U.S. patent number 7,174,187 [Application Number 10/796,941] was granted by the patent office on 2007-02-06 for multimodal wireless communication device with user selection of transceiver mode via dialing string.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Sprint Spectrum L.P.. Invention is credited to John C. W. Ngan.
United States Patent |
7,174,187 |
Ngan |
February 6, 2007 |
Multimodal wireless communication device with user selection of
transceiver mode via dialing string
Abstract
A multimodal wireless device, such as a cellular telephone,
includes wireless transceivers which supports communication with
remote devices in two different wireless protocols, for example,
convention wireless cellular telephony in accordance with CDMA or
GSM standards, and wireless communication in accordance with the
Bluetooth standard and/or the IEEE 802.11 standard. The user of the
wireless device selects which mode the device is to use when
placing a call to a called party by inputing codes or characters
into a dialing string. The wireless device detects the code or
characters and responsively selects the designated transceiver to
place the call to the receiver in the desired wireless
communication mode.
Inventors: |
Ngan; John C. W. (Shawnee,
KS) |
Assignee: |
Sprint Spectrum L.P. (Overland
Park, KS)
|
Family
ID: |
37696708 |
Appl.
No.: |
10/796,941 |
Filed: |
March 9, 2004 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
455/552.1;
455/553.1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H04M
1/72403 (20210101); H04W 88/06 (20130101); H04M
1/26 (20130101); H04M 2250/02 (20130101); H04M
1/27485 (20200101) |
Current International
Class: |
H04M
1/00 (20060101) |
Field of
Search: |
;455/550.1-575.9,403 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Foreign Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Kincaid; Lester G.
Assistant Examiner: Zewari; Sayed T.
Claims
The invention claimed is:
1. A wireless telephone with selectable transmission modes for a
call from said wireless telephone to a remotely-located receiver,
said selectable transmission modes comprising a first wireless
communication mode and a second wireless communication mode, said
telephone comprising: a user interface for user input of a dialing
string for initiation of said call; a first transceiver for
communication in accordance with said first communication mode; a
second transceiver for communication in accordance with said second
communication mode; and a memory storing software comprising a set
of instructions for responsively selecting said first transceiver
or said second transceiver for said call depending solely on the
contents of said dialing string entered by the user, the dialing
string including a character or characters indicating whether the
telephone should use the first transceiver or the second
transceiver.
2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said remotely located receiver
comprises a Bluetooth enabled device and wherein said second
transceiver comprises a Bluetooth transceiver.
3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said first transceiver
comprises a transceiver compliant with an IEEE 802.11 standard.
4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said dialing string comprises
a sequence of alphanumeric characters, and either # or * preceding
or following said alphanumeric characters.
5. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein memory further stores a data
structure associating dialing strings to Bluetooth user ID
numbers.
6. In a wireless telephone, a method of selecting a transmission
mode for a call between said wireless telephone and a remotely
located receiver, said wireless telephone having a first
transceiver for communication in accordance with a first
communication mode and a second transceiver for communication in
accordance with a second communication mode, said first
communication mode comprising a cellular telephony mode and said
second communication mode being a local, free, non-cellular
wireless communication mode, the method comprising: receiving a
dialing string from a user of the telephone for initiation of said
call, detecting attributes of said dialing string indicating that
the user intends the call to be sent in accordance with said second
transmission mode; obtaining, either directly or indirectly, solely
from said dialing string an identity of the receiver in accordance
with said second communication mode, the dialing string including a
character or characters indicating whether the telephone should use
the first transceiver or the second transceiver; establishing a
communications session in accordance with said second communication
mode between said wireless telephone and said receiver.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein said remotely located receiver
comprises a Bluetooth enabled device and wherein said second
transceiver comprises a Bluetooth transceiver.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein said second transceiver comprises
a transceiver compliant with an IEEE 802.11 standard.
9. The method of claim 6, wherein said dialing string comprises a
sequence of alphanumeric characters, and either # or * preceding or
following said alphanumeric characters.
10. The method of claim 7, wherein said telephone includes a memory
storing a database associating alphanumeric dialing strings to
Bluetooth user ID numbers.
Description
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to generally to wireless telephony
and in particular to multimodal wireless communication devices that
support communications between the wireless device and called
parties using more than one type or kind of wireless communications
technique, e.g., CDMA (or GSM) and Bluetooth. More particularly,
the invention relates to a method by selection of a particular
communication mode for a call is made via a dialing string input
into the device by the user.
