INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE ROUTING INFORMATION/STATUS/AVAILABILITY NETWORK

Abstract: A method of distributing telephone and/or telephone subscriber status/availability information comprises receiving information at a relay centre (8,9) from each of a multiplicity of status/availability terminals (1,10). This information corresponds to the status/availability of a telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line associated with the sending status/availability terminal (1,10). Information received at the relay centre (8,9) from each sending status/availability terminal (1,10) is immediately relayed to a group of other status/availability terminals (1,10) associated with the sending terminal. At each receiving status/availability terminal (1,10), the received status/availability information is displayed on a display (3) of the terminal to advise the subscriber of the current status/availability of other subscribers in which he is interested.

Description: INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE ROUTING INFORMATION/STATUS/AVAILABILITY NETWORK The present invention relates to an international telephone routing information/status /availability network (ITRISAN) and more particularly to a system which is capable of indicating to a telephone user in real time, or substantially real time, the status/availability of a remote telephone or telephone line or of the user of that remote telephone/telephone line whether in the same building, another building, or anywhere in the world. It is readily apparent that a large number of telephone calls, both private and business, are wasted due to the unavailability of the called subscriber (where the term "subscriber" is taken here to mean a telephone user). For example, the called subscriber may be absent from his normally used telephone, or he may be engaged in another conversation on the called telephone. It will also be apparent that a call relating to some relatively unimportant matter may lead to the interruption of an important meeting or the like. A simple solution to this problem is to provide a human messaging service to take down a message and forward it to the called subscriber, e.g. using an electronic or paper memo. The telecommunications industry has also implemented a number of solutions to deal with this problem. For example, a "call waiting" service has been introduced where, when a called subscriber is engaged in an existing call, the new calling party is placed on hold and the called party is advised of the new incoming call by a tone or operator announcement. Another solution is the use of electronic telephone receptionists which intercept incoming calls, asking for the caller's name. The name is then relayed to the called party who can choose whether or not to take the call. Yet another solution is "call diversion", where a telephone subscriber may, for example, cause incoming calls to be diverted from his fixed line phone to his mobile phone during an absence from the office. A disadvantage associated with many solutions is that even a failed call involves the connection of the calling party to some telephone network node, e.g. an Intelligent Network (IN) node which diverts calls and/or plays operator announcements. This will typically incur a charge against the called and/or calling party's account and, often more importantly, will consume time on the part of the calling party and the called party especially if the called party needs to return the call, only to discover that the original calling party is now unavailable on the called telephone number. Establishing a call for only a very short duration may additionally be uneconomic for telephone network operators, as the cost charged for the call may not cover the (notional) set-up cost. It is an object of the present invention to overcome or at least mitigate the above noted disadvantages. This and other objects are achieved at least in part by providing telephone subscribers with access to telephone status/availability information distributed over a telephone status/availability system. Aspects of the invention may enable telephone users to be allocated long term (possibly lifetime) ID codes which may be an alpha, alphanumeric, or numerical code. According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of distributing telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line status/availability information, the method comprising: receiving information at one or more relay centres from each of a multiplicity of status/availability terminals, said information corresponding to the status/availability of a telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line associated with the sending status/availability terminal; immediately relaying the information received from each sending status/availability terminal to a group of other status/availability terminals associated with the sending terminal; and at each receiving status/availability terminal, displaying the received status/availability information or storing the information for later display. Embodiments of the present invention allow a telephone subscriber having a status/availability terminal to determine whether or not a subsequent call made to a remote telephone subscriber is likely to be successful. If he determines that a call is not likely to be successful, he can continue to monitor his status/availability terminal until such time as the status/availability of the remote telephone subscriber indicates the availability of that subscriber (the subscriber may be alerted to the availability of the remote subscriber by an audible alarm, flashing light, or other appropriate means). The key to the present invention is the provision of status/availability information directly to telephone subscribers in substantially real time. The present invention can be used regardless of whether or not subscribers are connected to the same PBX, PABX, or telephone network (PSTN, PLMN, etc). The distributed information may comprise an indication of whether or not a telephone associated with a sending terminal is engaged. For example, a