Abstract:
A mobile station in a cellular telecommunication network includes an apparatus and method for storing a calling party identification signal. This calling party identification signal is transmitted to an originating MSC along with the call set up signals. The originating MSC then transmits the calling party identification signals to an HLR which transmits them to a serving MSC for delivering to the called party mobile station. Accordingly, the method and apparatus support the delivery of calling party identification signals to the called party without requiring the creation and maintenance of databases for storing such information. The mobile station as well as the MSCs adaptive to store the calling party information signals and to receive and transmit the same. The communication signal definitions between the mobile stations MSCs base stations HLRs and VLRs are all adapted to include and support the transmission of the calling party identification signals which are permanently stored in the mobile station.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
     This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/054,865, filed Aug. 6, 1997, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates to the field of telecommunication networks and, more particularly, to delivering calling party information to a called party receiving a given call in a wireless telecommunication network. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Until recently, the only information provided to a called party to indicate that a call was being terminated on his or her wireless transceiver unit or mobile station was a ring tone and perhaps a flashing light. Recently however, newer networks in certain parts of the country have supported enhanced calling party identification as a subscriber feature. For example, a Calling Numbered Display and Recording System (CNDR) provides an apparatus which integrates customer—owned telephone equipment with the calling party identification service (CNDR). CNDR adds signals to the central telephone switching office signals that are conveyed on a telephone line between the central office and a called party&#39;s telephone system. The CNDR signals that are added include calling party information such as the telephone number and area code of the telephone or mobile station that is initiating the call. Other information, such as the caller&#39;s name, is generally not provided by CNDR at the present time. CNDR is being implemented in many local exchange carrier (LEC) markets as they become equipped with out-of-band signaling such as Signaling System 7 (SS7). The SS7 protocol is described in communications research (“Belcore”) documents TR-TSY-000030/000031, dated November, 1988. Phone utilities as well as independent companies such as General Telephone and Electronics (GTE) have implemented CNDR on SS7 switched exchanges. 
     Existing CNDR systems allow a called party to see the telephone numbers of the last caller or number of callers on integrated telephone receiver displays. Currently, the SS7 switched exchanges only provide the calling party number for display by the called parties telephone system. Accordingly, some telephone systems have been developed to allow a called party to program a telephone system to display a name or nickname of a calling party whenever the calling party&#39;s number is received from a switched exchange. The problem with this approach, however, is that a called party must enter the calling party name for every person or organization for which the called party wants a name to be displayed. As may readily be seen, such an approach is highly inefficient in that a significant programming effort to display calling party name information must be repeated by every individual that wishes to have a calling party name displayed for calls from known people and organizations. This solution is grossly insufficient, because so much duplicate programming occurs among the many called parties known by each calling party. 
     In response to such gross inefficiencies, current proposals exist to establish a database within the SS7 switched exchange or telephone network for maintaining calling party names. Under such proposals, whenever a calling party number is received and a call is to be routed to a called party, the SS7 switched exchange must access the database to match the calling party name information with the calling party number so that the calling party name information maybe transmitted to the called party. From the prospective of the called party, such an approach is beneficial because it eliminates the need for the called party to individually program every calling party name that it wants displayed. From the perspective of the telephone service provider, however, this service is expensive because it requires additional hardware (ie. database and additional hardware for storing large databases). This approach is even more expensive to the service provider because it requires significant effort in maintaining the accuracy of the calling party name records in the database. What is needed, therefore, is a system and apparatus which eliminates the need for the service provider to develop and maintain calling party name databases and the need for the called party to program calling party names into his or her telephone equipment. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     A mobile station includes hardware and logic circuitry for receiving and permanently storing calling party identification signals. For example, the calling party identification signal may represent the calling party&#39;s name, nickname or trademark. The logic circuitry within the mobile station prompts the mobile station to transmit the stored calling party identification signals along with other call origination signals whenever the call is being placed from the mobile station to a mobile switching center (MSC) by way of a base station (BS). The originating MSC includes logic circuitry and hardware for receiving, extracting and temporarily storing the calling party identification signals. The originating MSC also transmits the calling party identification signals in its communications with other devices to establish the call. In a preferred embodiment, the originating MSC transmits the calling party identification signals along with location request signals that it transmits to a home location register (HLR) to determine the serving system for the called party. 
