Patent ID: 7965706
Filing Date: 2011-06-21
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A communication control apparatus that, on a communication system in which a plurality of users communicate with each other, manages a group of available communication terminals including a plurality of communication terminal devices available to one user in an integrated manner and that is interposed in a communication with another user by using one of the plurality of communication terminal devices, the communication control apparatus comprising: a communication terminal control portion, provided so as to correspond to each of the communication terminal devices belonging to the group of available communication terminals, for retaining at least one communication terminal control portion media type identifier that is handled by each of the communication terminal devices and sending and receiving a call control information between the communication terminal devices; a virtual terminal portion that, by controlling a call with respect to the communication terminal device of the another user based on the call control information, functions as a single virtual terminal to make one call with respect to the another user by combining each call made simultaneously in the plurality of communication terminal devices belonging to the group of the available communication terminals; and a communication terminal environment optimizing portion that, at a time when an occurrence of an event regarding a communication control sequence or an event regarding a change in a communication terminal environment on the communication system is detected, compares a media type identifier of the event contained in an event information accompanying the event and the media type identifier in the communication terminal control portion so as to determine a communication medium, and selects a communication terminal device handling the determined communication medium from the group of available communication terminals, and incorporates the selected communication terminal device into the call in a current communication, wherein the group of available communication terminals is capable of carrying out the communication using multiple types of media, the communication system is a multimedia communication system in which the one user selects from the group of available communication terminals the communication terminal device corresponding to the media that the one user is utilizing, and the communication terminal control portion further retains a priority of each of media type identifiers at each of the communication terminal devices, wherein the event is a receipt of a call setup request from one of the plurality of communication terminal devices of the another user, and the communication terminal environment optimizing portion compares the media type identifier contained in the call setup request and the media type identifier in the communication terminal control portion, sends the call setup request to at least the communication terminal device whose media type identifier matches the media type identifier contained in the call setup request among the group of available communication terminals and, on receipt of a receiving response from the communication terminal device performing a receiving operation, sets a call by using the media type identifiers at the communication terminal device irrespective of the priority of each of the media type identifiers, and selects the communication terminal device having the media type identifier of a high priority from the communication terminal device handling a medium that is not contained in the receiving response as the communication terminal device to be incorporated into the call.