Method and telecommunication network for information exchange between a subscriber and a service unit

The invention relates to a method for exchanging information between a subscriber of a telecommunications network and a service, wherein the service is a location information regarding the whereabouts of the terminal of the subscriber is available, as well as to a telecommunications network with a service associated with this.

At services, which participants of a telephone network, be it participants of a fixed or mobile network, on request information eg give over numbers and / or addresses of other participants, has always been of great interest. The usual procedure involves calling the service and making a request to the service after making the connection. Due to a search term, eg Name of a participant, the service then informs the participant of a search result. The process described can be done with the help of an operator or, eg voice-controlled automatically.

One problem with this known procedure is that a search term often leads to a barely visible variety of possible results. For example, a search term like<img file="EP0924916A2_D0001.tif" />Doctor "or <img file="EP0924916A2_D0002.tif" />A targeted narrowing of the search result by narrowing questions on the part of the service leads, although usually actually to a limited amount of search results, but is also quite expensive - regardless of whether the entire process only on the way handled by voice or in whole or in part with the aid of a short message service, such as the GSM system of the SMS service (<img file="EP0924916A2_D0003.tif" />Short Mail Service ").

An object of the invention is to provide the subscriber with search results in a rapid and economical manner.

This object is achieved on the basis of a method of the type mentioned above, according to the invention that the subscriber transmits after establishing a connection to the service to this one search term, the service by a database using the search term, linked to the location information, is searched , and the search result is transmitted to the subscriber.

Thanks to the linking of the location information with the search term according to the invention results in a discontinuation of unnecessary information in most cases, so that the entire search process is faster and more convenient for the subscriber.

An expedient variant provides that after establishing the connection at the service the location information associated with the subscriber is determined, the participant transmits the search term to an operator of the service in speech, the operator enters the search term together with the determined location information in the database, and then the result output from the database is completely or partially transmitted to the participant. This variant is very flexible and can give the participant the feeling of personal support.

On the other hand, it is very economical for the subscriber (TE1, TE2, TE3) to transmit the search term digitally and / or alpha-numerically to the service, and / or for the service to transmit the result of the search digitally and / or alpha-numerically to the subscriber ,

In any case, the service can also transmit the result of the search digitally and / or alpha-numerically to the subscriber.

It offers itself as an easy-to-implement variant, that the transmission of search term and / or search results in the context of a short message service of the network.

For landline networks, it is appropriate that the location information in an office of a landline, the subscriber numbers are stored assigned and are made available to the service with each outgoing and / or incoming call along with the rest of the subscriber data.

On the other hand, in mobile networks is a favorable embodiment in that the location information in participants of a mobile network correspond to the geographical location of the base stations of the radio cells.

A higher accuracy of the location determination can be achieved if the location information is determined in participants of a mobile network with the aid of the reception data of several base stations.

An independent of the network and accurate location is characterized by the fact that the location information is determined by the subscriber terminal using a navigation system, in particular satellite navigation system.

It may also be of particular advantage if the database is searched with additional link of the search term and the location information with the current time, as this can be different, unnecessary, since not current information different.

Additional convenience for the subscriber can be achieved if the transmitted to the subscriber search result is a phone number, which is stored in the terminal of the subscriber at least temporarily and then by entering a simple command, eg pressing a button to dial another party with this number used.

In most cases, it will be favorable if a name and / or an address is used as the search term.

It is also advisable that on the part of the service a request is made to the participant, more concrete and / or additional search terms to submit, if the search result is empty or too large for a transmission, as in this way can introduce another system in the search ,

The method can be adapted even more in practice if search terms transmitted in the service by the subscriber are converted into digital form and / or digitally available search results are converted into speech in the service.

The object is also achieved with a telecommunications network of the type mentioned at the beginning, in which according to the invention, the service is set up to enter after transmission of a search term by a subscriber using this search term, linked to the location information in the database with a search command and submit the search result to the participant.

The achievable advantages have already been mentioned in connection with the process.

Further expedient embodiments of the telecommunication network according to the invention essentially correspond to the features or features mentioned above in connection with the method.

The invention together with further advantages is explained in more detail below with reference to illustrative embodiments, which are illustrated in the drawing. In this show<ul id="ul0001" list-style="none" compact="compact"><li>Fig. 1 shows a telecommunications network according to the invention, with several participants and a service, in a schematic representation and</li><li>Fig. 2 shows the exemplary sequence of the method according to the invention.</li></ul>

In Fig. 1 is a telecommunications network indicated NET, which may be a fixed network, a mobile network or a network over specific networks. Subscribers to this network can be, for example, mobile subscribers TE 1 and TE 3 with terminals EG 1 and EG 3 that are in communication with a respective base station BAS. Terminal EG 1 is for example a so-called mobile phone, whereas the terminal EG 3 is installed in a vehicle, and this terminal EG 3 is also assigned a satellite navigation receiver GPS. Such receivers are often already standard in modern vehicles.

