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This invention relates to a paging system, a pager therefor and a method of operation of such a system.

Summary of the Prior Art

Only one method is available in currently produced paging systems for transmitting to a pager any concise information implying the type of a calling source or the priority of the page about to be received. That method is to use a different pager address for each type of source and/or level of priority. There are several difficulties accompanying the use of multiple addresses to convey this descriptive information. For one thing, callers must know and select the appropriate address. For another, multiple addresses require either multiple telephone numbers (which can be expensive) or "post digit" entry (which can be bothersome) in order to make the selection. In addition to these administration difficulties, the number of different addresses included in a given pager is limited for practical reasons, which to date has restricted functional addressing to controlling only major items such as basic pager response (tone alert, numeric display, alphanumeric display, or voice) and to providing extremely limited information about source and/or priority. It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved and/or more versatile paging system.

Summary of the Invention

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging system comprising a paging controller and a paging receiver, the controller having means for receiving a call from one of a plurality of call

sources, means for identifying the call source, means for transmitting the call to the paging receiver and means for providing an indication of the source to the paging receiver. The receiver comprises means for controlling operation thereof in accordance with the received indication.

The means for identifying the call source may comprise means for receiving a call-back number provided by an operator at the call source, or in more advanced telephone systems, it may comprise automatic number identification means.

In this manner, a look-up table of telephone numbers of interest can be provided in the paging terminal, the terminal can compare the number of the source of an incoming call with the telephone numbers of interest for the particular pager being paged. If a match is identified, the paging terminal can transmit a source code identifier to the pager and the pager can execute a similar, reversed, look-up operation, thus using the source code identification number to generate a message, which is displayed on the display of the pager. The message can, for example, identify the caller.

According to a second aspect of the invention, a pager is provided for receiving calls comprising messages for display, the pager comprising a display for displaying said messages and means for controlling the function of the pager, in addition to displaying the message, in accordance with the contents of the message to be displayed. In this way, it is primarily intended that the basic nature of the message, as it is to be displayed, is determined, and the operation of the pager is controlled accordingly. Examples of what is meant by the basic nature of the message include treating the message as urgent if the word "urgent" appears in the message, and treating the message as requiring a call-back, if the first word of the message is "call", or if the first two words are "please call" . Further examples are given below. The determination of the basic nature of

the message could be made by a number of different methods ranging from simple text matching, to artificial intelligence processing. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, text matching is employed by the paging terminal, and a page descriptor is transmitted to the pager. The pager identifies the page descriptor and thereby identifies in what manner the message is to be treated. This can in turn determine the alarm functions, the storage of the message etc. In accordance with a third aspect of the invention, a paging system is provided comprising a paging controller and a paging receiver, the controller having means for receiving a call from one of a plurality of call sources, means for identifying the call source, means for transmitting the call to the paging receiver and means for providing an indication of the source to the paging receiver. Means are provided for generating a predetermined message dependant on the source and outputting this message at the paging receiver. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, at least the first and second aspects of the invention are incorporated in a paging system and means are provided in the controller for transmitting to the receiver a further indication, indicating the type of signal received from the call source. The receiver comprises means for controlling the operation thereof in accordance with this further indication. Possible signal types include alphanumeric, numeric, voice and tone-only signals. The further indication is hereafter referred to as the functional typer.

Thus in the preferred embodiment, three indications are transmitted to the paging receiver, these being the source identifier ("source tag") , the pager descriptor described above and the functional typer. Any one or more of these may control the function of the paging receiver, the outputting of a predetermined message at the paging

receiver, the pager operating mode (e.g. alphanumeric, numeric, voice or tone-only) and/or the paging address.

Brief Desr.ript.ion of the Drawings Figure 1 shoes a paging system in accordance with the invention.

Figure 2 shows the signal which makes up a typical paging call in accordance with the invention.

Figure 3 shows a paging receiver in accordance with the invention.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodimen

Referring to Figure 1, there is shown a paging terminal 10 connected to sources of paging calls in the form of data terminal 11 (with modem and autodialer) and telephones 12, and 13 etc. The input devices are connected into a PBX 15, which selectively connects them to the paging terminal 10. The terminal 10 communicates into the PBX by means of a controller and supervisor 20, which is connected to a microprocessor 22 via a data bus 21. The microprocessor has a data base memory 25, a transmit controller and paging encoder 28 which in turn is connected to a transmitter 30 via data bus 29.

In order to set up the system of the present invention, a set of pager unique, special interest source numbers (telephone numbers) are entered into the data base memory 25 and stored for each subscriber using the system. The source numbers might be, for example, complete telephone numbers such as those assigned to the subscriber's secretary, boss, wife etc., or the numbers might be partial line numbers indicating a generic class of source, such as originating inside a PBX, as opposed to coming from outside. These lists of special interest numbers are entered into the data base for each subscriber via VDT commands and screens, just as other subscriber data is entered in modern software controlled paging terminals.