status/availability terminal may send an off-hook notification to the relay centre to indicate that the associated telephone has become engaged. Correspondingly, the terminal may subsequently send an on-hook notification to indicate that the associated telephone is now available. The distributed information may also comprise an indication of the current and/or future availability of the subscriber normally associated with the telephone. The subscriber may also enter other appropriate information into the terminal for sending to the relay centre(s). A relay centre may maintain for each associated terminal a group of other terminals to which information received from the terminal is to be sent. That is to say that a group of terminals to be notified of status/availability information may be selected from the entire set of subscribers, with the selection being made by the subscribers themselves. The group may be defined by sending terminal identifiers from the terminal for inclusion in the group. Alternatively, or in addition, a terminal may send its own identification to a relay centre for inclusion in the group associated with some other terminal. Both of these embodiments may require the provision of a password to the relay centre in order to modify the group held by a relay centre. The distributed information (which will be referred to hereinafter as ITRISAN information) may be sent between the (ITRISAN) terminals and a relay centre using any suitable method including, but not limited to: the signalling network of a telephone network (either fixed line or mobile); a data transfer network of a telephone network; a paging network; a satellite communications network; a radio communications network; the Internet; or a cable network. The ITRISAN information may be sent using a combination of two or more different types of transmission networks. In the case of a fixed line telephone network, ITRISAN information may be sent using a signalling channel of an ISDN connection, e.g. using the D channel. In the case of a mobile telephone network, the ITRISAN information may be sent using a text message, e.g. an SMS message in GSM, or a network's data transmission facilities. The information may be sent between the ITRISAN terminals and a relay centre via one or more intermediate relay centres. An ITRISAN may also comprise two or more relay centres, with individual ITRISAN terminals being allocated a given local relay centre. The method may comprise printing the ITRISAN identification of a first subscriber on business cards or other stationary of the subscriber. Another subscriber to whom such a card or piece of stationary is distributed may then add his own ITRISAN identification to the group of ITRISAN identifications associated at the relay centre with the first subscriber. In certain embodiments of the invention, the information may be modified or processed prior to relaying it to another ITRISAN terminal. For example, where the ITRISAN information comprises a time component, the component may be converted from the time zone of the sending terminal to the time zone of the receiving terminal. In certain embodiments of the invention the method comprises receiving at the or each relay centre from subscriber terminals, telephone numbers on which respective subscribers are or will be available, and sending this information to respective groups of subscribers, and displaying the received telephone number(s) at receiving terminals. As well as making ITRISAN information available to subscribers via an ITRISAN , information may be published on the Internet. Access to the published information may require a subscription or payment. According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a status/availability terminal for coupling to a status/availability network and comprising: a display; subscriber data input means; signal input means arranged in use to receive from the status/availability network information identifying the status/availability of one or more remote telephones and/or telephone subscribers and/or telephone lines; first processing means coupled between said input means and said display for causing said received information to be displayed on the display; signal output means coupled to the status/availability network; second processing means coupled between the subscriber data input means and the signal output means and/or between a telephone of the subscriber and the signal output means, and arranged in use to relay information input by the subscriber identifying the status/availability of the subscriber and/or telephone status/availability information received from the telephone, to the signal output means for subsequent sending over the status/availability network. The functionality of the terminal may be integrated into a telephone terminal, fixed line or mobile, or may be integrated into any suitable information display device or any suitable network information inputting device. Alternatively, the (ITRISAN) terminal may be a stand alone terminal which may be coupled to a subscriber's telephone via a wire or wireless connection. In either case, the ITRISAN terminal may be a fixed line terminal or wireless terminal. The terminal may be a computer terminal incorporating the necessary functionality. The computer terminal may incorporate telephone functionality. The terminal may be a pager. According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a status/availability network arranged in use to distribute telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line status/availability information, the network comprising: a multiplicity of status/availability terminals according to the above second aspect of the present invention; and at least one relay centre having means for receiving information from the status/availability terminals, said information corresponding to the status/availability of a telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line associated with the sending status/availability terminal, memory means for storing for each status/availability terminal a group of associated other status/availability terminals, and