Another participant TE 2 could contact the network and other participants via an office AMT. The terminal of the subscriber TE 2 is denoted by EG 2.

In this example, in addition to a short message service SMS (Short Mail Service) the network is also assigned a service SER. This service has a vocoder VOC, a speech recognition SEK and a database DBA.

Essential to the invention is now that in a call of a network subscriber in the service SER this service location information regarding the whereabouts of the terminal of each participant is available. Such location information can be transmitted, for example, at the same time as the signaling from the office AMT, wherein in the office - as shown in FIG. 1 outlined - a memory with the assignment of telephone numbers RNR to location information OIN is provided. However, the location information OIN can also originate, for example, from the base station BAS of a mobile subscriber, with the location information OIN stored in the base station BAS being passed on to the service service SER in this case for the entire radio cell. If one wants a more precise location information with regard to the terminal EG 1 of a mobile subscriber TE 1, it is of course also possible to calculate this location information from the reception data of, for example, three base stations BAS. Such methods are known to the communications engineer and not the subject of the invention.

Another possibility for determining a very accurate location information is to assign a satellite navigation receiver GPS to the terminal EG 3 of a subscriber TE 3. Such a receiver can continuously determine the exact coordinates and forward them to the terminal EG 3, which in turn transmits this location information via the network to the service SER with the aid of a suitable signaling.

Now, if one of the participants transmits a search term SUF after making a connection to the service, ie asks a question, in the service this search term, linked to the location information OIN of the subscriber, is entered into a database DBA, which uses this data as a search result SES determined, which in turn is sent to the participant.

The entire procedure of this method can be done via voice, and in the service an operator can be present, who receives the search terms of the subscriber, enters them into the database and transmits the search results again to the subscriber. An alternative possibility is that although the traffic between the subscriber and the service is in voice, the service does involve converting speech in a voice recognition SEK into digital information, which is then automatically forwarded to the database DBA. The result of the database search is then also output digitally, but converted to speech in a vocoder VOC and forwarded to the subscriber.

Another possibility is the use of a short message service, such as the SMS service in the GSM system possible. In such a service, in addition to the actual, eg spoken payload, short messages are transmitted, which can be done, for example, on special channels of the system.

The inventive method now has the advantage that the user receives no useless search results, from which he must laboriously filter out the interest him, with a large number of search results in a workable manner would not be transmitted to the participants. For example, if a participant is a search term<img file="EP0924916A2_D0004.tif" />Doctor "enters, so is sought by linking with the subscriber-specific location information OIN from the database DBA address or telephone number material that concerns only located near the participant doctors. Another help may be the entry of the current time from a clock CLK, shown in FIG. 1 in the service SER is indicated as a block. In this case, in order to stay with the search for a doctor, the subscriber could be informed of the address (telephone number) of the doctor or doctors who are on duty at that time (day of the week, hour). The same applies of course for other keywords in which service or opening hours play a role, such as at pharmacies, motor vehicle workshops, breakdown services, etc.

If the participant as a search result, a phone number, eg a doctor is communicated, according to the invention can also be provided that this number RNR is temporarily stored in the terminal of the subscriber so that they are called by, for example, a simple keystroke and to dial the subscriber with this number RNR, eg a doctor, can be used. This results in a special convenience for the subscriber, which means additional security even in emergency situations, since a manual input of the phone number in a stressful situation is unnecessary. If, after entering a search term SUF in the database DBA either no search result is present or on the other hand, the search result is very extensive, so that the transmission to the participant or the evaluation by this does not appear practicable, the service SER can make a request to the participant to specify the search term or to enter further narrow keywords.

With reference to FIG. 2 In addition, a possible procedure between a subscriber TEx and a service point SER is now additionally illustrated. The subject of this diagram is not the exact signaling, since this is not the subject of the invention and also system-specific, but just the basic process. The subscriber TEx makes a call to the service point SER, and there is now determined from the subscriber number TNR with the aid of a directory VER the location information OIN concerning the terminal of the subscriber TEx and immediately entered into the database DBA. Moreover, the database DBA is provided with the current time information by a clock CLK.

After the call has been placed, the service usually deals with the question of search information to the subscriber, whereby explanatory remarks on the procedure can be given. The subscriber TEx now gives the search information SUF spoken or digital or alpha-numerically, and this search information SUF is now, as already described above, entered into the database DBA, which in turn provides the search result SES. This search result SES, the eg A call number RNR of a third wanted subscriber may now be transmitted to the subscriber TEx. At this time, then the service SER can terminate the connection, or the connection can be terminated by the subscriber TEx, if there are no further questions.

The participant TEx can then, as shown in Fig. 2 at the bottom, using the phone number RNR select the object of the search result SES, which can also be done automatically or semi-automatically.