The operation of the system is as follows. A user places a paging call via one of input devices 11, 12, 13 etc., by entering the appropriate commands into the terminal 11 or by lifting the handset of the telephone 12 or 13 and dialing the predetermined number assigned to the paging terminal 10. The PBX 15 routes the call to the terminal 10. When the controller and supervisor 20 determines that a call has been received, the microprocessor 22 issues a prompt message (e.g. a digitized voice prompt in the case of a telephone input device) prompting the user to enter the number of the paging receiver to be paged. After entry of this number (e.g. via a DTMF touch pad in the case of telephone 12 or 13) , the microprocessor 22 issues a further prompt, prompting the user to enter a call-back number and/or any further message. The user enters his call-back number in the same manner. On receipt of this number, the microprocessor 22 compares the call-back number against the subscriber unique list of numbers in data base 25 associated with the subscriber of the paging receiver which is being paged, and determines whether a match exists with one of these special interest numbers. If a match exists, the microprocessor 22 generates a source tag. The source tag takes the form of two ASCII characters which will be transmitted to the paging receiver. If no match is identified, the source tag is set at a predetermined character (e.g. 0) indicating the source as being "other". This arrangement allows for 1000 subscriber unique numbers to be programmed into the data base memory 25 for each subscriber. If the input devices 11, 12, 13 and the PBX 15 provide the facility for automatic number identification, by which is meant that they provide, for every call, an automatic indication of the telephone number of the input device originating a call, then this number can be used by the microprocessor 22 to perform the look-up operation in data base 25.

The manner in which this source tag is utilized by the paging receiver will be described below with reference to Figures 2 and 3. In the meantime, there follows a description of the generation of the page descriptor and the functional typer.

A page descriptor is generated by the microprocessor 22 as follows. The page descriptor indicates the basic nature of the page. The basic nature includes, but is not restricted to the following: (1) Whether or not the page is urgent,

(2) Whether or not the pager requires a call-back and

(3) Whether the page requires action from the recipient or merely contains information. The determination of the basic nature of the message is determined by text matching as follows.

A page is considered urgent if either the first or the last word of the message is "urgent". A page is considered to require a call-back if the first word of the message is "call", or if the first two words are "please call". A page is considered to require action if the first word is "please", "call", "meet", "come", "go", "see", or any other action words as appropriate. A page is considered an informational page if it does not meet the aforesaid action criteria.

The above catchwords are programmed into the data base memory 25 and the microprocessor 22 conducts a page matching operation between the message (if any) to be sent to the paging receiver and each of these catchwords. The catchwords apply to all subscribers, but further catchwords can be programmed to apply to particular subscribers. Thus, a subscriber could program a particular catchword to be temporarily or semipermanently programmed to provide a page descriptor indicative of an urgent page. An example might be that if the subscriber's wife is expecting a baby, he might program "hospital" into the paging terminal in

order to program any message containing that word to generate an urgent page descriptor.

If a particular basic nature of the message has been identified, the microprocessor 22 generates a character (the page descriptor) indicative of that basic nature. This character is a single ASCII character. This allows for up to 256 types of message to be identified, though in practice no more than ten types are likely to be required. As for the source tag and the page descriptor, the microprocessor 22 generates a character (the functional typer) indicating whether the incoming message is alphanumeric, numeric, voice or tone-only. This may be done in one of at least two ways. The first is by means of the use of separate subscriber numbers for different functions. The separate numbers may be entered by the person placing the call, or may be generated in accordance with copending U.S. Patent Application No. (CM00111U) of Breeden et al, assigned to the assignees of the present application, which application is hereby incorporated by reference. The second method is by means of the use of a special DTMF "control sequence" dialed by the caller, e.g. the sequence "*8" to switch from display to voice function.

The functional typer takes the form of a further single ASCII character, though it will readily be appreciated that it requires only two data bits and could for example be combined with the pager descriptor.

The paging terminal 10 transmits the paging call to the required paging receiver by generating and transmitting the signal shown in Figure 2. In this figure, it is shown that the signal transmitted comprises a preamble and sync portion 40, followed by the address 41 of the paging receiver in question, followed by the source tag 42, the page descriptor 43 and the functional typer 44. After the functional typer 44, the message is transmitted in the form of data or voice 45.

The signal of Figure 2 is received by a paging receiver as shown in Figure 3. In this figure, it can be

seen that the receiver 49 comprises a radio receiver section 50 and a microprocessor 51. RAM and ROM memories 52 and 53, a display 54 and an input/output device 55 are provided, all connected to the microprocessor by means of a data bus 56. Connected to the input/output port 55 are a vibrator 57, an alert LED 58 and a transducer 59. On receipt of the sync portion of the signal 40, the receiver section 50 synchronizes to the incoming signal, in preparation for the receipt of the address 41. On receipt of the address 41, if the microprocessor 51 determines that this address does not match the address of the receiver, no further action is taken. On the other hand, if the address 41 matches the address of the receiver, then the microprocessor 51 receives the remainder of the signal and stores it in RAM memory 52.

