USING INTERNET DOMAIN NAME

Technical Field

The invention relates to communication networks, in particular, to a mechanism for establishing a telecommunication call using an internet domain name.

Description of the Related Art

It seems everyone has this kind of shopping experience that you buy one household electrical application in a mall or a mall's website, such as buying a washing machine. Then the salesman told you to remember the customer service center number, thus you can call it for the application installation or for the after-sales issues. But since this service center telephone number is consist with long sequence of digit numbers, unluckily, when a client needs to call this number, he just can't remember. Helplessly, the client has to search the internet website again to find the center's number. Spending a lot of effort on it, maybe the telephone number the client gets is not the latest updated one and can't be used, or maybe the number he gets is not the service center located in the same city with him and can't help him do the installation. Finally, the client takes a long time and experience badly to get the correct number. Currently, with the on-line shopping becomes more and more popular, this kind of unhappy experience happens more frequently for customers. As the number of service providers becomes huge, the service center numbers are increased dramatically. Usually, a customer can easily remember the website address or the domain name for the mall, but fail to remember the different kinds of meaningless long digit numbers for the service center. Summary of the Invention

In order to solve this kind of technical problem and also help IMS service become more diversified and flexible, and to provide users more various call-establishing methods, the present invention provides a new method to allow the user dial the internet domain name as the called party's contact info instead of the meaningless digit number. By doing so, when the calling party wants to make a call with customer service center number of a certain website, he only needs to know the domain name of the called party and dial it, then the telecommunication server according to the invention will use the uniqueness of the internet domain name to send the domain name to a corresponding internet server and to query and obtain the related mapping telephone number provided by the internet server, such mapping number usually being a call number of a customer service center or a number of a maintenance center or a host number of the company; and the telecommunication application server routes the call to the corresponding called party directly according to the telephone number returned from the internet. Thus, it solves the customer's problem that fail to remember long meaningless sequence digit numbers, and providing a new method to make call using meaningful domain name. Moreover, no matter how the called party number updated, the calling party will always get the latest one and the available one.

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for establishing a telecommunication call, the method comprising: querying, by an application server, a telephone number corresponding to an internet domain name upon receiving a call request with the internet domain name as a called party's ID; and sending, by the application server, a queried telephone number to a call control unit so as to initiate a call request with the telephone number as the called party's ID.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the call request call comprises a calling party's location information, and the purpose is that when an internet web server receives the call establishing request, the web server will return the telephone number of the location thereof according to the location information of the calling party.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the querying step comprises querying a web server corresponding to the internet domain name a telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the application server maintains a temporal mapping relationship between a domain name and the telephone number within a duration time; and if the internet domain name comprised in the call request is valid in the temporal mapping relationship, the querying step comprises extracting a corresponding telephone number from the temporal mapping relationship. In other words, within a stipulated duration time, when the application server receives a call request of the same internet domain name, the application server will directly return a mapping telephone number according to the calling party's location position, without repeatedly generating a HTTP request message to the internet web server.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the location information received by the application server is an option. If the received information only includes an internet domain name instead of location information, the application server will send a HTTP request to the internet web server according only to the internet domain name. Meanwhile, the internet will judge by itself the telephone number to be returned as required.

According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a method for establishing a telecommunication call based on an internet domain name, the method comprising: when a call control unit receives a call request with an internet domain name as a called party's ID, providing an application server with the call request; and when the call control unit receives a telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name provided by the application server, initiating a call request with the telephone number as the called party's ID.

According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided an application server for establishing a telecommunication call, the application server comprising: a querying module configured to query a telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name when receiving a call request with the internet domain name as the called party's ID; and a processing module configured to send the queried telephone number to the call control unit so as to initiate the call request with the telephone number as the called party' s ID.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the querying module is configured to query the web server corresponding to the internet domain name a telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the application server further comprises a storing module configured to maintain a temporal mapping relationship between a domain name and the telephone number within a duration time; and if the internet domain name comprised in the call request is valid in the temporal mapping relationship, the querying module is configured to extract a corresponding telephone number from the temporal mapping relationship.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is provided a call control unit for establishing a telecommunication call, the call control unit comprises: a sending module configured to providing an application server with a call request when receiving the call request with an internet domain name as the called party's ID; and a call-initiating module configured to initiate the call request with a telephone number as the called party's ID when receiving the telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name provided by the application server.

