Abstract:
In a system and method for facilitating an telephony carrier to make transactions with carrier customers and/or carrier suppliers, one or more parameters are monitored and the telephony carrier is automatically to be triggered to send an offer to at least one of the carriers when at least of the parameters reaches a predetermined threshold. Preferably, the parameters are related to telephone capacity handled by the telephony carrier, and the offer is an offer to buy capacity from existing or new carrier suppliers or an offer to sell capacity to carrier customers. Thus, the efficiency of transactions is substantially increased.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to telephony techniques, and in particular, relates to a system and method for facilitating an Internet telephony service broker to make transactions between and among telephony carriers. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     As shown in  FIG. 1A , telephone calls, especially long distance calls, often involve more than one telephony carriers  110 ,  111 ,  112 ,  113  to complete the calls over PSTN network between an originating telephone  22  and a terminating telephone  25 . Therefore, transactions are often made between an originating carrier  110  and a terminating carrier  111 , or between the originating/terminating carriers  110 ,  111  and one or more bridging carriers  112 ,  113  that bridge between the originating and terminating carriers  110 ,  111 . 
     With the development in Internet telephony technologies, more and more telephone calls are transmitted, at least in part, over the Internet so as to substantially lower cost. As shown in  FIG. 11B , a typical phone-to-phone call, which was traditionally transmitted completely over a PSTN network, is now able to be transmitted partly over the Internet. More specifically, a call initiated from a telephone  22  is transmitted over a PSTN network  11  to an originating gateway  202 , which converts the call from PSTN protocol to a packet data network protocol and transmits the call over packet data network  10  (such as the Internet) to a terminating gateway  302  where the call is converted back to a PSTN protocol and transmitted to the destination telephone  25  through a PSTN network  12 . This saves cost as the gateways  202  and  302  are local to their respect telephones  22 ,  25 , especially when the call between the two telephones  22 ,  25  is a long distance call or even an international call. 
     Originating gateway  202  and terminating gateway  302  are often if not usually owned by different carriers, and transactions have to be made between the two carriers for completing the call. In the sense of the transaction for a specific call, the owner of the originating gateway  202  is called here an “originating carrier”, and the owner of the terminating gateway  302  is called here a “terminating carrier”. It is understood that an originating carrier may be a terminating carrier, or vise versa, in other calls. In addition to terminating gateway  302 , there may exist plural of other gateways that are also capable of conveying calls to (and from) the destination telephone  25  over the PSTN network  12 . Moreover, there are numerous gateways that are capable of transmitting calls to other destinations (e.g., telephone  26 ) over other local PSTN network (e.g., PSTN  13 ), and the carrier that owns the originating gateway  202  may not have any transaction agreement with them or even be aware of them. Transactions of capacities are often made directly between the originating carriers and the terminating carriers. 
     Alternatively, to facilitate the transactions between originating carriers and terminating carriers, a telephony system  100  may be provided to broker the capacities. More specifically, the telephony system buys capacities from carrier suppliers (e.g., the owners of terminating gateways  301 - 304 ) and sell them to the originating carriers (e.g., the owner of originating carrier  202 ), wherein the originating and terminating carriers do not need to directly make agreements with each other, and even do not need to know each other. When a call destined to the telephone  25  is initiated at telephone  22 , if the originating carrier of gateway  202  is used, the call is transmitted through PSTN network  11  to the originating gateway  202 . The originating gateway  202  sends a request to the telephony system  100  for a terminating gateway to forward the call. The telephony system  100  checks a database  101  and selects a terminating gateway  301  that is capable of completing the call to the destination telephone  25 . The IP address of such gateway  301  is forwarded to the originating gateway  202 , for completion of the call. With the address of the terminating gateway  301 , the originating gateway  202  forwards the call to the terminating gateway  301 , which conveys the call to the destination telephone  25 . Often, the addresses of plural terminating gateways may be forwarded to originating gateway  202 , with the originating gateway  202  trying them in a prescribed order. Additionally, the communication over the Internet between the gateways may include further call related information, such as a transaction ID for each call, billing information, etc. 