2. Description of Related Art
The ubiquitous cellular telephone, and the cellular telephone
service provider infrastructure, provides a means by which users
can place and receive telephone calls over a widespread geographic
region. Cellular telephone services include calling plans by which
a user of cellular telephone service are charged for use of "air
time," that is, actual minutes of use of the cellular telephone
infrastructure. When the person is "roaming," i.e., away from their
normal calling region, these charges for service can become costly,
depending on the plan the user has with their service provider.
There have been several attempts in the art to help reduce the cost
of cellular telephone use. These attempts have taken advantage of
the observation that a wireless device like a cellular telephone
may by built such that it supports wireless communication in two
different modes: (1) a conventional cellular telephony mode, in
which the phone communicates with an antenna and base station of
cellular telephony network, and (2) a "free", short range radio
frequency communication mode that is independent of the cellular
telephony infrastructure. An example of mode (2) is radio frequency
communication with a cordless telephone base station. When the
phone is in mode (2), the calls can be placed and received via land
line plain old telephone circuits connected to the cordless
telephone base station, thereby avoiding the user of cellular
telephony infrastructure and avoiding "air time" and the associated
costs.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,141,560 discloses a cellular telephone
that has a dual mode of operation. The phone includes a
conventional cellular transceiver for making and receiving standard
cell phone calls through the cellular infrastructure, and a
cordless telephone transceiver for placing calls through the
conventional telephone central office and landlines via a cordless
telephone base station. Typically, the cordless telephone base
station would remain in the home or office, and while the phone is
within range of the cordless telephone base station, the unit would
place calls via the cordless telephone base station and land line,
thereby avoiding air time and the use of the cellular telephone
infrastructure. The '560 patent further discloses that the user may
provide a preference for initiating a call as either cordless or
cellular, but does not specifically teach how such preferences
should be indicated. The usefulness of the '560 patent as a dual
mode phone is somewhat limited, in that the cordless telephone mode
is only available when the phone is within range of the cordless
base station, e.g., within 50 or 100 feet or so. It would not offer
any dual mode operation when the mobile phone is roaming, for
example while the person is in their car or waiting to catch a
flight at the airport. In these situations, the phone would only
offer convention cellular telephone service.
U.S. Patent application publication no. 2002/0102974 teaches a
similar arrangement for a cellular telephone. The phone has an
associated cordless telephone base unit, and its usage in a
cordless mode is limited to those instances in which the phone is
physically proximate to the base unit. The '974 patent teaches that
the mobile terminal may include a short-range radio interface, such
as Bluetooth, to communicate with the base unit of a cordless
telephone system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,027 discloses a wireless handset that is
capable of operating within a wireless network (such as a cellular
or PCS network), or in direct handset-to-handset radio frequency
communication that is independent of the wireless network, i.e., a
"free" call. When the user wishes to call a user using the direct
handset to handset communication, the user presses a "FREE" button
on the handset, the transmitter/receiver or tuner tunes to the
registry channel for the other handset and waits for a response
indicating that the other handset is within range. If it is within
range, a call request is transmitted and a channel is negotiated so
that the two handsets can communicate with each other. If the other
unit is out of range, the user is prompted to indicate whether the
call should continue via the cellular telephone network.
Other references of interest include US patent application
publication 2003/0236091; U.S. Pat. No. 6,011,978; European patent
application EP 1 289 235 A2; and U.S. Patent application
publication 2002/0086636. The entire contents of all of the
references cited in this document are incorporated by reference
herein.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides an improved dual mode wireless
telephone that supports both conventional cellular telephony calls
(a first mode), and communications that are essentially free
"calls" with other handsets or telephones that occur independent of
the cellular telephone network, using short-range radio frequency
communication standard protocols (a second mode). Examples of the
short-range radio frequency communication standards protocols
include Bluetooth and the IEEE 802.11 "WiFi" standard. The usage of
the short-range radio frequency communication mode, and essentially
free calls, can occur anywhere where there is a called party that
also supports the short-range radio frequency communication
standard protocol and is in range of the wireless telephone.
Furthermore, in a departure from the prior art, the user specifies
whether the call should be placed in the cellular mode, or the
short-range "free" mode, by how the dialing string is entered by
the user. For example, the presence of # or * at the beginning of
the dialing string may serve as a signal to indicate, that the call
should be placed using the short-range radio frequency
communication protocol (e.g., Bluetooth). When the call is to be
placed in the non-cellular mode, the user may input an abbreviated
dialing string (e.g., # 1234). The alphanumeric characters used in
the string are associated or correlated with ID numbers of the
called party by means of a table or database stored locally in the
wireless phone.
