Routing calls in a network

• US 8,325,905 B2
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Issued: 12/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Gregorat, Mariafranca, Dwight, Timothy, Verlare, James L., Welch, Gregory, Raps, Yaron, Lass, Steven L., McClain, Richard L.
• Primary Examiner(s): AL AUBAIDI, RASHA S
• Application Number:
  US11/460,668
• Publication Number:
  US 20070061397A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,321 Days
• Field of Search: 379/220.01, 379/142.01, 709/203, 709/227
• US Class Current: 379/220.01
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/509 wherein the managed service relates to media content delivery, e.g. audio, video or TV
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4557 Directories for hybrid networks, e.g. including telephone numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1016 IP multimedia subsystem [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1069 Session establishment or de-establishment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/1096 Supplementary features, e.g. call forwarding or call holding systems providing special services or facilities to telephony subscribers H04M3/42
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/401 wherein the services involve a main real-time session and one or more additional parallel real-time or time sensitive sessions, e.g. white board sharing or spawning of a subconference
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/123 where the packet-switched network is an Internet Protocol Multimedia System-type network
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/128 Details of addressing, directories or routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0025 Provisions for signalling
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 3/0045 involving hybrid, i.e. a mixture of public and private, or multi-vendor systems

Abstract

A method includes receiving a telephone number mapping query associated with a call. The method may also include generating routing information based on the query and forwarding the routing information to a control device. The routing information may indicate that processing associated with routing the call is to bypass a core portion of an Internet multimedia subsystem (IMS) when a calling party associated with the call does not invoke an IMS service, the called party associated with the call does not invoke an IMS service and the called party is not an IMS subscriber.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

at least one device to;

receive at least one query from an Internet protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) component, the at least one query being associated with a call, and

forward routing information to the IMS component based on the at least one query, the routing information indicating that processing associated with routing the call is to bypass a portion of the IMS associated with providing IMS related services when the calling party does not invoke an IMS related service, the called party does not invoke an IMS related service, and the called party is not an IMS subscriber.

2. The system of claim 1, where the at least one device comprises a telephone number mapping server to:

translate E.164 numbers to uniform resource identifiers.

3. The system of claim 2, where the telephone number mapping server is to:

receive a first query, the first query including a calling party number,

identify a first uniform resource identifier for the calling party number,

receive a second query, the second query including a called party number,

identify a second uniform resource identifier for the called party number, and

forward the first and second uniform resource identifiers to the IMS component.

4. The system of claim 1, where the at least one device is further to:

route the call through a portion of the IMS associated with providing IMS related services when the calling party invokes an IMS related service, when the called party invokes an IMS related service, or when the called party is an IMS subscriber.

5. The system of claim 1, where the portion of the IMS associated with providing IMS related services comprises:

a plurality of call session control components, and

where the routing information does not identify any of the call session control components when the call is to bypass the portion of the IMS associated with providing IMS related services.

6. The system of claim 1, where the at least one device comprises:

a telephone number mapping server, and

a database storing E.164 numbers and corresponding uniform resource identifiers, where the telephone number mapping server is to map a received E.164 number associated with the call to a uniform resource identifier.

7. The system of claim 6, where the telephone number mapping server is further to:

communicate with a telephone number mapping root server associated with a peering service provider and a telephone number mapping server operated by a peering partner to identify the uniform resource identifier associated with the call.

8. The system of claim 6, where the telephone number mapping server is further to:

store telephone number mapping information for numbers belonging to a local operator and a set of peering partners, and

resolve queries for the numbers belonging to the local operator and the set of peering partners without communicating with other servers.

9. The system of claim 1, where the at least one device comprises:

a first domain name system server to store E.164 numbers associated with the IMS, and

a second domain name system server to identify uniform resource identifiers associated with parties outside the IMS.

10. The system of claim 9, where the second domain name system server is to communicate with entities outside the IMS to resolve a received telephone number mapping query associated with a call from a party outside the IMS.

11. A method, comprising:

receiving a telephone number mapping query, the query being associated with a call;

generating routing information based on the query; and

forwarding the routing information to a control device, the routing information indicating that processing associated with routing the call is to bypass a core portion of an Internet multimedia subsystem (IMS) when a calling party associated with the call does not invoke an IMS service, the called party associated with the call does not invoke an IMS service, and the called party is not an IMS subscriber.

12. The method of claim 11, where the generating routing information comprises:

mapping a first E.164 number associated with the calling party to a first uniform resource identifier, and

mapping a second E.164 number associated with the called party to a second uniform resource identifier.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

forwarding the first and second uniform resource identifiers to the control device;

receiving, by the control device, the first and second resource identifiers; and

routing the call by bypassing the core portion of the IMS based on the first and second uniform resource identifiers.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

routing the call through the core portion of the IMS when the calling party invokes an IMS service, the called party invokes an IMS service or the called party is an IMS subscriber.

15. The method of claim 11, where the generating routing information comprises:

communicating with a telephone number mapping root server to identify a uniform resource identifier associated with the call.

16. The method of claim 11, where the generating routing information comprises:

accessing a first database to store E.164 numbers associated with the IMS, and

accessing a second database to store E.164 numbers associated with parties outside the IMS when the first database does not store an E.164 number associated with the call.

17. The method of claim 16, where the generating routing information further comprises:

communicating with entities outside the IMS to resolve the query when the call is from a party outside the IMS.

18. A method, comprising:

receiving a telephone number mapping query, the query being associated with a call from a calling party to a called party;

identifying a first uniform resource identifier associated with the calling party;

identifying a second uniform resource identifier associated with the called party;

forwarding the first and second uniform resource identifiers to a control device; and

routing the call to the called party, the routing bypassing a portion of the IMS associated with providing IMS related services when the calling party does not invoke an IMS related service, the called party does not invoke an IMS related service, and the called party is not an IMS subscriber.

19. The method of claim 18, where the identifying the first uniform resource identifier comprises:

mapping an E.164 number associated with the calling party to the first uniform resource identifier, and

where the identifying the second uniform resource identifier comprises;

mapping an E.164 number associated with the called party to the second uniform resource identifier.

20. The method of claim 18, where the identifying at least one of the first uniform resource identifier or the second uniform resource identifier comprises:

accessing a first database that stores E.164 numbers associated with the IMS, and

accessing a second database that stores E.164 numbers associated with parties outside the IMS when the first database does not store an E.164 number associated with the call.

21. The method of claim 18, where the identifying at least one of the first uniform resource identifier or the second uniform resource identifier comprises:

communicating with entities outside the IMS to resolve the query when the calling party or the called party is not an IMS subscriber.