     The originating carrier who buys call completion services either from the telephony system  100  or directly from the terminating carrier is called a “buyer” or a “carrier customer”, while the terminating carrier who sells the capacity to the telephony system  100  or directly to the originating carrier is called a “seller” or a “carrier supplier”. Thus, for each call, the transactions are made between the telephony system  100  and both the carrier customer (who owns the originating gateway) and the carrier supplier (who owns the terminating gateway), or made directly between the carrier customer and the carrier supplier. 
     The transactions are, however, often changed. Such changes may result from a change of the offered rates from a carrier supplier, a change in capacity demand from the carrier customers, leaving of a key carrier supplier, etc. For example, when there is a surge of demand from carrier customers to a specific destination, the carrier customers or the telephony system  100  needs to buy more capacity from the carrier suppliers that capable of handling calls to that specific destination. When a key supplier leaves or has increased its rate, the customer carrier or the telephony system  100  may need to seek capacity from new carrier suppliers. This often involves reprogramming systems manually, or other inefficient means. Therefore, there exists a need of efficiently making transactions in such systems with less human intervention and increased efficiency. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     To solve the above problem, the present invention discloses a system and method for facilitating a telephony carrier to make transactions with carrier customers and/or carrier suppliers. In particular, as taught by the present invention, one or more parameters are monitored and the telephony carrier is automatically to be triggered to send an offer to at least one of the carriers when at least one of the parameters reaches a predetermined threshold. Preferably, the parameters are related to telephone capacity handled by the telephony carrier, and the offer is an offer to buy capacity from existing or new carrier suppliers or an offer to sell capacity to carrier customers. Thus, efficiency is increased. 
     Preferably, the telephony carrier is an originating carrier or a terminating carrier. Alternatively, the telephony carrier is a telephony system that brokers the capacities between the carrier customers and the carrier suppliers. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The above and other features and advantages of the present invention will become clearer after reading the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: 
         FIG. 1A  is an illustration of a conventional telephony network over PSTN of the prior art; 
         FIG. 1B  is an illustration of a telephony network involving Internet of the prior art; and 
         FIG. 2  is an illustration of a preferred embodiment of the telephony system according to the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     As shown in  FIG. 2 , which is similar to  FIG. 1 , a telephony system  100  makes transactions with plural carriers, each being represented by a gateway  201 - 203  and  301 - 303  that it owns. Gateways  201 ,  202 ,  203  are all capable of receiving, through PSTN  1 , calls initiated by telephones  21 ,  22 ,  23  and conveying such calls to a packet data network, e.g., Internet  10 . Gateways  301 ,  302 ,  303  are all capable of conveying calls from the Internet to a destination telephone such as  24 ,  25 , or  26  through PSTN  12 . Gateway  304  is capable of conveying calls to and from exemplary telephone  26  though PSTN  13 . It is understood that each gateway can work as both an originating gateway and a terminating gateway, depending upon whether the call is initiated or terminated through the gateway. Though there are only seven gateways shown in the  FIG. 2 , it is understood that there can be many gateways arranged to interface between various portions of the PSTN and the data network. 
     The telephony system  100  comprises a database which stores all the information about the gateways  201 - 203  and  301 - 304 , such as their IP address, associated PSTN extensions, rates, codes, etc, as well as information concerning the transactions made with each gateway. 
     The carriers that sell to the telephony system  100  are herein called “carrier suppliers” or “sellers”, and the carriers that buy capacity from the telephony system  100  are called “carrier customers” or “buyers”. It is understood that a carrier can be both a supplier and a customer of the telephony system  100 . More specifically, for a specific call, when the gateway of a carrier works as an originating gateway, such a carrier is a customer or buyer from the point of view of that particular transaction with the telephony system  100 . When the gateway of a carrier works as a terminating gateway for a specific call, the carrier is a supplier or seller from the point of view of the particular transaction with the telephony system  100 . 
     According to the present invention, the telephony system  100  further comprises monitoring means  102 , which automatically detects one or more parameters in the database  101 , and a trigger  103  which automatically triggers the telephony system  100  to take an action when one or more of the parameters are determined to have reached a predetermined threshold. 
     Preferably, the parameters are related to telephony capacity that is handled by the telephony system  100 , and the triggered action is sending an offer to one or more of the carrier customers and/or carrier suppliers. 
     Preferably, the parameters comprise a demand change in capacity from one or more carrier customers, and the offer is an offer to buy more capacity from carrier suppliers. For example, if a surge of the from the gateways  202  to the PSTN network  12 , which may represent a specific city or location, is detected, the telephony system  100  is automatically triggered to send out an offer to buy more capacity from an existing carrier supplier  302  or even buy capacity from new carrier suppliers  301  and/or  302  which are also capable of handling calls to PSTN  12 . The offer may be previously prepared and stored in the database, or may be generated by the trigger  103  when the surge in demand is detected. 
     If a key carrier supplier (e.g., gateway  302 ) is detected to be unavailable or slows down or stops its supply of traffic, for example, when supply loss from the gateway  302  is detected by reduction in traffic carried by gateway  302 , the telephony system  100  is automatically to be triggered to send an offer to buy capacity from new carrier suppliers  301  and  303  to maintain the required capacity. 
     Alternatively, if the rate of the key carrier supplier (e.g., gateway  302 ) is detected to be raised, the telephony system  100  is automatically triggered to send offers to new carrier suppliers  301 ,  303  to buy capacity so as to replace the key carrier supplier, i.e., gateway  302 , at a more reasonable price. 
     Alternatively, when the demand from the carrier customer (e.g., gateway  202 ) is detected to have dropped, or when the telephony system  100  has purchased more capacity from a key carrier supplier (usually at a lower price), the telephony system  100  is automatically triggered to send an offer to an existing carrier customer  202  to sell more capacity. Alternatively, the offer may be also sent to new originating gateways  201 ,  203  to sell capacity. 
     More generally, when a margin or difference between the demand from carrier customers and the capacity bought from carrier suppliers is detected to have reached a threshold, the telephony system  100  is automatically triggered to send offers either to buy more capacity from carrier suppliers or to sell more capacity to carrier customers. Alternatively, if it is detected that rates or other parameters have not changed within a specified period of time, the telephony system  100  is automatically triggered to send an offer to potential carrier suppliers to buy capacity at a lower price. In still another embodiment, if the price targets from carrier customers are detected to be falling faster than costs offered from the carrier suppliers, the telephony system  100  can also be automatically triggered to send an offer to new carrier suppliers for lower priced services. 
     The present invention can also work to automatically send various notices when a specific parameter or event is detected. For example, if the credit of a carrier customer is detected to be at or nearing its credit limit, the telephony system  100  is automatically triggered to send a credit notice to the carrier customer seeking payment Alternatively, when the rates and/or codes are manually or automatically changed, a notice of such a change in rate and/or code is automatically triggered to be sent out the carrier customers and/or suppliers. 
     Although the above has explained in detail with the brokering telephony system  100  in an Internet telephony environment as the preferred embodiment of the present invention, it shall be understood that the present invention is not limited to the Internet telephony environment, or to the telephony system  100  that brokers capacities between carrier customers and carrier suppliers. 
     For example, the telephony system  100  can be implemented as an originating carrier or a terminating carrier, or as a part of the originating or terminating carrier. The telephone calls may be completely transmitted over PSTN network without going through Internet. Therefore, it shall be appreciated numerous changes are possible to a skilled person in the art without departing the gist of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is solely intended to be defined in the accompanying claims.