Taking the example where the functional typer 44 indicates a data message, the microprocessor 51 utilizes the source tag 42 and the page descriptor 43 as follows. The microprocessor 51 performs a look-up operation in ROM memory 53 (which may be EEPROM memory) , and extracts from that memory a predetermined message associated with that source tag. A simple example of the usefulness of this feature is that the predetermined message may be a name indicative of the source. Thus, for example, if the originator of the call entered the telephone number of Mr. Jones as the call-back number and the data base 25 of the paging terminal 10 has Mr. Jones' number preprogrammed therein, then this source tag is transmitted to the receiver, the receiver performs the look-up operation and the data retrieved through this look-up operation is

"Jones". Thus, the message displayed on display 54 is "Jones", followed by Mr. Jones' telephone number. This has the advantage that, whereas the user of the paging receiver may not immediately recognize the number displayed on the display 54, he is aided in this manner by the supplementing of the number with the name. This concept may be extended in many ways. For example, if a company is receiving

unsolicited telephone calls from a particular source, that source could be programmed in, and if a subscriber within the company receives a call from that source, the subscriber could be provided with a warning that the call is to be treated with suspicion. This may be more desirable than blocking the call altogether. If the source tag is 0, then the message displayed could be "unknown caller" or the like.

Alternative to, or in addition to generating an additional message on the display 54, the paging receiver can control its alert functions in response to the source tag 42. Thus, if the pager unique special interest source number is the telephone of a senior executive in the user's company, the user can cause the message to be treated as urgent. This is done by issuing an immediate audio alert (however the immediate alert issued could be simply vibratory, if so preprogrammed in the paging receiver) . For all other, non-urgent, messages, the receiver could respond in a number of ways, including issuing an immediate vibratory alert, together with a visual alert on LED 58, and issuing a further alert at a predetermined later time if the user has not read that message onto the display 54. The page descriptor 43 is used in a similar manner to control the functions of the pager. These functions may include issuing an immediate alert, including controlling the pitch, duration, volume etc. or the alert, issuing a vibratory or visual alert and/or controlling the status of the message. In this context, "status" is used to determine such things as how the pager is to issue an alert if the page remains unread for a predetermined period of time whether or not to protect the page from deletion, whether to continue to protect the message indefinitely, or control its protection as a function of other factors.

The functional typer 44 determines whether the message 45 is to be displayed on the display 54 or output through the transducer 59. The message may provide both a displayed call-back telephone number (with or without an

associated message determined by the source tag and page descriptor 42 and 43) and a voice message.

Sending the source tag, page descriptor and the function typer to the paging receiver is simply a matter of encoding the information as would be done for normal display paging characters. This unique control information could be separated from other display data either by virtue of designating a fixed number of characters for control, as shown in Figure 2 or by using one or more special non- printing characters as a delimiter. The invention provides an enhancement for paging systems, which is maximized by use of a full featured alphanumeric pager with voice and ack-back capability. When such a pager is designed for user-programmed response to source tag, page descriptor and functional typer information, the pager operation can be highly customized.

There follows a further, specific example of a system in accordance with the invention, for further illustration. A typical example pager is designed for three user- selectable modes of privacy: "normal", "semi-private", and "private" . the desired privacy mode is selected by using a mode-select button on the pager. For the "normal" mode the pager responds normally to all pages of all types from all sources. For the other two modes the user can program the pager to respond in virtually any manner he desires. For example, in the "semi-private" mode he might want to disallow all voice pages, allow non-voice calls originating from his wife's, secretary's and boss' lines, and hold all other calls' while in the "private" mode he might want to disallow all calls except alphanumeric pages containing information only or marked URGENT, and then only if sourced from his secretary or boss. If the pager were equipped with ack-back capability, then the pager could request the terminal to store, for later telephonic retrieval, all attempted pages (even voice pages) which are disallowed by the heightened-privacy modes. Also, because the pager would be involved in the decision to hold and store each

disallowed page, a count of the number of stored pages could be maintained in the pager for later reference. This count could be cleared automatically by the terminal after retrieval of the stored pages. For programming and reprogramming the pager, two buttons are provided on the pager - one to step through all combinations of source tag, page descriptor, and functional typer for each privacy mode, and the other to select the desired pager response (normal alert, chirp, disallow, etc.) for each combination. The programming mode is entered by depressing both programming buttons together at the same time or by other means. Once programmed, the pager responds as desired in each of the heightened-privacy modes and does not need reprogramming except to modify the desired response. I claim: