1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to local phone number translation for a mobile device. More specifically, utilization of an external database to provide local phone number translation is disclosed for mobile telephones having limited amounts of non-volatile memory.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The single telephone number service arrangement allows users to easily recall service numbers, and thereby obtain corresponding services over the telephone. Regardless of location, the single service number should remain the same for a particular service. Examples of such services in the United States include the 9-1-1 emergency service, and the 4-1-1 directory assistance service.
Although such single telephone number service numbers remain the same within a country, they tend to vary from country to country. This fact, when taken in conjunction with the roving ability of mobile telephones, tends to insert confusion into the lives of the users of such mobile telephones when traveling from country to country. For example, as a resident in country xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d, a user may be accustomed to dialing xe2x80x9c911xe2x80x9d to obtain an emergency service provider. Yet, while abroad in foreign country xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d, the telephone number xe2x80x9c911xe2x80x9d may have no meaning for the local service provider. Instead of connecting to an emergency operator, dialing the xe2x80x9c911xe2x80x9d number may simply lead to an error message. This, of course, is at least an inconvenience to the user.
The most obvious solution to this problem is to enable local phone number translation based upon region. For example, assume that in country xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d the number for emergency services is xe2x80x9c119xe2x80x9d. A database is provided in the mobile telephone that can be indexed based upon region and the desired local service number, such as xe2x80x9c911xe2x80x9d. The result of this database look-up is the translated local service number, such as xe2x80x9c119xe2x80x9d. All of this occurs automatically, so that when the user keys in xe2x80x9c911xe2x80x9d, the mobile telephone actually dials xe2x80x9c119xe2x80x9d, and thus properly connects to the desired local service.
Although simple in principle, actually implementing the above can be challenging. The first obstacle is identifying the region within which the mobile device is present. One possible solution for this is simply to let the user indicate his or her current geographic location. This, however, is inconvenient and inefficient, as the user may forget to properly enter the current region, and thus render useless any translated local service numbers. A second, and no less pressing problem, is that the non-volatile memory resource within a mobile telephone is generally quite limited, whereas a database that is capable of performing translation for local service numbers in all regions of the world may be inordinately large.
It is therefore a primary objective of this invention to provide local phone number translation for a mobile device, such as a mobile telephone, having limited memory stores.
Briefly summarized, the preferred embodiment of the present invention discloses direct call management for mobile devices with limited memory resources. Initially, a central database is provided on an external device, such as a personal data assistant (PDA) or an optical storage device, that is used for local phone number translation. A communications link is enabled between the mobile device and the central database to allow accessing and indexing of the central database. The mobile device obtains identification information from a base station within the receiving range of the mobile device. Ideally, this is the base station upon which the mobile device is camped. The communications link is used to extract local phone number translation information from the central database according to the identification information. That is, the identification information of the base station is used to index into the central database to obtain corresponding local phone number translation information. The mobile device then provides local phone number translation using the local phone number translation information. When the mobile device camps upon a new base station, the old local phone number translation information can be discarded in favor of new local phone number translation information that is obtained from the central database by indexing with identification information obtained from the new base station.
It is an advantage of the present invention that by providing an external database that is indexed by way of base station identification information, the present invention is able to provide local phone number translation information for a large number of regions, while simultaneously keeping within the memory restraints of the mobile device.
It is a further advantage that local phone number translation information that is not needed can be discarded from the memory of the mobile device, thus freeing up valuable memory resources without compromising the local phone number translation abilities of the mobile device.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment, which is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.