     The HLR is adapted to receive a location request signal which contains the calling party identification signals, to extract the calling party identification signals, and then to transmit the extracted information to the serving system MSC. The calling party identification signals are transmitted along with routing request signals. Accordingly, the serving MSC receives the calling party identification signals directly from the HLR of the originating system in a IS-41 system. This allows the serving MSC to transmit the calling party identification signals to the called party mobile station along with the alert signals that are used to prompt a phone to notify the called party that a call is being routed to it. As may be seen, therefore, the serving MSC can provide the calling party name, nickname, or trademark without having to search a dedicated database. Moreover, this invention allows a temporary user of a mobile station to enter a given name or nickname or trademark into the phone for delivery to the called party prior to making the call. Such a feature thus enhances personal mobility concepts which are currently being emphasized throughout the telecommunications industry. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a wireless communication network in which a mobile station served by an originating system communicates with a mobile station served by a receiving system; 
     FIG. 2 is a signal sequence diagram which reflects a proposal for delivering calling party name to a mobile station; 
     FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a communication network in which a mobile station is in communication with an originating MSC; 
     FIG. 4 is a signal flow diagram that illustrates call set up according to a preferred embodiment of the invention; 
     FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating a method in an MSC for receiving and transmitting calling party identification signals during call set up; and 
     FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method in a mobile station for receiving, storing and transmitting calling party identification signals. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of a wireless communication network in which a mobile station served by an originating system communicates with a mobile station served by a receiving system. Referring now to FIG. 1, the wireless communication network, shown generally at  100 , includes a mobile station  104  which communicates with originating system  108  to place a call through the public switch telephone network (PSTN)  112  to serving system  116  for termination (delivery) to mobile station  120 . As may be seen, originating system  108  includes an antenna  108 A which is connected to BTS  108 B which in turn is connected to BSC  108 C which is in turn connected to mobile switching center (MSC)  108 D. MSC  108 D is connected to PSTN  112  for routing calls to or from other MSCs. Additionally, MSC  108 D is connected to HLR/VLR  108 E. BTS  108 B is a base transceiver station which serves primarily to transmit and receive communication signals through antenna  108 A for communicating with mobile stations. Base station controller BSC  108 C serves primarily to control BTS  108 B. Collectively, BTS  108 B and  108 C may be referred to as Base Station (BS)  108 F. BS  108 F communicates with MSC  108 D. MSC  108 D serves primarily to determine call routing and to route calls being generated by originating system  108 . As may be seen, MSC  108 D also is connected to HLR/VLR  108 E. An HLR is a home location register which contains information regarding all mobile stations that are assigned to originating system  108 . HLR/VLR  108 E also includes location information (addresses) of mobile stations served by other MSCs. A VLR serves to maintain information about all mobile stations currently present within the serving area for originating system  108 . Similar to originating system  108 , serving  116  includes an MSC  116 A which is connected to a BSC 116 B which in turn is connected to a BTS  116 C which is connected to antenna  116 D. Antenna  116 D is an electronic communication with mobile station  120 . 
     In operation, a mobile station  104  originates a call to a mobile station outside of the originating system, MSC  108 D examines the contents of HLR  108 E to determine routing information to the receiving or serving system. In the system shown in FIG. 1, the call is routed to MSC  116 A of serving system  116 . While the system of FIG. 1 shows that the originating system communicates with the serving system through PSTN  112 , it is understood that alternate networks include the use of direct links between the plurality of systems. Thus, by way of example, MSC  108 D maybe connected to each of the other MSCs through a private network formed of fiber optic cable or T1 lines. 
     Mobile station  104  transmits call origination signals to BS  108 F through antenna  108 A. BS  108 F performs common base station processing on the received call origination signals and transmits the call origination signals, perhaps in a modified form, to MSC  108 D. The processing by BS  108 F is standard and well known to those skilled in art. MSC  108 D then performs routine call routing steps to determine which MSC is a part of the serving system for the called party. As may be seen for example, the called party could be served either by MSC  116 A, MSC  124  or MSC  128  in the network of FIG.  1 . The method of determining call routing and, more specifically, to determine that MSC  116 A is the MSC of the serving system for the called party also is standard and well known by those skilled in art. More particularly, MSC  108 D communicates with HLR/VLR  108 E to determine the location of mobile station  120  and then routes the call through PSTN  112  to the serving system  116 . More specifically, MSC  108 D transmits call set up signals to MSC  116 A to route the call through serving system  116  to the called party&#39;s at MS 120 . 
