Proxied outgoing message transmission

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9515976-B2
Application number	US-201113330125-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 19, 2011
Priority date	Dec 19, 2011
Publication date	Dec 6, 2016
Grant date	Dec 6, 2016

Abstract

In particular embodiments, a mailbox server is operable to receive, from a client, a message to be delivered to an endpoint; store the message in a mailbox associated with the user; access a set of policies for the client or the endpoint; determine a delivery channel for the message based on the policies; and transmit the message to the endpoint through the delivery channel. In particular embodiments, the mailbox server may transmit SMS messages via a special bind with a recipients SMSC, or via a carrier short code. In particular embodiments, the mailbox server may transmit the message as an email or via an internal messaging system over a packet data connection.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising, by one or more computing systems:
receiving, from one of one or more clients associated with a first user and through a first communication channel, a message to be delivered to an endpoint;
storing the message in a mailbox associated with the first user, the mailbox comprising at least one message received from one of the clients through a second communication channel;
accessing a set of policies for the first user or the endpoint, the set of policies specifying communication channel usage plan details for a plurality of delivery channels;
determining, based on an inferred urgency of the message, a delivery policy, from a plurality of delivery policies corresponding to a level of urgency of the message, for delivery of the message, the inferred urgency being determined based on social networking activity between the first user and a second user associated with the endpoint;
in response to determining that the message is not urgent, determining a delivery channel from the plurality of delivery channels, according to the communication channel usage plan details, for the message based on the policies; and
transmitting the message to the endpoint through the delivery channel.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of policies for the endpoint comprises selecting a short message service (SMS) delivery channel if the endpoint lacks a packet data connection to the one or more computing systems.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the clients is a web browser.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the clients is an application running on a mobile device.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the message is received from the client as one or more SMS messages.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein:
the message is received via a short code application;
the message received from the client contains a conversation thread identifier; or the one or more SMS messages contains a list of recipients.

7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the message is received as a plurality of SMS messages, each of the plurality of SMS messages having a sequence number.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the delivery channel comprises a packet-switched data network.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the endpoint is an external endpoint, further comprising storing the message in a mailbox associated with the external endpoint.

10. The method of claim 8 , transmitting the message comprising:
determining an electronic mail address associated with the end point; and
transmitting the message as an electronic mail to the address over the packet-switched data network.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the delivery channel comprises an SMS channel of one or more cellular networks.

12. The method of claim 11 , transmitting the message comprising:
if the policies permit client access to a phone number associated with the endpoint, then instructing the client to directly transmit the message as one or more SMS messages to the phone number; and
if the policies deny client access to the phone number associated with the endpoint, then transmitting the message to the phone number via a short code application.

13. The method of claim 11 , transmitting the message comprising:
determining a phone number associated with the client that the message is received from;
transmitting the message to a short message service center (SMSC) of the one or more cellular networks, the message including the phone number and instructions to the SMSC to transmit the message as one or more SMS messages falsely identifying the sender as the number.

14. The method of claim 13 , transmitting the message to the SMSC comprising routing the message over a short-message peer-to-peer protocol (SMPP) bind.

15. The method of claim 11 , transmitting the message comprising:
adding a conversation thread identifier to the message;
determining if the message exceeds the maximum message size for the SMS channel;
if the message does not exceed the maximum message size, then transmitting the message via the SMS channel;
if the message exceeds the maximum message size, then segmenting the message by the maximum message size for the SMS channel less the size of a sequence identifier;
adding a sequence identifier to each message segment; and
transmitting the message segments to the endpoint via the SMS channel.

16. The method of claim 15 , adding a conversation thread identifier comprising:
determining if the message received by the client contains a conversation thread identifier, and:
if the message does not contain a conversation thread identifier, then generating a unique conversation thread identifier, and adding the generated conversation thread identifier to the message;
if the message contains a conversation thread identifier, then adding the received conversation thread identifier to the message.

17. A non-transitory, computer-readable media comprising instructions operable, when executed by one or more computing systems, to:
receive, from one of one or more clients associated with a first user and through a first communication channel, a message to be delivered to an endpoint;
store the message in a mailbox associated with the first user, the mailbox comprising at least one message received from one of the clients through a second communication channel;
access a set of policies for the first user or the endpoint, the set of policies specifying communication channel usage plan details for a plurality of delivery channels;
determining, based on an inferred urgency of the message, a delivery policy, from a plurality of delivery policies corresponding to a level of urgency of the message, for delivery of the message, the inferred urgency being determined based on social networking activity between the first user and a second user associated with the endpoint;
in response to determining that the message is not urgent, determine a delivery channel from the plurality of delivery channels, according to the communication channel usage plan details, for the message based on the policies; and
transmit the message to the endpoint through the delivery channel.

18. An apparatus comprising:
one or more processors;
a communications interface;
one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions operable, when executed by the one or more processors, to:
receive, from one of one or more clients associated with a first user via the communications interface and through a first communication channel, a message to be delivered to an endpoint;
store the message in a mailbox associated with the first user, the mailbox comprising at least one message received from one of the clients through a second communication channel;
access a set of policies for the first user or the endpoint, the set of policies specifying communication channel usage plan details for a plurality of delivery channels;
determining, based on an inferred urgency of the message, a delivery policy, from a plurality of delivery policies corresponding to a level of urgency of the message, for delivery of the message, the inferred urgency being determined based on social networking activity between the first user and a second user associated with the endpoint;
in response to determining that the message is not urgent, determine a delivery channel from the plurality of delivery channels, according to the communication channel usage plan details, for the message based on the policies; and
transmit the message to the endpoint through the delivery channel.

Assignees

• Talwar Mohit
• Pavlicic Miladin
• Murlidhar Siddharth
• Yao Rose
• Sobel Jason
• Facebook Inc

Inventors

• Talwar Mohit
• Pavlicic Miladin
• Murlidhar Siddharth
• Yao Rose
• Sobel Jason

Classifications

• H04W4/18

  Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals · CPC title

• H04L51/38

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L51/36

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L51/16

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L51/22 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic