Patent ID: 8085906

Claim:
A method for providing a ringback tone alternative service for a calling mobile communication terminal requesting communication with a called mobile communication terminal in a mobile communication network having a caller-side wireless base station, a receiver-side wireless base station, a caller-side mobile communication exchange, a receiver-side mobile communication exchange, a home location register, a service control point, and a sound source providing device, the method comprising the steps of: (a) receiving a request for communication from the calling mobile communication terminal by the caller-side mobile communication exchange; (b) receiving a request for dealing with a ringback tone process from the receiver-side mobile communication exchange, the receiver-side mobile communication exchange having received a call setup request from the caller-side mobile communication exchange; (c) receiving detailed function information regarding the calling mobile communication terminal from the receiver-side mobile communication exchange to check whether or not the calling mobile communication terminal is capable of reproducing an audio codec sound source, the audio codec sound source being a ringback tone alternative sound source encoded with an audio codec; (d) performing call setup with the receiver-side mobile communication exchange and requesting to set the receiver-side mobile communication exchange as a bypass mode when it is determined at step (c) that the calling mobile communication terminal is capable of reproducing the audio codec sound source; (e) requesting the caller-side mobile communication exchange to set the caller-side mobile communication exchange as the bypass mode by the receiver-side mobile communication exchange; and (f) transmitting the audio codec sound source from the sound source providing device to the calling mobile communication terminal.