Converged voice mail services
View Patent ↗Novel tools and techniques for providing enhanced services to telephone subscribers with multiple telephone lines, which can include one or more traditional telephone lines, wireless telephone lines, Internet protocol-based telephone lines, and/or the like. For example, certain tools can provide a subscriber with a unified voice mailbox for a plurality of the subscriber's telephone lines. In some cases, the subscriber does not need to check multiple voice mailboxes (each associated with one of the subscriber's telephone numbers) in order to ensure that the subscriber has received all messages intended for that subscriber. Instead, any incoming call on any of the subscriber's lines can be routed to a converged voice mailbox for easy retrieval by the subscriber of all messages from one location. Some tools employ a VoIP switch to handle routing of the incoming call to the correct voice mailbox.
1. A system for providing converged voice mail service, the system comprising:
a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) switch configured to:
receive, via a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a first call from a calling party to one of a plurality of telephone numbers associated with a voice mail subscriber; and
send a first Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) INVITE in response to receiving the first call;
a SIP server configured to:
receive the first SIP INVITE;
identify the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service; and
invoke a voice mail controller based on an identification of the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service;
the voice mail controller, configured to:
determine subscriber configuration information;
identify, based on the subscriber configuration information, a destination messaging platform for the first call, from among a plurality of messaging platforms; and
send a second SIP INVITE to the destination messaging platform;
the destination messaging platform, configured to:
receive the second SIP INVITE;
establish a voice connection with the calling party; and
record a voice mail message in a voice mailbox associated with the voice mail subscriber.
2. The system of claim 1 , wherein:
the VoIP switch is further configured to:
receive a voice message retrieval request from the voice mail subscriber;
send a third SIP INVITE to the SIP server;
the SIP server is further configured to:
receive the third SIP INVITE;
identify the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service, in response to receiving the third SIP INVITE; and
invoke the voice mail controller for message retrieval, based on an identification of the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service;
the voice mail controller is further configured to:
identify the destination messaging platform for voice message retrieval; and
send a fourth SIP INVITE to the destination messaging platform; and
the destination messaging platform is further configured to:
establish a second connection with the voice mail subscriber;
interact with the voice mail subscriber; and
replay the voice message for the voice mail subscriber.
3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the destination messaging platform is further configured to send a message waiting notification to each of the plurality of telephone numbers associated with the voice mail subscriber.
4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the voice mail controller is a servlet, and wherein the SIP server comprises the servlet.
5. The system of claim 1 , wherein an application server comprises the SIP server and the voice mail controller.
6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the SIP server comprises a service capability interaction manager (SCIM) that is configured to:
receive the first SIP INVITE;
identify the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service; and
invoke the voice mail controller based on an identification of the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service.
7. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a route server in communication with the VoIP switch, wherein:
the VoIP switch is configured to query the route server to determine a call route and send the first SIP INVITE in accordance with the call route.
8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a network profile database, wherein the SIP server is configured to query the network profile database to identify the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service.
9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the voice mail controller is configured to query the network profile database to determine the subscriber configuration information.
10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the network profile database is a home subscriber server.
11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the voice mail controller is configured to act as a SIP proxy, and wherein sending a second SIP INVITE comprises rerouting the first SIP INVITE.
12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the voice mail controller is configured to act as a back-to-back user agent (B2BA), and wherein sending a second SIP INVITE comprises receiving the first SIP INVITE and generating a new, second SIP INVITE.
13. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a telephony switch configured to receive the call from the calling party and route the call to a specified number associated with the VoIP switch.
14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the telephony switch is a service switching point (SSP).
15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the telephony switch is a mobile switching center (MSC).
16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of telephone numbers associated with the voice mail subscriber includes a plain old telephone system (POTS) wireline number and a wireless number.
17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of telephone numbers does not include a VoIP number.
18. The system of claim 1 , wherein the voice mailbox serves as a converged voice mailbox for all of the plurality of telephone numbers.
19. A method of providing a converged voice mail service, the method comprising:
receiving, at a telephony switch in a public switched telephone network (PSTN), a call from a calling party to one of a plurality of telephone numbers associated with a voice mail subscriber, wherein the telephone number to which the call is directed is a plain old telephone system (POTS) wireline telephone number associated with the voice mail subscriber;
forwarding the call from the telephony switch to the VoIP switch;
receiving the call at the VoIP switch;
sending a first Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) INVITE in response to receiving the call;
receiving the first SIP INVITE at a SIP server;
identifying the voice mail subscriber as a subscriber to the converged voice mail service;
identifying a destination messaging platform for the first call, from among a plurality of messaging platforms;
sending a second SIP INVITE to the destination messaging platform;
establishing a connection between the calling party and the destination messaging platform; and
recording the voice mail message at the destination messaging platform in a voice mailbox that is associated with the voice mail subscriber.