System for establishing and maintaining a connection

• US 7,711,823 B2
• Filed: 02/18/2002
• Issued: 05/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Hukkanen, Vesa Juhani
• Primary Examiner(s): DONAGHUE, LARRY D
• Application Number:
  US10/468,353
• Publication Number:
  US 20040105428A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,997 Days
• Field of Search: 709/227, 455/440, 455/438
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1063 Application servers providing network services systems providing special services to telephonic subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1101 Session protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/30 Determination of the location of a subscriber
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42229 Personal communication services, i.e. services related to one subscriber independent of his terminal and/or location diverting calls from one subscriber to another subscriber, i.e. two different subscriptions H04M3/54; selecting arrangements in intelligent networks H04Q3/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0057 Services where the data services network provides a telephone service in addition or as an alternative, e.g. for backup purposes, to the telephone service provided by the telephone services network
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/006 Networks other than PSTN/ISDN providing telephone service, e.g. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) , including next generation networks with a packet-switched transport layer H04L65/00 takes precedence; aspects not specific to the type of network H04M3/00; special services in those networks H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/30 by measured or perceived connection quality data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/304 due to measured or perceived resources with higher communication quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/00 Affiliation to network, e.g. registration; Terminating affiliation with the network, e.g. de-registration
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/15 Setup of multiple wireless link connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/22 Processing or transfer of terminal data, e.g. status or physical capabilities

Abstract

An arrangement and method for establishing and maintaining a connection between users'"'"' communication devices via a public data network. Communication devices belonging to users of a system are terminals of a telecommunication network, say mobile phones, and, in addition, they are adapted to a link to a data network via a wireless transfer system. Interfaced with the data network there is at least one server that keeps a register of communication devices. A communication device brought near a data network terminal reports itself to the server using a device-specific identifier. This reporting message also contains network address of the terminal. When a connect request arrives from a communication device via a terminal, the server provides for necessary network connection if the called device specified in the connect request can be reached.

Claims

1. An arrangement for establishing and maintaining a connection between communication devices via a data network, comprising:

at least one server interfaced with the data network and data network terminals having network addresses, said server keeping a communication device register, a communication device and a terminal being arranged to establish a data transfer link between each other, wherein

the communication device is arranged to report by sending via said data transfer link an identifier, as well as to send a call via said data transfer link,

the terminal is arranged to send to the server the identifier received from the communication device and at the same time a network address of the terminal, and to notify the communication device about a call received from the server,

the server has the communication device register for storing identifiers of reported communication devices and network addresses of terminals for the purpose of finding out reachability of the communication devices,

the server is arranged to send network address of the terminal to another terminal in order to establish a network connection between the terminals, and

the server is arranged to draw conclusions about relative locations of terminals for making the handover between the terminals during the connection between the communication devices, in which at least one communication device is a mobile terminal.

2. The arrangement according to claim 1, said terminal being a PC-type computer.

3. The arrangement according to claim 1, said terminal being a hub.

4. The arrangement according to claim 1, said terminal being a device in the category of entertainment electronics.

5. The arrangement according to claim 1, wherein, for said data link, both the terminal and the communication device have short-range wireless protocol units.

6. The arrangement according to claim 1, wherein, for said data link, the communication device has a transceiver unit according to a wireless LAN technology.

7. The arrangement according to claim 1, said data network being the Internet.

8. The arrangement according to claim 1, said identifier being a telephone number associated with the communication device.

9. The arrangement according to claim 1, said identifier being an IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) code of the communication device.

10. The arrangement according to claim 1, said identifier being a code chosen by a user of the communication device.

11. The arrangement according to claim 1, at least one terminal being arranged to give geographical coordinates of the terminal to the server in support of said conclusions about relative locations of terminals.

12. The arrangement according to claim 1, said communication devices being telecommunication network terminals and the communication devices being arranged to use a telecommunication network to establish a data network connection.

13. The arrangement according to claim 12, wherein an establishing of said data network connection comprises a transfer of network addresses of the data network terminals via said telecommunication network.

14. The arrangement according to claim 1, at least one terminal being at the same time the server.

15. A method for establishing and maintaining a connection between a first and a second communication device via a data network interfaced with at least one server keeping a register of communication devices, and terminals having network addresses, said first communication device has a data link to a first terminal, and in which method identifiers sent by the terminals, referring to users of the communication devices, and said network addresses of said terminals are stored in the server'"'"'s register, the method further comprising:

a call addressed to the second communication device is sent from the first communication device to the first terminal,

a connect request is sent from the first terminal to the server on the basis of said call,

reachability of the second communication device is examined on the basis of information stored in the register of the server,

the first and second terminals get each other'"'"'s network addresses through the at least one server if the second communication device can be reached through said second terminal,

the call addressed to the second communication device is sent from the server to the second terminal,

said call is further sent from the second terminal to the second communication device,

an answer to the call is transferred from the second communication device to the first communication device via a route;

second terminal, data network, first terminal, first communication device, and

relative locations of terminals are determined by the at least one server for making a handover between terminals during the connection between the communication devices.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein said handover from the terminal serving a communication device is made if the quality of the data link between the two devices drops down to a predetermined level and there exists according to the information stored at a server another terminal through which the connection between communication devices can be maintained.

17. The method according to claim 15, wherein, to provide the network addresses to the terminals, the network address of the second terminal is sent from the server to the first terminal, and the network address of the first terminal is sent from the server to the second terminal.

18. The method according to claim 15, wherein, to provide the network addresses to the terminals, the network address of the second terminal is sent from the server to the first terminal, and the network address of the first terminal is sent from the first terminal to the second terminal.

19. The method according to claim 15, wherein, to provide the network addresses to the terminals, the network address of the first terminal is sent from the server to the second terminal, and the network address of the second terminal is sent from the second terminal to the first terminal.

20. The method according to claim 16, said information stored at the server for making the handover between terminals comprising a map of locations of the terminals.

21. The method according to claim 15, said network addresses being altered to make external tracking more difficult.

22. The method according to claim 21, the way to alter said network addresses being varied according to a time of the day.