Lucent Technologies Inc.

At&t Bell Laboratories

Alcatel Lucent

High Point Sarl

Kenneth Wayne Strom

Chung-Zin Liu

Michael F Dolan

Randall Joe Wilson

Douglas A Spencer

John S Thompson

Omar Salvador

Kenneth Frank Smolik

Alan S Mulberg

Jeffrey Ross Light

Stephen Clifford Goss

Charles Varvaro

Kelvin K Ho

Brian D Bolliger

Talmage P Bursh, Jr

Mark Kevin Stockert

Gitesh P Shah

LaJeana N Roberts

Harvey Rubin

Deborah L Barclay

Richard Alan Windhausen

Charles Y Farwell

Richard D Miller

Kenneth Yiu-Kwong Ho

Paul E Miller

Michel L Hearn

Richard M Heidebrecht

Robert Shaw Sellinger

Laurel Ann Salvador

Michael A Smith

David M Kissel

James Joseph Sowa

Michael J English

Joe Thomas Hall

Marc K Dennison

Richard Dale Miller

Kelvin Ki-Yui Ho

John Stewart Thompson

Richard Michael Heidebrecht

Douglas Albert Spencer

Alan Stuart Mulberg

Lajeana Nicole Robert

Michael Adrian Smith

Michael Jerome English

David Michael Kissel

Charles Yeomans Farwell

Marc Kevin Dennison

Apparatus and a method for establishing a cellular mobile call. If no radio traffic (voice or data) channels are available for a calling Mobile Station (MS), then a test is made to determine the expected wait time before a channel becomes available. If the expected wait time is less than a first threshold, then the call request is queued. If a channel does not become available before a second time threshold, then the caller is notified that the call has been queued and is expected to be established in a short time. A control message is sent to the MS to trigger an indication of the queued status to the user. The indication may be one or more tones, a data display, or the playing of a pre-recorded announcement. If the expected wait time is more than the first threshold, the caller is given the opportunity to be called back when a radio channel becomes available. Advantageously, the number of failed calls because of unavailable traffic channels is reduced, and the caller's annoyance level is reduced.

Queuing for radio channel availability

Apparatus and a method for establishing a cellular mobile call. If no radio traffic (voice or data) channels are available for a calling or called mobile station (MS), then a test is made to determine the expected wait time before a channel becomes available. If the expected wait time is less than a first threshold, then the call or the call request is queued. If a channel for an incoming call to an MS does not become available before a second time threshold, then the caller is notified by an announcement that the call has been queued and is expected to be established in a short time. If the caller of an incoming call to the MS does not disconnect, then the MSC waits for an available channel and establishes a connection to the MS over that available channel. For an outgoing call from an MS, a control message is sent to the MS to trigger an indication of the queued status to the user. The indication may be one or more tones, a data display, or the playing of a pre-recorded announcement. Advantageously, the number of calls blocked because of unavailable traffic channels is reduced. Advantageously, the same arrangement can be used to reduce blocking of calls because of unavailability of trunks for a link of a call connection.

Enhanced wireless radio channel utilization

A telecommunication system routs real-time information traffic from an originating digital radio unit served by an originating network to a terminating unit served by a terminating network via an intermediate network interconnecting the originating and terminating networks. The originating digital radio unit has an encoder/decoder (e.g., a vocoder) for generating digital wireless frames from information that is input thereto. The originating network includes an originating node with an encoder/decoder for performing wireless-specific conversion of the digital wireless frames to digital wireline (e.g., PCM) traffic. The intermediate network includes an originating-end interface node with an encoder/decoder for compressing the digital wireline traffic for transport across the intermediate network. Optimization of communications routed between the originating and terminating units is achieved by routing the digital wireless frames without wireless-specific conversion being performed at the originating node of the originating network nor compression conversion being performed at the originating-end interface node of the intermediate network, such that the rate of information traffic throughput is maximized.