transmission means for immediately relaying the information received from each sending status/availability terminal to said group of other status/availability terminals associated with the sending terminal. The ITRISAN may use existing telecommunications network infrastructure to transport data to and from relay centres (i.e. the ITRISAN may be a virtual network). Alternatively, the ITRISAN may use a dedicated infrastructure, or may use a combination of existing and dedicated infrastructures . Other aspects of the present invention include: A method of allocating to an individual telephone user a long term (possibly lifetime) ID code which may be an alpha, alphanumeric, or numerical code. Such a long term ID code may also be allocated to a group of telephone users. A user may program his ID code into a (ITRISAN) terminal which he is using. This terminal may be the user's normal terminal or a terminal which he is using temporarily. A method of providing real time information regarding routing information and status/availability of telephone users or groups of users to whom RO codes have been allocated, and a method of publishing telephone numbers to which calls should be made either immediately or in the future. For a better understanding of the present invention and in order to show how the same may be carried into effect reference will now be made, by way of example, to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 illustrates schematically an ITRISAN terminal; and Figure 2 illustrates schematically an ITRISAN. There is illustrated in Figure 1 a stand alone Telephone Status/availability Network terminal 1 (hereinafter referred to as an ITRISAN terminal) which comprises a keypad 2 and a liquid crystal display 3. The terminal 1 has a signal connector 4 arranged in use to be coupled to a telephone (not shown) via a fixed line or other means and a radio antenna 5 for transmitting signals between the terminal 1 and one or more orbiting satellites. The terminal 1 contains a central processing unit (CPU) 6 and a memory 7 coupled to the CPU. Figure 2 illustrates an "ITRISAN". The ITRISAN in general terms is a network which is able to multicast telephone and telephone user ITRISAN information from a given ITRISAN terminal 1 to other similar terminals. The ITRISAN comprises a number of information relay centres including a local ITRISAN centre 8 and a national ITRISAN centre 9. Each of the information relay centres 8,9 is coupled to the orbiting satellites via respective radio antenna (not shown). Alternatively the local ITRISAN centres 8 may be coupled to the satellite via a national ITRISAN centre 9. Data transmitted over the network may be encrypted to prevent unauthorised eavesdropping. In addition to a multiplicity of stand alone ITRISAN terminals 1, Figure 2 illustrates a set of terminals 10 which are connected to a concentrator 11. hi this case, communications between the terminals 10 and the satellite are routed through the concentrator. Such an arrangement may suit a corporate subscriber, as he will require only a single satellite link to serve many individual terminals 10. Every ITRISAN terminal is allocated an identification code (ID code) which is known to the terminal or its user as well as to the ITRISAN (in some cases a group of terminals are allocated a common ID code such as may be appropriate for terminals associated with telephones of a call centre). It is noted that a user of an ITRISAN terminal, or a corporation employing a corporate ITRISAN, will pay a subscription to the operator of the ITRISAN to enable him to use the ITRISAN service (alternatively or additionally subscribers may be billed based upon their use of the service). The ITRISAN operator may be the operator of a telephone network or he may be independent thereof. Using the keyboard 2 of his terminal 1,10, or in certain embodiments the keypad of his telephone, a subscriber is able to key into the terminal the ID codes of other ITRISAN terminals 1,10 which the subscriber believes should receive ITRISAN information sent from his terminal. The entered ID codes are sent to the local ITRISAN centre 8 of the sending terminal where they are grouped together and associated with the ID code of the sending terminal, and stored in an electronic data memory of the local ITRISAN centre for uploading to a national or international centre as appropriate. The user of some other ITRISAN terminal 1,10 may additionally cause his terminal's ID code to be sent to the local ITRISAN centre 8 and added to that group. To do this, he would also need to send the DD code of the terminal to whose RO code group he wishes to be added. In order to disseminate the E) code of his terminal to other ITRISAN subscribers, a subscriber may have his RO code printed on his business cards and included on his personal or company letterhead paper. This will in practice restrict the number of people who have access to a particular subscriber's status information. The local ITRISAN centres 8 are able to send ITRISAN information between ITRISAN terminals 1,10 which are coupled to that same local centre 8. However, in order to send information between terminals not coupled to the same local centre 8, information must be routed through one or more national and/or international ITRISAN centres 9 and/or other local ITRISAN centres 8. The ITRISAN may regularly interrogate ITRISAN terminals to identify faults. The operation of the ITRISAN is best illustrated by way of example. In a simple case, each ITRISAN terminal 1,10 receives on-hook and off-hook signals from the associated telephone. These signals are immediately sent to the respective local ITRISAN centres 8. The signals are accompanied by the DO code of the sending terminals 1,10, such that the local ITRISAN centre 8 is able to determine the RO codes of the terminals 1,10 which should receive the ITRISAN information. The information is relayed to these terminals 1,10 directly or via a national ITRISAN centre 9 and/or concentrator 11. A terminal 1,10 reacts to receipt of an ITRISAN message by displaying on its display 3 a message saying "USER XXX ENGAGED" or