Ringback File Server Local Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional circuit-switched telephony and VoIP systems suffer from low-quality audio signals due to PSTN filtering and compression, which degrade the perceived quality of both voice and music ringback tones, especially when high-quality audio files are transmitted in-band.
Innovation Solution
A system where a ringback file server allows users to download and associate high-quality audio, video, or multimedia files with specific communication devices, enabling these devices to play back the files locally during call setup, thereby bypassing the need for in-band transmission of default ringback tones and conserving network capacity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If high-quality audio files are transmitted in-band over PSTN or VoIP bearer channels, then the ringback tone quality is improved, but the network bandwidth is consumed and the audio quality is degraded by filtering and compression
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the ringback tone transmission from the voice bearer channel by delivering audio files out-of-band to the caller's device. The caller's device then plays back the audio file locally using its own speaker, completely removing the need to transmit audio over the voice channel, thus eliminating bandwidth consumption and avoiding PSTN/VoIP filtering and compression.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces the caller's communication device as an intermediary that receives audio files out-of-band and plays them locally. This intermediary approach allows high-quality audio delivery without occupying voice channel bandwidth, as the device acts as a local playback station rather than relying on network transmission during the call setup.
2Productivity
If PSTN filtering is applied to audio signals, then the voice signal transmission is optimized for human voice frequency range, but the perceived audio quality is reduced due to loss of spectral energy above 4000 Hz
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the audio playback function from the PSTN network by enabling local playback at the caller's device. This removes the audio signal from the PSTN filtering process entirely, preserving the complete frequency spectrum of the original audio file without the 4000 Hz cutoff that degrades music and other non-voice audio content.
3Loss of energy
If VoIP codecs compress voice signals to low-bitrate streams, then the network bandwidth usage is reduced, but the spectral energy is further reduced resulting in poor audio quality for music and other content
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the audio file delivery from the voice codec compression process by using out-of-band file transfer mechanisms. The audio files are delivered separately through data channels or file transfer protocols, completely bypassing the voice codec compression that would otherwise reduce spectral energy and degrade audio quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses digital copying of audio files to deliver high-quality ringback tones. Instead of transmitting compressed voice streams, the system copies and transfers complete audio files to the caller's device, preserving the original quality without any lossy compression.
4Device complexity
If ringback media is stored and streamed from the ringback server, then the system is simple to implement, but the network bandwidth is consumed during call setup and the audio quality is degraded by in-band transmission
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the audio playback function from the server and network by enabling local playback at the caller's device. The server still stores and delivers audio files out-of-band, but the critical playback occurs locally rather than streaming through the voice channel, eliminating in-band transmission quality degradation.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for facilitating distribution of ringback files to caller devices are provided. A ringback file server may receive a request to associate a ringback file with a callee device and a caller device. Responsively, the ringback file server transmits a copy of the ringback file to the caller device, thus enabling the caller device to play out the ringback file when the caller device subsequently initiates a call to the callee device. Preferably, the ringback file is a high quality audio or video file. Thus, locally storing the ringback file at the caller device facilitates playout of high quality ringback media and also avoids requiring that the ringback file server stream ringback media in-band to the caller device.