According to a fifth aspect of the invention, there is provided a terminal for initiating a call according to an internet domain name, the terminal being configured to allow a user to input information in an internet domain name format as a called ID, and putting the internet domain name into call request information and send it to a telecommunication server.

According to different embodiments of the invention, the called party's ID may be a Request Uniform Resource Identifier R-URI; and the call control unit may be a Serving Call Session Control Function entity S-CSCF.

According to different embodiments of the invention, the called party's ID is a Dial Number DN of the called party; and the call control unit may be a Mobile Switching Center MSC.

According to different embodiments of the invention, the called party's ID may be a Dial Number DN of the called party; and the call control unit may be a Mobile Management Entity MME.

The calling mechanism provided by the invention brings about the following advantages: 1) The present invention provides feasibility and friendly method to make calls by using the meaningful internet domain name instead of meaningless digit numbers.

2) The IMS application server provides the new functionality to query the called party's phone number based on the unique internet domain name. It provides a good way to embed internet service in an IMS call, and easily implement based on internet domain's uniqueness.

So, it brings more competition advantages for operators to provide the internet and telecommunication mix service.

3) It solves the problem that people always fail to remember long sequence of digit numbers by using the meaningful domain name. And also, the calling party will always get the latest updated number and always get the correct and available number.

Brief Description of the Drawings

Other features, objects and advantages of the invention will become more apparent by reading the following detailed description of non-limiting embodiments with reference to accompany drawings. In the figures, the same reference signs indicate the same units or units of the same type.

Fig. 1 shows a network architecture for establishing an IMS call connection based on an internet domain name in an exemplary embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 2 is a network call processing flow chart for establishing an IMS call connection based on an internet domain name in an exemplary embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 3 is a network architecture for establishing a call based on an internet domain name in another exemplary embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 4 is a network architecture for establishing a call based on an internet domain name in yet another exemplary embodiment of the invention; and

Fig. 5 is a functional block diagram of a call control unit and an application server according to an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment

Next, typical embodiments of the invention will be described with reference to accompany drawings. It shall be pointed out that the specific architecture and functional details disclosed hereby are only illustrative exemplary embodiment. These exemplary embodiments may be embodied in various alternative forms and cannot be deemed as being limited the embodiments described hereby.

Fig. 1 shows a network architecture in an exemplary embodiment of the invention.

The shown network mainly comprises an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and internet. It shall be noted that the network cloud of the shown network is not an actual service area for displaying the network, for the service area may be separate or overlapped. The IMS is formed of an HSS server (Home Subscriber Server), an S-CSCF (Serving Call Session Control Function, indicated by 103 in the figure), an I-CSCF (Inquiry Call Session Control Function) and a P-CSCF (Proxy Call Session Control Function, indicated by 101 in the figure). The IMS is connected to a calling user A, a called user B etc. via IP core, SIP access network etc. The application server 105 is connected to the IMS network and the web server 107 in the internet respectively.

In the example as shown in Fig. 1, user A wants to make a call with a certain service center. However, he/she only knows the domain name of the service center but doesn't know the telephone number of the service center. Therefore, the user A just dials the domain name of the service center, for instance, he inputs the domain name in succession (e.g. www.walmart.com) in his/her mobile phone and clicks the calling button.

When receiving an INVITE message with a domain name, instead of a digit number sequence, as a Request Uniform Resource Identifier (hereinafter referred to as R-URI), the P-CSCF 101 will send the message to the initialing party SCSCF 103 and puts the location information of the user A into a PANI header (PANI: P- Access-Network-Information).

