contains the attachment, converting, at the intelligent messaging system, the body of the one email message into the first mobile message type.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the steps of analyzing, comparing, and converting the body of the one email message comprise steps of:

counting a number of characters in the body of the one email message;

if the number of characters is less than or equal to the first selection criteria set to a first limit, selecting the second mobile message type and converting the body of the one email message to the second mobile message type;

if the number of characters is greater than the first limit and less than or equal to the second selection criteria set to a second limit, selecting the third mobile message type and converting the body of the one email message to the third mobile message type; and

if the number of characters is greater than the second limit, selecting the first mobile message type and converting the body of the one email message to the first mobile message type.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein both the subject and body of the one email message are converted into one of the first, second, or third mobile message type, and

wherein the number of characters corresponds to the number of characters in the subject and body of the one email message.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising steps of:

determining an amount of bandwidth required for transmitting a message including the body of the one email message and the attachment; and

selecting, based on the determination of the amount of bandwidth, one of the first, second, or third mobile message types.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first mobile message type is a MMS message type;

the second mobile message type is a SMS message type;

the third mobile message type is an EMS message type;

the first selection criterion is a limit of between 140 and 160 characters; and

the second selection criterion is a limit of approximately 1000 characters.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising steps of:

transmitting the converted body of the one email message using a protocol corresponding to the selected mobile message type.

8. An article of manufacture, comprising:

at least one machine readable non-transitory storage medium; and

programming instructions embodied in said at least one medium for execution by one or more computers, wherein the programming configures said one or more computers to be capable of performing functions for messaging services, the functions comprising functions to;

receive for mobile message delivery, by an intelligent messaging system, from a plurality of email clients, an email messages directed to a plurality of mobile stations having respective mobile station numbers, each email message using an email address including a mobile station number in combination with a common domain name,

wherein the common domain name of the email addresses of the email messages is universal to all of the plurality of email messages received by the intelligent messaging system from all of the plurality of email clients;

1) regardless of a plurality of mobile message types to be delivered by the intelligent messaging system to the plurality of mobile stations, and

2) regardless of the respective mobile station numbers of the plurality of mobile station;

for one of the received email messages having an email address including one of the mobile station numbers in combination with a common domain name;

determine, at the intelligent messaging system, if the one email message contains an attachment; and

upon determining that the one email message does not contain the attachment, perform at the intelligent messaging system functions to;

analyze the body of the one email message to retrieve a characteristic of the one email message;

compare the retrieved characteristic of the one email message to first and second selection criteria;

determine, among a first, a second, and a third mobile message types, based on the comparison, the mobile message type into which the one email message and the attachment can be most effectively converted;

select, based on the determination, one of the first, the second or the third mobile message type into which to convert the body of the one email message;

convert the body of the one email message into the selected first, second, or third mobile message type; and

send the converted message as a mobile message of the selected first, second, or third mobile message type through a mobile communication network to one mobile station using the one mobile station number.

9. The article of claim 8, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

upon determining that the one email message contains the attachment, convert, at the intelligent messaging system, the body of the one email message into the first mobile message type.

10. The article of claim 8, wherein the functions to analyze, compare, and convert the body of the one email message comprise functions to:

count a number of characters in the body of the one email message;

if the number of characters is less than or equal to the first selection criteria set to a first limit, select the second mobile message type and convert the body of the one email message to the second mobile message type;

if the number of characters is greater than the first limit and less than or equal to the second selection criteria set to a second limit, select the third mobile message type and convert the body of the one email message to the third mobile message type; and

if the number of characters is greater than the second limit, select the first mobile message type and convert the body of the one email message to the first mobile message type.

11. The article of claim 10, wherein both the subject and body of the one email message are converted into one of the first, second, or third mobile message type, and

wherein the number of characters corresponds to the number of characters in the subject and body of the one email message.

12. The article of claim 8, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

determine an amount of bandwidth required for transmitting a message including the body of the one email message and the attachment; and

select, based on the determination of the amount of bandwidth, one of the first, second, or third mobile message types.

13. The article of claim 8, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

determine, among the first, second, and third mobile message types, the mobile message type into which the one email message and the attachment can be most efficiently converted; and

select, based on the determination, one of the first, second, or third mobile message types.

14. The article of claim 8, wherein:

the first mobile message type is a MMS message type;

the second mobile message type is a SMS message type;

the third mobile message type is an EMS message type;

the first selection criterion is a limit of between 140 and 160 characters; and

the second selection criterion is a limit of approximately 1000 characters.

15. The article of claim 8, wherein the programming instructions further configure said one or more computers to perform functions to:

transmit the converted body of the one email message using a protocol corresponding to the selected mobile message type.

16. A method comprising steps of:

receiving for mobile message delivery, at a server, from a plurality of email clients, email messages directed to a plurality of mobile stations having respective mobile station numbers, each email message using an email address including a mobile station number in combination with a common domain name,

wherein the common domain name of the email addresses of the email messages is universal to all of the plurality of email messages received by the server from all of the plurality of email clients;

1) regardless of a plurality of mobile message types to be delivered by the server to the plurality of mobile stations, and

2) regardless of the respective mobile station numbers of the plurality of mobile stations;

for one of the received email messages having an email address including one of the mobile station numbers in combination with a common domain name;

comparing, at the server, a characteristic of the one email message to first and second selection criteria;

determining, among three or more different message types, based on the comparison, the mobile message type into which the one email message and the attachment can be most effectively converted;

selecting, at the server, based on the determination, one of the three or more different types of mobile messages;

transforming the one email message into the selected type of mobile message, and

transmitting the transformed message as a mobile message to the one mobile station through a mobile network and a message server associated with the selected type of mobile message, using the one mobile station number.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising the steps of:

receiving at the server, an attachment to the one email message; and

if the attachment is received, selecting a first mobile message type.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the characteristic of the one email message is a number of characters in the one email message, and

wherein first and second selection criteria are different threshold numbers of characters.

19. A method comprising steps of:

receiving for mobile message delivery, by an intelligent messaging system, from a plurality of email clients, email messages directed to a plurality of mobile stations having respective mobile station numbers, each email message using an email address including a mobile station number in combination with a common domain name,

wherein the common domain name of the email addresses of the email messages is universal to all of the plurality of email messages received by the intelligent messaging system from all of the plurality of email clients;

1) regardless of a plurality of mobile message types to be delivered by the intelligent messaging system to the plurality of mobile stations, and

2) regardless of the respective mobile station numbers of the plurality of mobile stations;

for one of the received email messages having an email address including one of the mobile station numbers in combination with a common domain name;

generating a first message from a combination of a subject of the one email message and a body of the one email message;

based on whether the one email message contains an attachment, determining a set of mobile message types into which to convert the first message from different sets of mobile message types,

wherein the set of mobile message types for an email message that does not contain an attachment has a plurality of mobile message types;

upon determining that the one email message does not to contain an attachment, counting a number of characters in the first message;

determining, among the plurality of mobile message types, the mobile message type into which the one email message and the attachment can be most effectively converted;

selecting, based on the determination, one mobile message type among the plurality of mobile message types;

converting the first message into the selected mobile message type; and

sending the converted message as a mobile message through a mobile network to the one mobile station using the one mobile station number.

20. The method of claim 19,

wherein the set of mobile message types for the one email message that does contain an attachment has a single mobile message type,

the method further comprising a step of:

converting the first message into the single mobile message type when the one email message is determined not to contain an attachment.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the plurality of message types comprises at least three mobile message types, and

wherein each of the at least three mobile message types is associated with a different non-overlapping range of number of characters.