1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, to an apparatus and to a communications network adapted for managing electronic mail services. In particular, the present invention relates to a method, to an apparatus and to a communications network adapted for managing the sending of electronic mail messages generated by a user, for example a user having a cellular telephone. The present invention also relates, in particular, to a method, to an apparatus and to a communications network adapted for managing access to an electronic mailbox by a user, for example a user having a cellular telephone.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic mail is a system by means of which a user can exchange messages with another user by using a computer, via a communications network.
The use of electronic mail for exchanging messages between users of a packet network, particularly the Internet, is becoming more and more popular, owing to the great ease of use, the greater speed of message delivery (by comparison with the normal transmission of hard copy), the low cost of transmission, especially in the case of users living at great distances from each other, such as users living in different countries (by comparison with the cost of a telephone call), the possibility of attaching files of any type, such as pictures, video clips, texts, etc., to the messages to be transmitted.
Relatively recently, it has also become possible for electronic mail messages to be transmitted and received by users of mobile networks, who can use suitable client software programs installed in some cellular telephones (known as “smartphones”, such as the model known as BlackBerry®) to manage their electronic mailboxes as if they were connected to their own home or office personal computer. In second-generation mobile networks, such as a GSM network, these cellular telephones can connect to a packet network, such as the Internet, typically via a GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) connection. Third-generation mobile networks such as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services) can also provide packet services. Both of these systems are therefore capable of providing an electronic mail service to users having suitable cellular telephones.
Typically, messages sent from a sender's terminal (for example a computer or a cellular telephone) pass through one or more intermediate servers until the message is delivered to the recipient's mailbox. In an IP (Internet Protocol) environment, messages are normally transferred from the sender to the recipient by a mechanism controlled by the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) protocol. According to this protocol, as a result of a request to send a message made by the sender of the said message, the sender's SMTP server establishes a communications channel to a destination SMTP server, which can be the recipient's SMTP server or an intermediate SMTP server. In the latter case, the intermediate SMTP server acts as a new sending SMTP server, and the procedure is repeated until the recipient's SMTP server is reached. When the message has reached the recipient's SMTP server, it is delivered to the recipient's mailbox. The mechanism for the access to the messages present in the mailbox is typically controlled, in an IP environment, by the POP (Post Office Protocol), which typically requires the recipient to access his mailbox by means of an access key, for example a combination of a user name and password, to enable the received messages to be downloaded to his terminal.
The information transmitted by an electronic mail message is primarily divided into two portions: a first part, called the header, comprises the sender's address and the address of the recipient (or recipients); a second portion, known as the body, contains the actual message. Typically, the header portion of a received message also comprises a list of the SMTP servers through which the message has passed.
The patent application WO 99/03238 relates to a method, a system and a mail server. The method comprises the following steps: contacting an electronic mail service provider and then starting a client program to communicate with the electronic mail service. The user creates a message, determines the destination of the message and sends the message. The message is received at the server of the mail service, which requests from an exchange information relating to the user's telephone number corresponding to the user's IP address, adds the information relating to the telephone number to the header portion of the message reserved for the list of SMTP servers through which the message has passed, and sends the message towards the destination. According to the description of patent application WO 99/03238, this enables the sender of the message to be identified more precisely, particularly when the transmitted message contains “illegal” or “prohibited” information, or when it contains information which may cause the recipient's mailbox to be blocked, or when it may be convenient to contact the sender to request further information.
The configuration of the software program on the user terminal adapted for the use of mail services (message transmission and reception) is typically such that the user has to enter data relating to the address of the mail server or servers (for example, an SMTP server for transmission and a POP server for reception of messages), data relating to his mailbox access key (for example, a log-in and password), data relating to the mail address to be included in the sender field of the outgoing messages. These data are generally supplied to the user by the electronic mail service provider, but the user must provide by himself to the configuration of the program on the terminal. Where an electronic mail service is used by means of a cellular telephone, the configuration of the program also requires the entry of data relating to the packet connection, for example GPRS or UMTS.
To assist less expert users in the configuration of the program on the terminal, the electronic mail service provider generally provides instructions, which for example can be included in an Internet web page, in a paper manual or on software supports such as diskettes or CD-ROMs. In the case of access to electronic mail services by means of a cellular telephone, part of the configuration of the telephone can be carried out by pre-loading certain data into the telephone software or on to the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) associated with the telephone, or by means of self-configuring SMS (Short Message Service) messages, or by means of procedures downloadable from the Internet, to be transferred to the cellular telephone by a PC-cellular telephone connection, such as a serial, Bluetooth or IRDA (Infra Red Digital Association) connection.
However, all the above procedures for facilitating configuration only assist the users in the configuration of data which are identical for all subscribers of a service provided by a single provider (such as the data relating to the mail server addresses), while they do not permit the self-configuration of the data relating to the access key to the user's mailbox, or to the user's mail address to be included as the address of the sender of the outgoing messages: this is due to the fact that these data vary from one user to another user. Moreover, the procedures or manuals made available by the providers frequently contain technical terms which are not easily understood by non-expert users (such as the terms “server”, “username”, “login”, or the abbreviations SMTP or POP).
The Applicant has observed that there is a considerable proportion of the population, consisting of non-expert persons, which has difficulty in accessing electronic mail because of incorrect configuration of the electronic mail management program on the user's terminal. In some cases, these users are simply unaware of the fact that the terminal has to be configured, and, on finding that the program fails to work, they dispense with the use of the service. In other cases, the technical terminology of the configuration manual can form a real “psychological barrier”, as a result of which the user avoids using the service because he considers it too complicated.
The Applicant has also observed that this kind of problem particularly affects users of mobile networks. This is because these users are generally accustomed to using the cellular telephone for the ordinary telephone service. For these users, it is entirely normal to have a terminal (the cellular telephone) which is “ready for use”, without requiring more or less complex configuration procedures. The Applicant has also observed that one of the factors in the considerable success of the messaging services which have now become commonplace in mobile networks, such as SMS transmission or reception, has been the fact that the user has no need to configure anything on his mobile terminal in order to be able to use it.
The Applicant has tackled the problem of further facilitating access to electronic mail services, even for non-expert users. In particular, the Applicant has tackled the problem of providing an electronic mail service (comprising transmission and/or reception of messages) in which no configuration of the terminal is necessarily required to the user.
The Applicant has found that this problem can be solved by having the transmission and/or reception of electronic mail messages managed by at least one apparatus configured in such a way as to request, from another apparatus being part of the communications network to which a user is connected, an identifier associated uniquely with the user (for example his telephone number, or a string—so called an “alias”—associated uniquely with the user), on the basis of another identifier which the network has assigned to the user in the step of connection to the network (for example an IP address, or a host name), or which the said network is capable of associating uniquely with the user to enable them to access the network services (for example an IMSI [International Mobile Subscriber Identifier] stored in a SIM associated with the user terminal).
To enable an electronic mail message generated by the user to be sent, the user identifier obtained from the network can be used by the apparatus configured as stated above to automatically complete a message sender field, without the need for the user to enter it by himself among the configuration parameters. For access to a mailbox made available to the user by the provider, the apparatus configured as stated above intercepts a request for access to the mailbox by the user and uses the user identifier obtained from the network as the access key to the mailbox, without the need for the user to enter this access key by himself among the configuration parameters.
To be able to use an electronic mail service, a user can have, in practice as single configuration parameter, the address of the apparatus programmed as described above, in other words a fixed parameter, which is identical for all users of the service. This address can be loaded into the mail program resident in the user terminal by simple automatic configuration procedures. For example, if the electronic mail service is used from a personal computer, the address of the apparatus can be included in the configuration of the mail program by a self-configuration program made available by the service provider on a support such as a diskette or CD-ROM, or downloadable from the Internet. If the electronic mail service is used from a cellular telephone, the address of the apparatus can be included in the configuration by pre-loading on to the SIM or on to the telephone acquired by the user, or by over-the-air updating, by means of a self-configuring SMS for example.