January 15, 2014
VoIP Patent Application Published Online
By
Ed Silverstein
TMCnet Contributor
An interesting and promising patent application has been published online this month. It is even more significant because industry giant Microsoft (News - Alert) is the assignee of the application and it relates to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.
Originally, the application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on June 25, 2012. It relates to a host system and user interface host process – which resides on the host system.
In the application, the inventors explain about challenges found with VoIP applications that run on mobile phones or tablets. “Developing … VoIP applications to run on a mobile phone or other limited resource devices (e.g., tablets, personal digital assistants) presents a number of challenges,” the inventors said. “These challenges are even greater when the VoIP applications are to scale so that they are operational on low end hardware devices having limited resources as well as high end hardware devices having greater resources, particularly when the quality of the VoIP call user experience is to remain relatively high in all cases.”
When it comes to a mobile phone used for a platform for a VoIP application – instead of using a PC or tablet – the mobile phone has a “pre-existing telephony … module already built into it,” the application adds. In such a case, there can be issues related to switching between different types of calls, which are not seen when a PC or tablet is used for the platform for the VoIP application.
Another problem listed in the application relates to the sharing of hardware resources among applications. “If, for example, a user switches to another application while on a VoIP call, hardware resources are allocated to the other application which may negatively impact the VoIP call user experience," the application said.
It was explained too how the VoIP platform is divided to conserve resources and minimize drain on the battery, the application said.
The inventors were listed as Vij Vasu, Akhilesh Kaza, Shawn Henry, Eric Bie, Lucia Darsa, Tony Seeley, Keith Kaplan, Steve Serdy, Vishal Ghotge, Syed Mansoor Jafry and Nimesh Amin.
Edited by Cassandra Tucker