SCSCF 103 receives the INVITE message with the domain name as R-URI, S-CSCF 103 sends SAR message to HSS, and HSS returns the SAA message of the application server 105 to S-CSCF. S-CSCF sends the INVITE message to the application server 105.

The application server 105 performs interaction between SIP and HTTP messages, and puts the domain mane and location information into a HTTP request, and then sends the request to internet Web server.

When the internet web server 107 receives the HTTP request, it replies with a relevant telephone number base on the domain name and location information.

When the application server 105 receives the HTTP response including the relevant telephone number, it will put the telephone number (e.g. telephone number "400-9898-1234" corresponding to the domain mane www.walmart.com and the location information of the user A) into an R-URI header and generates an SIP INVITE message to send it to S-SCSCF 103.

Then, the initiating SCSCF continues to route the call to SCSCF or to BGCF, and then route it to MGCF in a conventional manner based on a network supply architecture. Finally, using the domain name information instead of the conventional digit number sequence, the call is routed to the called party.

Fig. 2 shows a call processing flow in an exemplary embodiment of the invention.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the steps of the flow chart in Fig. 2 are not all-inclusive. In practice, other unshown steps may be included. In the description of the following call flow, it only describes a few components relevant to the present invention, and some common network units in a basic call establishing process are omitted to avoid from leading to confusion of the invention.

In Fig. 2, first, a calling user A initiates a call establishing request, e.g. an INVITE message.

In step S202, when the initiating S-SCSCF 103 receives the INVITE message with the domain name as R-URI, S-CSCF 103 conventionally sends SAR (Server-Assignment-Request) message to HSS, and HSS returns the SAA message of the application server 105 to S-CSCF

103. S-CSCF 103 sends the message to the application server 105.

The INVITE message preferably comprises the location information of the calling party user A, and the location information may be incorporated into the INVITE message by, for example, P-CSCF 101 in Fig. 1. The main cause for providing the location information is that the shopping website may have different service telephone numbers in different cities. The user-based location information may contribute to providing a correct service center telephone number. In step S204, the application server 105 analyzes the received calling domain name, and puts the domain name and location information into a HTTP request, and then sends the HTTP request to a corresponding internet web server 107. The HTTP request is used to obtain the telephone number provided by the web server.

In a preferred embodiment according to the invention, the application server 105

(specifically, the database or storing device comprised in the application server) maintains a temporal mapping relationship between a domain name and a telephone number. When receiving a call establishing request, according to the received internet domain name and the calling user location information, it queries whether there is a matching telephone number meeting the conditions in the temporal mapping table. Thus, if a call is initiated within a allowed duration time, the application server does not need to query internet again, but it uses the maintained mapping table. The duration time may be set according to actual conditions, e.g. a week, a month, or other any duration time.

In step S206, when receiving the HTTP response from the web server 107, the application server 105 extracts the telephone number and builds an INVITE message with the telephone number as R-URI, and sends the INVITE message to SCSCF 103 to continue the call processing.

In step S208, when the application server 105 receives the HTTP response comprising a relevant telephone number, the application server 105 will put the telephone number, e.g. the "400-9898-1234" as shown in the figure, into R-URI header and generates an SIP INVITE message to send it to SCSCF 103.

Preferably, the application server 105 may store the information of the domain name corresponding to the telephone number into its database before, after or at the same time when sending the SIP INVITE message to SCSCF 103, and sets a valid time stamp. Thus, within the duration time mentioned in the S204 above, if there is an INVITE initiated with the same domain name again, it may directly replies the calling party with the same telephone number.

Then, SCSCF 103 routes the call to the called party in a conventional manner, i.e. the service center the user A wants to contact and establishes a call successfully. In the whole process, what the user A needs to do is to dial the domain name.

