Apparatus and method for controlling basic and supplementary subscriber service in a telephone system

Abstract: The invention relates to an apparatus and a method for controlling basic and supplementary subscriber service in a digital telephone exchange (3). The invention provides an Internet server (2) connected to the digital telephone exchange (3) in such a way that the server (2) can control the supplementary subscriber service system (5) in accordance with instructions received from a subscriber via an Internet access (7). The Internet access (7) may be provided in the form of a web browser (1). The invention provides a more user friendly interface to the supplementary subscriber service system (5) compared to the usual depressing of pushbuttons on the telephone apparatus in response to requests and/or messages in the form of stored voice messages from the digital telephone exchange (3).

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention concerns an apparatus and a method for controlling basic and supplementary subscriber service in a telephone system, in which a digital telephone exchange provides basic and supplementary service to the subscribers connected to the digital telephone exchange. The ordinary way of controlling the subscriber service system is provided by the subscriber using his common telephone device with a numeric keypad to generate the DTMF (dual tone multiple frequency) tones or corresponding messages in GSM or ISDN systems, e.g. DSS1 (digital subscriber signalling system no. one) messages, that are required to control the service. To control a relative simple service like Call Forwarding, the user has to enter a sequence of e.g. 13 characters, and more complicated services may require more characters when the subscriber procedure gets more complicated. It is in this connection that the present invention seeks to provide a more user-friendly control of the subscriber service, without removing the ordinary way of control. DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART WO 97/23988 describes control of supplementary subscriber service, using the Internet to provide a user-friendly interface to the control of these services. In the described system the services are provided by an intelligent network, which is distinct from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and the only possibility of controlling the intelligent network is via the Internet connection. WO 94/23523 describes a system of controlling the operation of a telephone exchange from a subscriber connection. A direct communication connection is established between a subscriber connection and a telephone exchange control unit in such a way that the subscriber can modify specific functions in the telephone exchange control unit. This system requires a separate control unit interface program to perform the requested modifications. The program must be executed by the telephone exchange control unit and accordingly puts an extra load on this unit. WO 97/22211 describes the implementation and management of new services as intelligent network service scripts, whereas the present invention relates to a more user-friendly management of already implemented subscriber services. WO 97/22209 and WO 97/22212 both describe the control of supplementary subscriber services provided by an intelligent network and different access possibilities to the intelligent network via Internet from the Public Switched Telephone Network and from the subscriber, respectively. SUMMARY In connection with more complicated new supplementary subscriber services, longer series of characters are to be transmitted from the keypad on the ordinary telephone apparatus. Moreover, the subscriber using multiple supplementary subscriber services will easily get lost in the complexity of this system comprising different codes for the different supplementary subscriber services. In view of this it is the intention of the present invention to provide an apparatus and a method for controlling the basic and supplementary services in a digital telephone exchange, the invention providing a supplement to the ordinary control, said supplement being more user-friendly. In accordance with the invention this is provided by a dedicated Internet access server connected to the digital telephone exchange. The server is providing a more user-freindly, e.g. graphical, interface for a subscriber who by means of a PC running a WWW-browser is connected to the server via the Internet. The Internet server is connected to the digital telephone exchange to control the basic and supplementary subscriber services by sending DTMF-tones or DSS1 messages to the digital telephone exchange in the same way as the ordinary telephone or ISDN-subscriber sends those DTMF-tones or DSS1 messages to the digital telephone exchange. The server merely emulates the ordinary telephone function and the digital telephone exchange receives the DTMF-tones or DSS1 messages in the same way as these tones or messages are received from a telephone apparatus and the digital telephone exchange uses the built-in functions for remote control of supplementary services for controlling the supplementary services in accordance with the orders received from the server. The speed of the communication between the server and the digital telephone exchange is limited by the limited speed of detecting the DTMF-tones in the digital telephone exchange. This speed is limited by the necessicity of receiving at least forty milliseconds of DTMF-tones for detection of each tone. Moreover, the response from the digital telephone exchange is normally an announcement which is time-consuming to handle. Accordingly, the server does not use interrogation to check the current status of a service. For ISDN connections, the DSS1 messages make it possible to interpret the response from the digital telephone exchange. In this case, it is possible for the server to receive information in the DSS1 protocol in order to check the current status of a service. In this last case it will be necessary to modify the software of the digital telephone exchange in order to provide an interface for the server in accordance with the DSS1 protocol. The invention is as set out in the independent claims 1 and 2. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In the following, various aspects for the invention will be explained referring to the enclosed drawing, showing exemplary embodiments of the invention, in which: Figure 1 is a schematic block diagram showing a WWW-access to a digital telephone exchange in accordance with the invention, and Figure 2 is a more detailed block diagram of parts of the system in accordance with Figure 1. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS In the embodiment shown in Figure 1, the remote control of the basic and supplementary service is implemented using an Internet server 2 which is communicating with a world wide web browser. The communication between the world wide web browser and the Internet server is provided via a connection 7 which normally will comprise the Internet. The Internet server 2 provides the subscriber with a user-friendly, e.g. graphical, interface to the services which the subscriber wants to control from his PC. The functions of the world wide web browser and the Internet server in this connection are not part of the invention and function in a manner which is known per se . In the embodiment shown in Figures 1 and 2, the connection between the Internet server 2 and the digital telephone exchange 3 is made using a telephone line connection 8 between the server and the exchange. Through this connection 8 the server sends orders in the form of DTMF-tones to the digital telephone exchange 3. These orders are received by a system for remote control of supplementary services 6 which is provided in the digital telephone exchange 3 for connection of subscribers to the supplementary services 5 from another telephone than the subscriber's own telephone. This remote control of supplementary services 6 controls the supplementary services in the module 5 in the ordinary way, so that no changes have to be made in the digital telephone exchange 3 as such. The subscriber 4 is connected to the telephone exchange 3 via an ordinary telephone line 9 which, as is shown, is able to communicate with this module for the supplementary services 5. As shown in more detail in Figure 2, the Internet server comprises different software blocks 11-17 for communicating via the Internet in HTML protocol and for handling the subscriber orders received from the Internet and converting these orders into DTMF-tones which are sent via one of thirty lines 8 connected to the telephone exchange 3. Among other modules, the Internet server comprises a dedicated software package15 for each supplementary service supported by the system. In this way, it is possible to provide a new service support by supplying new software packages, and existing support of services can be modified by modifying the individual software packages. In the embodiment shown in Figure 2, the modules of the Internet server comprise an ASP module 11 for handling the HTML communication via the Internet, an Internet information server 12, a transaction server 13, a MS SQL server 14, said software modules 15, a CAPI 16, and an ISDN connection 17 providing e.g. thirty lines of DTMF communication channels with the digital telephone exchange 3. The ISDN connection 17 may, as an alternative, use DSS1 messages. In this way it is possible for the world wide web server 2 to get access to information regarding the current status of the subscriber's services and provide the subscriber with this information via the subscriber's world wide web browser connection. Furthermore, the orders sent from the subscriber's world wide web browser to the Internet server can be transmitted through the system to control the subscriber services in the supplementary subscriber service module 5.