     FIG. 2 is a signal sequence diagram which reflects a proposal for delivering calling party name to a mobile station. Referring now to FIG. 2, MSC  200  receives a call origination signal  204  from a base station that received the call origination signals originally transmitted by a mobile station. A call origination signal is a signal which contains information regarding a call which is being placed by one mobile station and is to be routed to another through a wireless communication network. For example, a call origination signal includes an identification of the calling party and an identification of the called party. Upon receiving call origination signal  204 , MSC  200  transmits, in the preferred embodiment, a LOCREQ signal to HLR  212  to determine the location of the called party mobile station A LOCREQ signal is one whose purpose, at least partially, is to request location and routing information. Responsive thereto, HLR  212  transmits a ROUTREQ  216  signal to the serving system MSC  220  to obtain a temporary location directory number (TLDN). A TLDN is used for routing a call. The serving system MSC then returns a routreq  224  signal back to the originating system HLR. The routreq  224  signal includes the TLDN. Responsive thereto, HLR  212  transmits a locreq signal  228  to MSC  200 . 
     Once MSC  200  has received the locreq signal  228 , it transmits call set up signals  232  to MSC  220 . Responsive thereto MSC  220  transmits a TERMREQ signal  236  to service control point (SCP  240 ) to obtain the calling party name. Upon receiving the TERMREQ signal  236 , SCP  240  transmits termreq signal  244  back to MSC  220 . The termreq signal  244  includes a field for containing the calling party name. Upon receiving the termreq signal  244  with the calling party name, MSC  220  transmits an alert signal  248  to mobile station  252 . Alert signal  248  includes the calling party name. Upon receiving the calling party name in alert signal  248 , mobile station  252  extracts the calling party name from the alert signal  248  and presents it to the called party. As may be seen, this proposal includes the creation and maintenance of a database within SCP  240  with a mapping between calling party Numbers and calling party names. 
     FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a communication network in which a mobile station is in communication with an originating MSC. Referring now to FIG. 3, mobile station  302  includes a store  304  which is connected to a processing unit  306 , which in turn is connected to a tranceiver  308 . Mobile station  302  serves to transmit and receive communication signals with serving system MSC  310  by way of a base station system  312 . The MSC  310  includes a first tranceiver  314  for communicating with base station  312  and a second tranceiver  316  for communicating with other networks or devices. By way of example, tranceiver  316  may be used to communicate with another MSC either directly through a dedicated line, by way of example a T1 line, or by means of the public switch telephone network. Each of the transceivers  314  and  316  are connected to the processing unit  318  which in turn is connected to a store  320 . Store  320  is for storing the calling party identification information received from a mobile station. In the preferred embodiment, store  320  in a store adapted for temporarily storing the called party identification information. The call set up signals transmitted by mobile station  302  shown generally at  322 . Call set up signals  322  include a first portion for carrying call set up information (CSI  322 A) and a second portion for carrying calling party identification signals (CPIDS  322 B.) 
     Store  304  of mobile station  302  is for storing the CPIDS  322 B signals. The CPIDS  322 B signals maybe stored and transmitted in many forms. By way of example, store  304  can store a plurality of ASCII digits which represent the calling party name, nickname or trademark. Accordingly, during call set up, processing unit  306  extracts the CPIDS  322 B from store  304  and transmits the same to BS  312  in call set up signals  322  during the call set up process. MSC  310 , upon receiving call set up signals  322  through transceiver  314  from the base station  312 , extracts the CPIDS  322 B and stores it in temporary store  320  for later transmission to the called party once the call is set up. 
     FIG. 4 is a signal flow diagram that illustrates call set up according to a preferred embodiment of the invention. Referring now to FIG. 4, MSC  402  receives call origination signal  404  from an originating mobile station by way of a base station (not shown). Call origination signal  404 , in contrast to call origination signal  204 , includes additional calling party information. More specifically, call origination signal  404  includes a field for carrying calling party information. The calling party information may be in many different forms. One preferred embodiment, the calling party identification signal includes the calling party name represented in ASCII form. 