alternatively "USER XXX AVAILABLE ON NNNN NNNNNNN". In the event that the display 3 of the receiving terminal is switched off, the received information may be stored in the terminal's memory 7. If the memory 7 cannot be accessed (for example the terminal is switched off or is a mobile terminal and is out of range), the information may be stored at the local ITRISAN centre 8 of the receiving terminal 1,10 pending switching on of the terminal (or comes back into range if it is a mobile terminal). The display of an ITRISAN terminal may be reset periodically to avoid it from becoming cluttered with old information. For example, at the start of each new day, the display may be cleared, and during that day information is only added as it is requested by the user. The ITRISAN is not however limited to disseminating only a subscriber's current telephone routing/status/availability information. For example, a subscriber may be able to advise his associated group of terminals (by the push of a button on his terminal) that he is leaving his office or home, or that he will be engaged in a meeting. He may also enter into the terminal the time (and date) when he will once again be available. Upon returning to his home or office (or at the end of the meeting), he may cancel the previous notification, again by the press of a button. A further enhancement allows an ITRISAN terminal 1,10 to send to its local ITRISAN centre 8 a phone number on which the subscriber using that terminal can be reached. This phone number may be the phone number of the telephone attached to the terminal 1 , 1 or may be some other telephone (e.g. a mobile telephone). The phone number may be sent together with the status change notification message and may be generated automatically, e.g. when the subscriber presses a button to indicate that he is leaving the office, his mobile number may be sent to the local ITRISAN centre 8. When he returns to the office and presses the appropriate button, his office number is sent to the local ITRISAN centre 8. The telephone number data is disseminated to other terminals via the local ITRISAN centre 8 (and possibly via the national and international ITRISAN centres 9) to other ITRISAN terminals where it is displayed to interested subscribers. Alternatively or additionally a subscriber may have the option of manually entering a telephone number (on which he is available) into his ITRISAN terminal 1,10 for sending to other terminals. Another enhancement provides for an autodial facility at ITRISAN terminals 1,10. A subscriber may select a user from the list of users displayed on his terminal (e.g. using a scroll key) causing the number stored for that user (or the number on which the user is currently available) to be automatically dialled. A facility may also be provided for automatically calling a selected user when that user becomes available. Yet another enhancement allows a subscriber to the ITRISAN to group other subscribers wishing to avail themselves of that subscriber's ITRISAN information, into different levels. The ITRISAN is notified of the levels allocated to subscribers. A subscriber may allocate a small number of other subscribers to a high priority level, more to a medium priority level, and the remainder to a low priority level. When the subscriber is busy, he may notify the ITRISAN that only members of the high priority group are to be notified that the subscriber is available. When he is less busy, he may notify the ITRISAN that members of the medium priority group (and possibly the low priority group) can also be notified that he is available. hi some cases, a large number of ITRISAN subscribers may wish to know when some other subscriber becomes available. Unless some action is taken, this may result in many subscribers trying to make a call at the same time. This problem may be mitigated by notifying sub-groups of subscribers sequentially when another subscriber becomes available. The "available" notification will be displayed on the terminals of a first sub-group for a predefined time period, e.g. one minute. After that, the status is reset to unavailable, and the terminals of the next sub-group of subscribers are notified that the other subscriber is available, etc. Of course, individual subscribers may be notified in turn (rather than by sub-group). The embodiment of the present invention described above provides a significant benefit to a user who has two or more subscriptions (i.e. two or more registered ITRISAN terminals), one of which is allocated to a mobile device. If the mobile device is stolen and used by the thief, the true owner will be made aware of the fraudulent use by his being alerted on another terminal that the stolen mobile device is in use. It will be appreciated by the person of skill in the art that various modifications may be made to the above described embodiment without departing from the scope of the present invention. For example, the ITRISAN may enable a subscriber to receive and send ITRISAN information via more than one ITRISAN terminal. For example, a subscriber may have a desktop terminal as well as a mobile. ITRISAN terminal. An ITRISAN terminal may comprise a function which presents an alert to the subscriber when the status/available of a given terminal or terminal subscriber has changed. This may be an audible alert. In some cases, a group of terminals associated with a given ITRISAN terminal may be defined collectively by a corporate subscriber. It will be appreciated that whilst the present invention has been illustrated by describing a dedicated ITRISAN terminal, the functionality of such a terminal may be readily implemented in a computer workstation such as a desktop or laptop PC. The functionality may also be implemented in a palm computer or PDA. Such computer devices may be coupled to separate telephones or may themselves incorporate telephone functionality. It will also be appreciated that the invention is particularly suited to use with mobile telephones and other mobile communication devices, with the functionality of the ITRISAN terminal being integrated into the mobile device.