Claims: Apparatus for controlling basic and supplementary subscriber services in a telephone system comprising an Internet access server (2) for establishing communication with a subscriber via the Internet in order to receive instructions for the control of the basic and supplementary subscriber services, the basic and supplementary subscriber services to be controlled being implemented in a digital telephone exchange (3) comprising a supplementary subscriber service system (5) providing basic and supplementary services to the subscribers (4) connected to the digital telephone exchange (3), and a remote control system (6) for controlling the basic and supplementary subscriber services from a subscriber connection, in which remote control system (6) the subscriber communicates orders to the supplementary subscriber service system (5) in the form of DTMF-tones generated by depressing pushbuttons on his telephone apparatus or corresponding messages in GSM or ISDN systems, e.g. DSS1 messages, and the supplementary subscriber service system (5) communicates requests and/or messages to the subscriber, e.g. in the form of stored voice messages, said Internet access server (2) being a dedicated Internet access server (2) connected (8) to the digital telephone exchange (3) in such a way that the Internet access server (2) can control the supplementary subscriber service system (5) in accordance with the instructions received from a subscriber via the Internet access (7) characterized in that the connection (8) between the Internet access server (2) and the digital telephone exchange (3) is provided in such a manner that the Internet access server (2) controls the supplementary subscriber service system (5) by sending DTMF-tones or DSS1 messages to the digital telephone exchange (3), whereby the Internet access server (2) "emulates" the ordinary telephone generated control of the supplementary subscriber service system (5). Method for controlling basic and supplementary services in a telephone system comprising the steps of providing an Internet access server (2), receiving instructions from subscribers in the Internet access server (2), using said instructions to control said basic and supplementary services, providing a digital telephone exchange, in which the basic and supplementary services to be controlled are implemented, providing a remote control system (6) for controlling services from a subscriber connection, the subscriber communicating orders to control the basic and supplementary services in the form of DTMF-tones generated by depressing pushbuttons on his telephone apparatus or corresponding messages in GSM or ISDN systems, e.g. DSS1 messages and the digital telephone exchange communicating requests and/or messages to the subscriber, e.g. in the form of stored voice messages connecting the Internet access server (2) to the digital telephone exchange (3) in such a way that the Internet access server can control the basic and supplementary services implemented in the digital telephone exchange (3), characterized by comprising the further steps of: converting the instructions received from the subscriber in the Internet access server (2) to orders in a format acceptable for delivery to the digital telephone exchange (3), said format being dual tone multiple frequency tones (DTMF-tones) or DSS1 messages, and delivering these orders to the digital telephone exchange (3), thereby controlling the basic and supplementary services.

Inventors: DAMM CLAUS, NIELSEN LARS, THORARENSEN INGIMUNDUR, DAMM, CLAUS, NIELSEN, LARS, THORARENSEN, INGIMUNDUR
Applicants: ERICSSON TELEFON AB L M, TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON
Application year: 1997
Main classification: H04Q3
IPC codes: H04Q3, H04M7