Method for optimizing mobile wireless communications routed across plural interconnected networks

A telecommunication system routes wireless-specific digital frames from a first wireless communication device across a data-oriented network, without vocoding, for information delivery to a second communication device while implementing multi-party conferencing and tone/announcement generating functionality. Tone and announcement generation services are provided while the call path retains the wireless-specific digital frame format between the first wireless communication device and the terminating gateway. When tones are generated by the first wireless communication device, signaling messages are sent directly to the terminating gateway vocoder to initiate the generation of full rate DTMF tones at the terminating network. When tones and announcements are sent to the first wireless communication device, a resource server, working together with a feature server, generates a wireless-encoded version of the tone or announcement. This wireless-encoded version is then sent to the first wireless communication device, where an audible version of the tone or announcement is produced. When multi-party conferencing is initiated, the first call is established via wireless-specific digital frame communication. The first call is placed on hold while the second call is completed using a digital wireline format (e.g., PCM). Through vocoding, the first call's connection is re-negotiated to match the digital wireline format of the second call. To complete the conference call, the two calls are combined in the conference circuit as a composite digital wireline traffic stream.

Conferencing and announcement generation for wireless VoIP and VoATM calls

A system includes a first virtual end point processor ( ) operably coupled to a plurality of channel elements ( ) and a second virtual end point processor ( ) operably coupled to a plurality of frame selectors ( ). The system also includes at least one signaling manager ( ) that is arranged and constructed to establish a communication path that terminates at the first virtual end point processor ( ) and the second virtual end point processor ( ) prior to receiving a request for resources for a data call, such that set-up time for the data call through a wireless network is reduced.

Virtual resource allocation method and apparatus for wireless data communication systems

Coupling together two or more communication systems that use different signaling protocols requires a protocol converter. A protocol converter is provided that includes interfaces to communications systems to be coupled together mimics the operation of the communications systems each interface is coupled to providing a seamless coupling between the systems.

Methods and apparatus for translating between telephone signaling protocols

A wireless telecommunications system is disclosed that is capable of providing both public wireless service and virtual private network service on existing IS-95 CDMA facilities without changes to the air interface, the hardware design or the protocols for interacting with home location registers. An illustrative embodiment of the present invention comprises: broadcasting from a radio a first SID/NID signal and a FOR.sub.-- NID.sub.-- REG signal to a wireless terminal, wherein the first SID/NID signal is associated with a first set of user zones; receiving from the wireless terminal: (1) a indicium of the wireless terminal's identity, and (2) a request to register the wireless terminal based on a second SID/NID signal, wherein the second SID/NID signal is associated with a second set of user zones; transmitting the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity to a database; receiving from the database a prioritized list of user zones based on the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity; transmitting to the home location register a pseudo directory number that is based on a first user zone, which first user zone is the user zone that has the highest priority in the prioritized list of user zones and that is also a member of the second set of user zones; and receiving from the database a feature set based on the pseudo directory number.

Method for assigning feature sets on virtual private telecommunications

A method for operating a wireless telecommunications system that is capable of providing both public wireless service and virtual private network service on existing IS-95 CDMA facilities without changes to the air interface, the hardware design or the protocols for interacting with home location registers. The method includes broadcasting an SID/NID signal to a wireless terminal, wherein the SID/NID signal is associated with a set of user zones; receiving from the wireless terminal: (1) a indicium of the wireless terminal's identity, and (2) a request to register the wireless terminal based on the SID/NID signal; transmitting the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity to a home location register; receiving from the home location register a prioritized list of user zones based on the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity; transmitting to the home location register a pseudo directory number that is based on a first user zone, which first user zone is the user zone that has the highest priority in the prioritized list of user zones and that is also a member of the set of user zones; and receiving from the home location register a feature set based on the pseudo directory number.

