Background of the invention We already live in a society accustomed to ubiquitous tele- communications. Telephones are in every office, cellular phones are in many cars and in the hands of pedestrians on the move, and many people are reachable at any time with advanced smart phones, PDAs and pagers. More recently, the Internet has increased our tele-connectivity by allowing us to exchange text, images, sound and video with anyone whose interest we share, professionally or socially.

Telecommunication for professional use or social use has mainly been done from the office or from the home. A steadily increasing part of human-human communication is done from other places than the home or office. Personal mobile communication solutions are often described as pro- viding a transparent"place". Mobility often means not disregarding place, but rather the complex encounter of multifarious new places and faces.

During studies conducted with solutions for mobile communi- cation, observations with respect to the context (location, time and user state) in which human-human communication

takes place, have shown the following about the person us- ing the mobile communication solution: Person cannot see very well (or at all), e. g. work is con- ducted at night in the basement.

Person cannot hear very well (or at all), e. g. found in noisy factory setting.

* Person cannot read very well (or at all), e. g. while driving from one site to another site.

Person cannot move their heads or arms very well e. g.

(or at all), while at the top of a mast.

Person cannot speak very well (or at all), e. g. while required to be silent by co-workers.

Person cannot feel with their fingers very well (or at all), e. g. while it is cold.

Person cannot remember well (or at all), e. g. while to focused on one site job.

This is not a result of the communication solution or tech- nology per se, but a direct result of varying context that the mobile users are operating in. The mobile communia- tion solution offered today is unaware of the context in which the users are operating in.

One of the implications from our case study is that the system itself has to be aware of the context that the per- son is working in, so as to determine: 'type of interaction modality Communication mode/media to be used There are no known such functions supported directly today.

However, there are some manual, user-operated functions that may be used to select the type of interaction modality and communication media. These are manually controlled.

The following functions are relevant: ON/OFF switch for mobile/cellular phone 'ON/OFF switch of loudspeaker/buzzer at phone 'ON/OF switch for computer 'ON/OFF switch for loudspeaker/screen at phone 'Diversion/call forward/follow me functionality-manu- ally controlled User profile-manually controlled Absence marking

Problems relates to existing systems There is no automatic updated information in the communia- tion system of which context the user is situated in.

Information about the context of which a user is situated in may be valuable to the user, so as to determine: Interaction modalities (input: haptic, voice. Output: visual on screen, auditory at loudspeaker, buzzer).

Selection of communication media (audio, video, text/images) State of the art According to our knowledge, there is currently no system supporting communication based on the context of the user, e. g. he is in a dark room and is not able to read and hence textual display is not actual for him; voice communication must be used.

EP 0 578 374 A1 relates to a method and apparatus for pro- viding a personal locator, access control and asset track- ing service using an in-building telephone network. Accord- ing to this publication there is suggested the use of ID badges containing an RF transmitter in order to determine the location of a user, access control to the system, as well as access control to the system and asset tracking of equipment or apparatus.

This prior art system is built around an in-building tele- phone network (PABX), and the physical position of the user or the equipment/apparatus is updated by the system.

However, this prior art does not give any instructions for providing information about the context of the user, let alone that this context should be used by a communication system to determine the users interaction method with the system (input and output), the selection of communication medium (text, sound, picture, video, others).

JP 09064945 A relates to a sound volume setting device for portable telephone set, and discloses a solution by which the system automatically sets the sound volume for a port- able telephone set. Further, this prior art discloses a system which differentiates whether the user is connected the services of the public base station or the home use telephone set.

Consequently, this prior art solution suggests a specific mechanism which is used for detecting server connection, and utilises information thereabout for setting the sound volume. The prior art system is based on two discrete val- ues about the location of the user, i. e. a first value re- lated to the public base station, and a second value re- lated to the home use telephone set, and this information is used by the system for setting said sound volume.

US 5 610 969 relates to a personal communication service registration system and method, and discloses a system for user registration in this system. This registration is

utilised for routing calls to a user, both in wireless and wired networks.

The disclosed prior art solution, as far as it can be un- derstood, makes it possible for the system to call a user with a telephone number (personal telephone number), but does not give any indication about information about the context of any user.

WO 98/21911 A1 relates to a devise for routing information updates, and suggests a system for automatic updating of the location of a user in an intelligent network solution.