The discovery of available receivers in a given geographic region
using the second mode (short range, e.g., Bluetooth), could take a
variety of forms, including existing discovery methods provided in
the Bluetooth standard, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,027, by
downloading ID numbers for known parties with Bluetooth-enabled
telephones from a Web site, by manual entering the numbers, or in
any other fashion.
The advantages of the invention will be apparent from a simple
example. Consider an office building or similar site where there
are multiple Bluetooth-enabled telephones. Now consider a user with
a phone in accordance with this invention who wishes to call a
person at this site that has Bluetooth enabled telephone. The user
dials the number of the user (or an abbreviated number) and
includes characters in the string that indicate the call is to
proceed in the short-range (e.g., Bluetooth) mode. The dialing
string is parsed in the phone, the character (e.g., #) indicating
that the user wishes to use the short range mode is detected, and
call set-up with the recipient using Bluetooth protocol proceeds.
After the call set-up is established, the user thus is able to
essentially have a free call to the recipient, without any use of
the cellular telephone infrastructure. If the call would have
otherwise been a roaming call, then the user would enjoy a
substantial savings.
If, in this example, the coverage of the building in a CDMA or GSM
network is poor, for example due to it being in a remote location,
due to physical structures such as mountains or other features that
weaken the cellular coverage, due to distance from a cellular base
station, or other factors, the invention allows the call to proceed
whereas it might not have if the user did not have the second mode
feature of this invention.
The use of dialing strings as a method for instructing the phone
which mode to use allows the phone to support this mode without
providing any additional keys of buttons. This is considered an
advantage over some prior systems that require a separate button to
initiate a call outside of the cellular telephony
infrastructure.
Thus, in a principal aspect, I have provided a wireless telephone
with selectable transmission modes for a call from the wireless
telephone to a remotely-located receiver. The selectable
transmission modes comprises a first wireless communication mode
(e.g., cellular) and a second wireless communication mode (e.g.,
wireless short-range communication independent of the cellular
telephone infrastructure). The telephone comprises a user interface
for user input of a dialing string for initiation of the call, a
first transceiver for communication in accordance with the first
communication mode, a second transceiver for communication in
accordance with the second communication mode, and a memory storing
software comprising a set of instructions for responsively
selecting the first transceiver or the second transceiver for the
call depending on the contents of the dialing string.
In another aspect, I have provided a method of selecting a
transmission mode for a call between a wireless telephone and a
remotely located receiver. The wireless telephone has a first
transceiver for communication in accordance with a first
communication mode and a second transceiver for communication in
accordance with a second communication mode. The first
communication mode comprises a cellular telephony mode and the
second communication mode comprises a non-cellular wireless
communication mode. The method comprises the steps of receiving a
dialing string from a user of the telephone for initiation of the
call, detecting attributes of the dialing string indicating that
the user intends the call to be sent in accordance with the second
transmission mode; obtaining, either directly or indirectly, from
the dialing string an identity of the receiver in accordance with
the second communication mode; and establishing a communications
session in accordance with the second communication mode between
the wireless telephone and the receiver.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
An exemplary embodiment of the present invention is described
herein with reference to the drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a diagram of a situation where a single mode conventional
cell phone is used to communicate with various parties in a
building using prior art methods;
FIG. 2 is a diagram where a phone of the present invention may
place "free" calls using non-cellular, short-range wireless
communication protocols with the entities in the building.
FIG. 3 is an illustration of a dual mode phone showing a dialing
string input by the user indicating they wish to place a call with
a particular receiver using the non-cellular "free" mode.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the phone of FIG. 3.
FIG. 5 is an illustration of a table that correlates dialing
strings with ID numbers for remote receivers in the non-cellular
communications mode; the table of FIG. 5 is stored in the memory of
the phone of FIGS. 2 4.
FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing the series of steps in placing calls
from the phone of FIGS. 2 5 and a remote receiver using the
non-cellular communications mode.
FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing the step "establish communication
session" in FIG. 6 in further detail in a situation where the phone
communicates with the remote receiver using Bluetooth.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 is a diagram of a situation where a single mode conventional
cell phone is used to communication with various parties in a
building using prior art methods. In this example, if a user of the
sending or calling phone S (10) wishes to a call a receiving phone
R1 (12) located in a building 14, and the sending phone S is
outside of the building, the user will proceed in accordance with
standard cellular telephony techniques. In particular, the call
will proceed over the air interface 16 to a wireless service
provider cellular antenna 18, which is operatively connected to a
base station controller 20, a mobile switching center 22 and a
Packet Data Serving Node 24, which is in turn coupled to a cellular
telephony provider packet switched network 26. The wireless network
will then direct the call over the air interface 26 to the receiver
R1, and R1 and S can communicate with each other. An accounting
server 28 monitors air time for the call and charges the account
associated with S.
Now consider the situation where S enters the building 14 (position
S.sup.1) and wishes to call R1. The phone S again has to make use
of the cellular telephone infrastructure 18, 20, 22, and 44 in
order to call R1. This again will count as air time for the user
S.
FIG. 2 is a diagram where a phone of the present invention may
place "free" calls using non-cellular, short-range wireless
communication protocols with the entities in the building, using
the techniques of this invention. In particular, the phone is an
improved dual mode wireless telephone that supports both
conventional cellular telephony calls, and communications
(essentially free "calls") with other handsets or telephones that
occur independent of the cellular telephone network infrastructure,
using short-range radio frequency communication standard protocols.
Examples of the short-range radio frequency communication standards
protocols include Bluetooth and the IEEE 802.11 "WiFi" standard.
The usage of the short-range radio frequency communication mode,
and essentially free calls, can occur anywhere where there is a
called party that also supports the short-range radio frequency
communication standard protocol and is in range of the wireless
telephone.
In the situation of FIG. 2, the user of phone S enters the building
14 (position S.sup.1) and comes within range of telephones R1 or
R2. Consider the situation where both phone S and phones R1 and R2
all support Bluetooth wireless communications. When S comes within
range of R1 and R2, the ability of the phone S to communicate with
phones R1 and R2 will be discovered using Bluetooth discovery
procedures as set forth in the Bluetooth standards. Using Bluetooth
protocol, the user S may initiate a direct communications channel
32 with receiver R1 or (R2) and have essentially free communication
with R1 (or R2). The call occurs without any usage of the cellular
telephony infrastructure, without any associated charges, and
without usage of any available cellular telephone "air time."
Cellular resources within the building 14 are also conserved. In
FIG. 2, the range of the Bluetooth devices is shown by the dashed
line 30, and this range may be set by the devices themselves or any
available Bluetooth repeaters or other devices to extend the range
of individual Bluetooth devices.
FIG. 3 is an illustration of a dual mode phone showing a dialing
string input by the user indicating they wish to place a call with
a particular receiver using the non-cellular "free" mode. The phone
10 includes two antennas 34A and 34B and associated transceivers,
one for short range, non-cellular wireless communication (e.g.,
Bluetooth, 802.11) and the other for conventional cellular
telephony. The phone includes a display 36 for displaying dialing
strings that are input by the user. The phone also includes a
keypad 38 for inputting alphanumeric characters in the dialing
string. While the illustration of FIG. 3 is a simple example, the
details on the design and construction of the user interface,
display, keypad, or mode of entering of dialing strings is of
course not important. In the example of FIG. 3, the user inputs the
dialing string # 1234, where # signifies that the caller wishes to
place the call using Bluetooth or other non-cellular protocol and
1234 is the last four digits of the called party's telephone
number, and 1234 is associated with a particular Bluetooth device
such that when the user presses "send" the process of setting up a
communications channel with the device associated with "1234"
proceeds.
Other dialing string conventions could be used to dial a device
using non-cellular wireless techniques. For example, the user could
assign any unique number to any particular Bluetooth device, e.g.,
1=Charlie's phone, 2=Donna's phone, 3=Harold's computer (equipped
with Bluetooth, speakers and microphone), etc. In this case, the
user of phone S would dial # 1 for Charlie, the number 1 would be
associated with the Bluetooth ID for Charlie's phone, and then
phone S sets up a communications channel with Charlie's phone using
Bluetooth.
FIG. 4 is a simplified block diagram of the phone of FIG. 3.
Multi-mode phones are known in the art (see e.g., U.S. Pat. No.
6,484,027), hence a detailed description is not necessary. The
phone 10 includes a cellular telephony antenna 34A, a cellular
telephony transceiver 40, and a microcomputer 42 with associated
central processing unit and memory. The memory stores program
instructions and input characters from the user interface 44. The
phone also includes a short-range antenna 34B tuned to the
frequency band for the short range wireless network (2.45 Ghz) and
associated transceiver 46. The phone 10 also includes audio
circuitry 48 for generating audio signals for amplification and
projection from a speaker 49 built into the phone.