     Upon receiving call origination signal  404 , MSC  402  transmits a LOCREQ signal  406  to HLR  408 . LOCREQ signal  406  includes the calling party identification signal (CPIDS). HLR  408 , responsive thereto, transmits ROUTREQ signal  410  to MSC  412  of the serving system. ROUTREQ signal  410  also includes the CPIDS. Upon receiving the ROUTREQ signal  410 , MSC  412  returns a routreq signal  414  which includes a TLDN. HLR  408 , upon receiving routreq signal  414 , transmits a locreq signal  416  to MSC  402 . The locreq signal  416  also includes the TLDN. Upon receiving the locreq signal  416  which includes the TLDN, MSC  402  generates call set up signals  418  to MSC  412  to set up call. Upon receiving the call set up signals  418 , MSC  412  transmits an alert signal  420  to MS  422 . Alert signal  420  includes the CPIDS which was received earlier in the ROUTREQ signal  410 . 
     MS  422 , upon receiving the CPIDS, presents the CPIDS to the called party. In the preferred embodiment, the CPIDS comprises ASCII characters that represent the calling party&#39;s name, nickname or trademark. Accordingly, MS  422  displays alphanumeric text on the display screen, the text being the name, nickname or trademark of the calling party when MSC  412  receives the ROUTREQ signal  410  with the CPIDS. In operation, serving MSC  412  temporarily stores the CPIDS in relation to a calling party ID. For example, MSC  412  may store the received CPIDS and may map it to a mobile ID number (MIN) of the calling party MS. Accordingly, when a call set up signal  418  is received which identifies the calling party by means of, by way of example, the MIN, MSC  412  may use the MIN received in the call set up signal  418  to identify and extract the CPIDS that was stored in the temporary store. Thereafter, MS  412  appends the CPIDS to the alert signals  420  which are transmitted to MS  422  to complete the call set up. As may be seen, this invention avoids the need of having the MSC, here MSC  412  send request signals to SCP to obtain the calling party name (see signals  236  and  244  of FIG.  2 ). Alternatively, the TLDN may be used to map the calling party name or, CPIDS to the call set up signal. 
     FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating a method in an MSC for receiving and transmitting calling party identification signals during call set up. Referring now to FIG. 5, an MSC, by way of example, MSC  310  of FIG. 3, receives call set up signals from a mobile station containing a calling party identification signal (step  502 ). The calling party identification signal may be found in many different forms including ASCII text which represents the calling party name or nickname. It is understood, that the calling party identification signal may be modified for many different uses. By way of example, the calling party identification signals may be used to carry the trademark of a business for identifying itself. Next, the MSC extracts the calling party ID signal from the call set up signals (step  504 ). Thereafter, the MSC stores the calling party ID in a store. In the preferred embodiment, the store is for storing the calling party ID temporarily (step  506 ). In an alternate embodiment, however, the calling party ID maybe stored on a more permanent basis. (step  506 ) for example, the MSC may be adapted to generate a log for calls of the calling party or of the called party. Thereafter, the MSC initiates call routing procedures to identify the serving MSC and route the call to it. (step  508 ) Finally, the originating MSC transmits set up signals to the serving MSC to prompt the serving MSC to connect the call to the mobile station by transmitting an alert signal containing the calling party ID (step  510 ). 
     FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating a method in a mobile station for receiving, storing and transmitting calling party identification signals. Referring now to FIG. 6, the method which is shown illustrates a preferred embodiment of receiving calling party information signals. The calling party ID, in the preferred embodiment, is in the form of a name, a nickname or a trademark. It is understood, however; that other types of calling party identification signals may be entered, stored and transmitted by the mobile station. Initially, the mobile station must receive the calling party ID (step  602 ). If for example, the calling party ID is the calling party&#39;s name and is entered through the MS keypad, the mobile station receives digit entries made upon the mobile station key pad, which digit entries represent the mobile station subscriber name, nickname or trademark. Thereafter, the mobile station stores the calling party ID in a store having the capacity to maintain the calling party ID through mobile station power cycles (step  604 ). Thereafter, the mobile station transmits the stored calling party ID during call set up in the call set up signals whenever a new call is being originated by the mobile station (step  606 ). 
     Although the invention has been described with respect to a specific preferred embodiment, many variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the present application. It is therefore the intention that the appended claims be interpreted as broadly as possible in view of the prior art to include all such variations and modifications.