Patent ID: 7778629

Claim:
A method for handling potentially contentious situations upon receipt of a Short Message System (SMS) message when connecting users to conference calls, said method comprising: a network server machine receiving user meeting notification parameters from a mobile electronic device of a user, said user meeting notification parameters being received at a data storage location of the network server machine, said user meeting notification parameters pertaining to a scheduled conference call for a meeting among a calling party and a plurality of other parties, said conference call scheduled to occur at a scheduled meeting time for the meeting; after said receiving the user meeting notification parameters, verifying a capability to establish a connection between the mobile electronic device and both the network server machine and a SMS center, said SMS center configured to receive and send messages from and to, respectively, the mobile electronic device via a control tower communicatively disposed between the mobile electronic device and the SMS center; after said verifying, detecting an occurrence of the scheduled meeting time for the meeting; responsive to said detecting, sending to the mobile electronic device a first SMS text message communicating to the user that the scheduled meeting time for the meeting has occurred, said sending the first SMS text message resulting in storage of the first SMS text message in a queue of the mobile electronic device; after said sending the first SMS text message, determining that a connection conflict exists at the mobile electronic device, wherein the connection conflict is that: the user is currently connected to a first call via the mobile electronic device, there are other call messages in the queue, or the user does not want to connect to the conference call at the scheduled meeting time for the meeting; and responsive to said determining that the connection conflict exists, notifying the user of the connection conflict.