Claims: Claims 1. A method of distributing telephone and/or telephone subscriber status/availability information, the method comprising: receiving information at a relay centre from each of a multiplicity of status/availability terminals, said information corresponding to the status/availability of a telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line associated with the sending status/availability terminal; immediately relaying the information received from each sending status/availability terminal to a group of other status/availability terminals associated with the sending terminal; and at each receiving status/availability terminal, displaying the received status/availability information or storing the information for later display. 2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the status/availability information comprises an indication of whether or not a telephone associated with a sending terminal is engaged. 3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the status/availability information may comprise an indication of the availability of the subscriber of the associated telephone. 4. A method according to any one of the preceding claims and comprising maintaining a database associated with the relay centre, the database storing for each terminal, an identification of a group of other terminals to which mformation received from the terminal is to be sent. 5. A method according to any one of the preceding claims and comprising sending status/availability information between the status/availability terminals and the relay centre using one or more of the following transport mechanisms: the signalling network of a telephone network (either fixed line or mobile); a data transfer network of a telephone network; a paging network; a satellite communications network; a radio communications network; the Internet; a data network; and a cable network. 6. A method according to any one of the preceding claims and comprising sending information between the status/availability terminals and the relay centre via one or more intermediate relay centres. 7. A method according to any one of the preceding claims and comprising printing terminal/user identification codes of a first subscriber on business cards or other stationary of the subscriber and distributing these to other subscribers. 8. A method according to any one of the preceding claims and comprising transporting said information via a dedicated network which is separate from the telephone network(s) used to carry telephone calls. 9. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 7 and comprising transporting said information via a telecommunications network or telecommunications networks. 10. A method according to claim 9 and comprising transporting said information between telephone network switches. 11. A method according to claim 9 and comprising transporting said information across boundaries between telecommunications networks. 12. A status/availability terminal for coupling to a status/availability network and comprising: a display; subscriber data input means; signal input means arranged in use to receive from the status/availability network information identifying the status/availability of one or more remote telephones and/or telephone subscribers and/or telephone lines; first processing means coupled between said input means and said display for causing said received information to be displayed on the display; signal output means coupled to the status/availability network; second processing means coupled between the subscriber data input means and the signal output means and or between a telephone/telephone line of the subscriber and the signal output means, and arranged in use to relay information input by the subscriber identifying the status/availability of the subscriber and/or telephone and/or telephone lines status/availability information received from the telephone, to the signal output means for subsequent sending over the status/availability network. 13. A status/availability terminal according to claim 12, wherein the status/availability terminal is integrated into a telephone terminal. 14. A status/availability network arranged in use to distribute telephone and/or telephone subscriber status/availability information, the network comprising: a multiplicity of status/availability terminals according to the above second aspect of the present invention; and at least one relay centre having means for receiving information from the status/availability terminals, said information corresponding to the status/availability of a telephone and/or telephone subscriber and/or telephone line associated with the sending status/availability terminal, memory means for storing for each status/availability terminal a group of associated other status/availability terminals, and transmission means for immediately relaying the information received from each sending status/availability terminal to said group of other status/availability terminals associated with the sending terminal.

Inventors: SINCLAIR MALCOLM, SINCLAIR, MALCOLM
Applicants: DATA INFORMATION SYSTEMS LTD, SINCLAIR MALCOLM, DATA INFORMATION SYSTEMS LIMITED, SINCLAIR, MALCOLM
Application year: 2001
Main classification: H04M3
IPC codes: H04M3