A wireless telecommunications system that is capable of providing multiple virtual wireless networks (e.g., a public network and/or one or more private networks) from a single IS-95 compliant CDMA radio without changing the air interface or modifying existing hardware designs. Includes the steps of broadcasting from a radio a first SID/NID signal and a FOR.sub.-- NID.sub.-- REG signal to a wireless terminal, wherein the first SID/NID signal is associated with a first set of user zones; receiving from the wireless terminal: (1) a indicium of the wireless terminal's identity, and (2) a request to register the wireless terminal based on a second SID/NID signal, wherein the second SID/NID signal is associated with a second set of user zones; transmitting the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity to a database; receiving from the database a prioritized list of user zones based on the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity; and registering the wireless terminal based on a first user zone, which first user zone is the user zone that has the highest priority in the prioritized list of user zones and that is also a member of the second set of user zones.

Method for implementing virtual private wireless telecommunications

A wireless telecommunications system is capable of providing both public wireless service and private network service on existing IS-95 CDMA facilities without changes to the air interface or the hardware design. An illustrative embodiment of the present invention comprises: broadcasting an SID/NID signal to a wireless terminal, wherein the SID/NID signal is associated with a set of user zones; receiving from the wireless terminal: (1) an indicium of the wireless terminal's identity, and (2) a request to establish a communications channel based on the SID/NID signal; transmitting the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity to a home location register; receiving from the home location register a prioritized list of user zones based on the indicium of the wireless terminal's identity; and establishing the communications channel based on a first user zone, which first user zone is the user zone that has the highest priority in the prioritized list of user zones and that is also a member of the set of user zones.

Method for implementing private wireless telecommunications networks

A CDMA cellular radio-telephone system (FIG. 2) comprises a packet-switched communications network (202, 207, 201) that interconnects cells (base stations; 202) with each other and with the public telephone network (100). A unique combination of a static addressing plan that uses a different LAPD DLCI (302 in FIG. 7) for each unidirectional virtual call path, direct cell (202)-to-cell and cell-to-call-processing unit (264 in FIG. 5) control information exchanges, and packet-switching techniques that permit call traffic and control communications to share call paths and permit different call paths to share physical resources, is applied to call processing. This enables soft handoffs (FIGS. 27-29) to be handled in a manner transparent to the parties to the call and without significant involvement of system control elements (134 and 261 in FIG. 2) whose involvement would adversely impact the system's call-handling capacity. It also enables soft handoffs to occur without change of the call processing unit that is handling the call, so that a single call processing unit continues to handle the call from start to finish through even multiple soft handoffs.

Mobile telephone system call processing arrangement

A wireless-access communications system, such as a CDMA cellular radio-telephone system (FIG. 2), comprises a packet-switched communications network (202, 207, 201) that interconnects cells (base stations; 202) with each other and with the public telephone network (100). Traffic of individual calls is packetized, and packet-bearing frames (300 in FIG. 7) of a plurality of calls are then statistically multiplexed and frame-relayed through the network to yield the high capacity, efficiency, and speed of traffic transport and handoff required for a CDMA cellular system. At each call processing unit (264 in FIG. 5), individual calls are handled by individual service circuits (602 and 612) which perform speech-processing functions such as coding and decoding, tone insertion, and echo cancellation, and packet-to-circuit-switched-PCM traffic conversion. Processors (602) adapt call processing unit timing to compensate for asynchrony between cells and call processing units and variations in call path transmission delays. Cell-to-cell communications, fixed call path addressing, and packetized control message transfers ensure that the same service circuit handles a call through even multiple soft handoffs (FIGS. 27-29) and efficiently communicates simultaneously with all cells involved in the handoff without involvement of system control entities and negative effect on system call-handling capacity. Both coded (packet-switched) and uncoded (circuit-switched) radio-telephone traffic are accommodated side-by-side. Wherever possible, existing and proven technology and component units are used to achieve low cost and high reliability.

Wireless access telephone-to-telephone network interface architecture

Growing community of inventors

Naperville, IL, United States of America

Kenneth Wayne Strom