It shall be pointed out that though the invention only takes an IMS network as an example to specify the invention, those skilled in the art shall appreciate that the invention may further apply to other communication networks, including bur not limited to PSTN network, 3G-MSC network and LTE network etc. Below, a typical embodiment of the invention may be described taking a 3G-MSC network as an example. As shown in Figs 3 and 4, when a 3G-MSC network wireless user A initiates a call establishing call, and send the called domain name as called dialing number DN information to a node B 301, the node B will incorporate the location information of the calling user into a call request to send it to a wireless network controller RNC, and sends it via the RNC to a mobile exchange center MSC 303/403. After the MSC 303/403 receives the call request, it queries the information of the user in HLR, and sends the call request according to the route table configured in the MSC 303/403 to a gateway which then performs an information format conversion correspondingly. For instance, the ISUP information may be converted into SIP information and the call request will be sent to the application server 305/405.

After the application server 305/405 receives the call request, it generates a http request to an internet Web server 307/407 according to internet domain name information and the location information of the calling user. Furthermore, just like the implementing manner of the embodiment in the IMS network, when the application server 305/407 receives a response message of the internet Web server 307/407, it extracts a telephone number corresponding to the called party and sends it to MSC 303/403.

MSC 303/403 will do a routing analysis after receiving the called number.

As shown in Fig. 3, if the number is a landline telephone number in a PSTN network, MSC 303 will sends the call request establishing information to PSTN and finally sends it to the called telephone terminal, i.e. the customer service center.

As shown in Fig. 4, after doing a called number routing analysis, if the MSC judges that it is a local mobile telephone, MSC 403 and VLR will send the call request to corresponding RNC and a base station, and finally call the called mobile phone.

In other embodiments of the invention, e.g. in a Long Term Evolution LTE network, when the calling UE sends an establishing request via e node B to a Mobile Management Entity MME, the MME queries HSS to obtain information such as authentication of the calling party, and sends the call request to serving gateway SGW and PDN gateway PGW, and the PGW finally sends the call request to an application server and internet Web server. A call of LTE network is finally established according to the called number returned by the Web server.

In embodiments according to the invention, respective network units may be implemented as hardware, software, firmware or a certain combination thereof. Especially, according to preferred embodiments of the invention, application server, SCSCF, and MSC etc. may be implemented in a manner of combining with computer software based on the existing network units. There is no special difficulty for those skilled in the art to build modules for implementing the corresponding functions.

Taking the application server 505 in Fig. 5 as an example, in order to realize the method described in the embodiment of the invention, it may arrange corresponding functional modules, such as a querying module configured to query the web server (e.g. 107 in Fig. 1, 307 in Fig. 3 and 407 in Fig. 4 etc.) corresponding to the internet domain name a telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name when receiving a call request with the internet domain name as the called party's ID; and a processing module configured to send the queried telephone number to SCSCF so as to initiate the call request with the telephone number as the called party's ID. Similarly, according to embodiments of the invention, a call control unit (e.g. S-CSCF or MSC as well as a relevant network unit) comprises: a sending module configured to providing an application server with a call request when receiving the call request with an internet domain name as the called party's ID; and a call-initiating module configured to initiate the call request with a telephone number as the called party's ID when receiving the telephone number corresponding to the internet domain name provided by the application server.

In the respective embodiments according to the invention, based on different network architectures, the called party's ID may be an R-URI, dial number DN of the called party etc. The call control unit 503 may be S-CSCF in Fig. 2, MSC in Figs. 3 and 4, as well as a relevant network unit. In a LTE network, the call control unit is a Mobile Management Entity MME. In other embodiments of the invention, the call control unit 503 may be any network unit or module similar to the call control function as implemented in the embodiments of the invention.

To a person skilled in the art, it is obvious that the invention is not limited to the details of the above illustrative embodiments, and the invention may be implemented with other embodiments without departing from the spirit and essential features of the invention. Therefore, viewed from any perspective, those embodiments should be considered as illustrative rather than restrictive, the scope of the invention is defined by accompany claims rather than by the above description, thus, all variations falling within the meaning and scope of equivalence of claims are to be encompassed in the invention. All the reference signs in claims shall not be deemed as limiting the related claims. In addition, it is obvious that the term "comprising" does not preclude other element or step, and single form does not preclude plural form. The plural units or devices defined in system claims may also be implemented by one unit or device by means of software or hardware.