Patent ID: 7792253

Claim:
A telecommunication method comprising: a sending device operating in a first communication mode initializing a communication to a receiving device, wherein said first communication mode is a speech mode communication; querying the receiving device from a network node functioning as a communication intermediary between the sending device and the receiving device, where the network node is a node remotely located from the sending device and the receiving device that is connected to each via a network, wherein the querying is via a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based message to determine a communication mode of the receiving device; receiving a response at the network node to the querying via another SIP based message from the receiving device, wherein the another SIP based message comprises semantic content provided by the receiving device, said semantic content defining a communication mode to be used for the receiving device; determining from the semantic content of the another SIP based message that the receiving device is operating in the second communication mode, and wherein said second communication mode is a text mode; responsive to said querying step, establishing said communication, wherein said sending device communicates in said first communication mode by conveying messages to a network in the first communication mode, and wherein said receiving device communicates in said second communication mode by conveying messages to the network in the second communication mode: activating, via the network node, a speech-to-text conversion processor and a text-to-speech conversion processor of a conversion element, where the conversion element is remotely located from the sending device and the receiving device and is connected to each via the network; during said communication, automatically changing a format of messages conveyed between the sending device and the receiving device in accordance with the first communication mode and the second communication mode, wherein automatically changing the format is performed by the conversion element, wherein the changing of the format of messages includes speech-to-text converting a portion of the messages and text-to-speech converting a portion of the messages; during said communication, the receiving device sending a different SIP based message to the network node, wherein the SIP based message includes semantic content indicating that the second communication mode is to be changed to a voice mode; and responsive to receiving the different SIP based message, the network node deactivating the conversion element for the communication so that it no longer performs speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversions of messages conveyed between the sending device and the receiving device during the communication, altering said communication so that the receiving device communicates in speech mode, wherein the altering of the second communication mode occurs without terminating said communication.