As noted above, the user's entry of dialing string associated with
the phone they wish to call is correlated or associated with a
particular device address in the wireless protocol that is being
used. For Bluetooth, it is a 48 bit Bluetooth Device Address. Thus,
the phone 10 of FIGS. 2 4 includes a table (FIG. 5) that correlates
dialing strings with ID numbers for remote receivers in the
non-cellular communications mode. The table of FIG. 5 is stored in
the memory of the phone of FIGS. 2 4, e.g., in the memory
associated with the phone microcomputer 42 of FIG. 4. In FIG. 5,
the symbols X1, X2, X3, etc. in the right hand column are meant to
signify a unique 48 bit Bluetooth device address that is associated
with the particular dialing string in the left hand column.
FIG. 6 is a flow chart showing the series of steps in placing calls
from the phone of FIGS. 2 5 and a remote receiver using the
non-cellular communications mode. At step 50, the user inputs the
dialing string (e.g., # 1244) and the dialing string is stored in
the memory in the phone. At step 52, a software process executing
on the microcomputer 42 detects attributes in the dialing string
indicating that the user wishes to place a call in the non-cellular
mode, e.g., the character # (or * or other character which may be
used to indicate such a call is desired). At step 52, the device
obtains the ID of the receiver, for example, from the table of FIG.
5. At step 56, a communications session is established between
phone 10 and the receiver associated with the dialing string. Step
56 will typically include a number of individual sub-steps that
will vary depending on the communication protocol that is used for
the non-cellular call. The process of FIG. 6 further assumes that a
device discovery process has been previously performed to determine
the identity of the Bluetooth devices that are within range of the
phone 10, and the short hand abbreviation (dialing string) to use
to call these devices is loaded into the phone (either m annually,
downloaded from a computer, etc.).
FIG. 7 is a flow chart showing the step "establish communication
session" 56 in FIG. 6 in further detail in a situation where the
phone establishes a connection using Bluetooth. At step 60, a
set-up message is sent from the sender S to the receiver R with the
ID number corresponding to the dialing string input by the user. At
step 62, the sender and receiver conduct a Bluetooth telephony
control protocol message sequence to set up a communication
channel. At step 64, the communications channel is established and
sender S and receiver R can communicate using Bluetooth.
From the above description, I have provided a wireless telephone
with selectable transmission modes for a call from the wireless
telephone to a remotely-located receiver. The selectable
transmission modes comprise a first wireless communication mode
(e.g., cellular) and a second wireless communication mode (e.g.,
wireless short-range communication independent of the cellular
telephone infrastructure). The telephone comprises a user interface
for user input of a dialing string for initiation of the call, a
first transceiver for communication in accordance with the first
communication mode, a second transceiver for communication in
accordance with said second communication mode, and a memory
storing software comprising a set of instructions for responsively
selecting the first transceiver or the second transceiver for the
call depending on the contents of the dialing string. The remotely
located receiver may comprise a Bluetooth enabled device, or an
IEEE 802.11 transceiver, or may use some other protocol either
known now or later developed.
The dialing string includes one or more alphanumeric characters,
letters, #, *, or other character, either preceding or following
the string for the receiver, to indicate that call should be placed
using the non-cellular transceiver. As shown in FIG. 5, the memory
in the phone may store a data structure associating dialing strings
to Bluetooth user ID numbers.
From the foregoing, it will further be appreciated that I have
provided a method of selecting a transmission mode for a call
between a wireless telephone and a remotely located receiver. The
wireless telephone has a first transceiver for communication in
accordance with a first communication mode and a second transceiver
for communication in accordance with a second communication mode.
The first communication mode comprises a cellular telephony mode
and the second communication mode comprises a non-cellular wireless
communication mode. The method comprises the steps of receiving a
dialing string from a user of the telephone for initiation of the
call, detecting attributes of the dialing string indicating that
the user intends the call to be sent in accordance with the second
transmission mode; obtaining, either directly or indirectly, from
the dialing string an identity of the receiver in accordance with
the second communication mode; and establishing a communications
session in accordance with the second communication mode between
the wireless telephone and the receiver.
While presently preferred embodiments are described with
particularity, the invention is not limited to the details of the
illustrated embodiments. The true scope of the claims is to be
determined by reference to the appended claims.
* * * * *