According to this prior art it is only the location, i. e. the physical position, of the user which is updated in the prior art system. This information is used by the system for routing calls to the communication equipment which is in the vicinity of the user.

This prior art solution is based upon the ideas related to Universal Personal Telecommunication, UPT, and consequently to the limitations therein which are to the fact that the user must manually give information to the system about his position. However, according to this prior art the telecom- munications network automatically registers and de- registers terminal equipment based on sensed user location.

Nevertheless, this prior art gives no instructions for pro- viding information about the context in which a user is situated, i. e. the physical conditions of the location, the time in question, as well as biometrics related thereto.

Objects of the invention

An object of the invention is to provide an arrangement for improving a communication system so as to further improve the support of human-human communication at a distance.

A further object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement wherein this exchange of information can be im- plemented in an appropriate manner in already existing net- works.

Still another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement by which the feedback communication link handling such feedback contextual parameters is adapted to not only communicate this information to the services of the communication system about any preferred interaction modality, and any preferred communication media, but also to be influenced by direct user control, for further refine selection of said modalities and media.

Summary of the invention The above objects are achieved in an arrangement as stated in the preamble, which according to the present invention is characterised in that the arrangement comprises means for providing the communication system with information about the context in which a user is situated.

The following main parameters may be used to describe the context: Physical position 'Environmental conditions 'time

'User state The following parameters determining the context are for example as follows: Physical location (co-ordinates, longitude, latitude, altitude, etc.) Physical movement (speed, direction of movement, etc.) Weather conditions (temperature, humidity, rain/snow, etc.) Light condition (dim, sunny, etc.) Audio condition (silent, noisy, etc.) 'time of day (local time, day, evening, night, etc.) Task at hand (attention span, etc.) Mood (asleep, awake, busy, free, etc.) Further features and advantages of the present invention will appear from the following description taken in connec- tion with the enclosed drawings, as well as from the en- closed patent claims.

Brief disclosure of the drawings Fig. 1 is a schematical diagram illustrating the main fea- tures involved in an arrangement comprising contextual com- munication according to the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a schematical diagram illustrating an embodiment of the arrangement according to the present invention, es-

pecially the architecture of the contextual communication suggested by the present invention.

Description of embodiments A simple description of the framework for contextual commu- nication is depicted in Figure 1.

The architecture of Contextual Communications is illus- trated in Figure 2. User A and User B both carry sensors permitting to collect contextual parameters. These parame- ters are sent to the Context Register (CR). The CR is an extension of the existing GSM LR (Location Register) in the sense that it contains in addition to location parameters, other contextual parameters. When User B wants to communi- cate with User A and addresses to the Local Exchange, the latter one will communicate with the CR asking for the Con- textual Information of User A. Based on the contextual data received, the Local Exchange will choose and establish the appropriate communication channels between User A and User B.

The feedback communication link from the actual context is to give the services information about the preferred inter- action modalities, and the preferred communication media.

In addition to the contextual determined interaction mo- dalities and communication media, there is a strong focus on direct user control.

Merits of the invention

Our claim is that to make useful, functional and powerful new tools for supporting human-human communication and in- teraction at a distance, the context has to be considered in the design of communication solutions.

To exemplify the merits of this invention, a couple of sce- narios and examples are described below: Scenario 1. In an out of a vehicle context.

It is night in Oslo. Peter receives some calls from USA.

The communication system know that Peter is asleep, so all calling attempts are routed to the appropriate place. In the morning, Peter is at his office. The communication system notices this, and routes his calls to his office phone. After lunch, he is going to a meeting about 1-hour drive from the office. When he enters the car, the commu- nication system notices this, and switch to hands free op- eration for Peter. Arriving at the meeting, the communica- tion system notices the audio level, and in co-operation with Peter, the appropriate context is determined.

Scenario 2. Biometrix context.

Jon has just been operated at the hospital. The communica- tion system is polling the biometrics data from Jon's body, and determining his physical condition. This biometrics data are sent regularly to the hospital for remote logging and control.

Scenario 3. Time of day context.

Anne is out travelling in a different time zone, and dif- ferent climate than usual. The communication system deter- mines the new relative time and climate.

Scenario 4. Physical condition at work.

Allan is installing new electrical equipment at construc- tion sites. He is busy with some machinery, in a noisy en- vironment. The communication system determines the noise, and makes the appropriate actions with both the interaction modalities and the choice of communication media for him.