JPH0650875B2 - Electronic mail communication control method - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to an electronic mail having a mailbox for each terminal, and more particularly to an electronic mail communication control method capable of managing transmission / reception time.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, the functions of facsimiles and computers have become more sophisticated, and these devices have been actively used in the field of postal services. Generally, these devices configured for the purpose of postal service using a computer or the like are called electronic mail. For e-mail using a computer, etc., the sending station inputs a letter from the computer's terminal, puts it in the mailbox provided in the computer, and the receiving station sends the letter sent through the communication line. Can be searched and read from your own mailbox.

By the way, conventionally, when considering the method of sending and receiving the mail body in this type of electronic mail, the sending start time at the sending terminal is fixed with respect to the time specified in advance, while the receiving terminal sends the sending start time of the sending terminal. If you can receive the mail when you receive it without knowing, the method to receive this was adopted. Therefore, when the transmission side terminal fails in the transmission due to the convenience of the reception side terminal, there are many devices in which the transmission is repeated after a certain waiting time and the transmission is successful.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

In the above-described conventional e-mail communication control method, there is no guarantee that the sending terminal will be able to receive the sending terminal at the sending start time regarding the sending and receiving of the mail body, and on the other hand, the judgment as to whether the sending was successful or not is actually made. Since it was possible by sending a transmission request and checking the result, if there were multiple sending terminals at the same time for one receiving terminal,
Even when the receiving side terminal is already communicating with one transmitting side terminal using one line, another transmitting side terminal often issues a transmission request to the above line.

As a result, if the amount of data in the mail body that is communicated on one line is large and the transmission capacity of this line is relatively low, the time required for communication of this mail is long and the other transmission The number of times the side terminal makes a transmission request to this receiving side terminal and fails will increase, and the total line occupation rate tends to increase compared to the actual communication time required for this mail communication. .

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an electronic mail communication control method capable of efficiently using a line.

[Means for solving problems]

According to the electronic mail communication control method of the present invention, mail is managed by being divided into a body part and a header part. That is, the sending side terminal creates the header part together with the creation of the mail, and first sends the header part to the destination.

On the other hand, after receiving the header part, the receiving side terminal compares this with the transmission / reception schedule of the receiving side terminal, and returns the receivable time to the transmitting side terminal. The sending side terminal checks the receivable time returned from the receiving side terminal, and sends the mail body to the receiving side terminal when the sending possible time comes.

By this method, it is possible to reduce the occurrence of competition between transmitting stations on one line and to use the line efficiently.

Further, when the amount of mail body data is included in the header portion, the receiving station side can calculate the required reception time based on this. Therefore, it is possible to finely distribute the time when making a reception reservation, and it is possible to further improve the efficiency of the line.

〔Example〕

 The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to examples.

FIG. 1 shows an example of an electronic mail apparatus using the electronic mail communication control method according to the present invention, which is an example of the configuration when a loop network is used as a communication line. This e-mail device includes three terminals installed on a loop type network line 11, a terminal 12A and a terminal 12
B and a terminal 12C, and each terminal has a uniform communication function for the network line 11.

Now, from terminal 12A through terminal AB line 15, terminal 1
A case of sending a mail to 2B will be described. That is, the terminal 12A is the transmitting side terminal and the terminal 12B is the receiving side terminal.

First, in the terminal 12A, the mail body, the mail body file name, the comment, the address of the partner station, and the desired transmission time range are input by key input or other input means, and the mail body is stored in the online storage device 16A connected to the terminal 12A. Stored as mail body 17 in the section (Fig. 2),
The mail body file name, comment, partner station address, and desired transmission time range are also stored in the schedule management section (FIG. 3) in the online storage device 16, respectively, as the mail body file name 18, comment 19, partner station address 20, and desired transmission time. Register as range 21. Then, the mail body data amount 22 is obtained from the mail body 17 and registered in the schedule management unit.

Next, send desired time range 21, mail body data amount 22
After creating a header part from the comment 19 and storing it as the header part 23 of the mail part, a transmission request is made to the address of the partner station, and this header part is sent to the terminal-AB line 1
5 to the terminal 12B.

Next, in the terminal 12B on the receiving side, first, the required reception time is calculated from the mail body data amount obtained from the header portion received from the terminal 12A on the transmitting side, and this is received by the schedule management unit in the online storage device 16B. Time required 2
Register as 5. At this time, the terminal 12C also simultaneously operates the terminal 1
Since it can be a transmitting station for 2B, it is assumed that the above reception required time is calculated including the margin time for receiving the header part transmitted by the terminal 12C.

Then, based on the desired transmission time range obtained from the header portion and the required reception time calculated above, the transmission / reception schedule group 2 previously registered in the online storage device 16B.
6 is checked to see if there is a receivable time zone. Based on this result, if there is a receivable time zone, the identification code and the receivable time are returned to the terminal A11 which is the transmitting side via the terminal AB line 15, and at the same time transmission / reception of the schedule management unit in the online storage device 16B. The recognition code 28 and the receivable time 29 are registered in the schedule unit 27, respectively. If there is no receivable time zone, the NG signal and the desired reception time range of the terminal 12B are set to the terminal A.
It is returned to the terminal 12A via the B-line 15.

Next, if the terminal 12A, which is the transmitting side, includes the recognition code according to the content returned from the terminal 12B, first, the receivable time received at the same time as the recognition code is set as the transmission possible time 30 and the transmission / reception schedule in the online storage device 16A. If it is registered in the unit 27 and is ready for transmission, the transmission state is noted in the transmission / reception distinction 31 and the transmission standby state is set. When the NG signal is included, the desired transmission time range is determined again based on the desired reception time range received at the same time, the header section 23 is created, and the header section 23 is returned to the receiving side terminal 12B. If the terminal 12B on the receiving side can also receive, the reception time 32, the required reception time 25, the recognition code 28, and the comment 19 are registered in the transmission / reception schedule unit 27, and the reception state is described in the transmission / reception distinction 31 and the reception standby state is set. To do.

After that, the terminal 12A constantly scans the transmission / reception schedule group 27 in the online storage device 16A, and the transmission available time 3
If the 0 does not match the current time, the partner station address 20 is referred to, and the identification code 28 is sent to the receiving terminal corresponding to this partner station address, that is, the terminal 12B in this case.
At the same time, the mail body 17 is read from the mail group 33 of the online storage device 16A based on the mail body file name 18 and transmitted via the line 15 between the terminals AB. When the transmission is completed, the transmission / reception schedule group 2 is set in the terminal 12A.
The related transmission / reception schedule unit 27 is deleted from step 6.

On the other hand, the terminal 12B on the receiving side searches the transmission / reception schedule group 26 based on the authentication code received from the terminal 12A, refers to the reception function time 29 of this mail, and receives the reception time 3
Check with 2. If the collation results match, the received mail main body online storage device B13 is loaded, and the transmission / reception schedule group 26 controls the transmission / reception schedule unit 27 related thereto to complete the reception.

As described above, the terminal 12 used in the electronic mail communication control method
The basic transmission between two stations by A and the terminal 12B has been described, but in addition to this, some supplementary explanation will be given on the operation when the terminal 12C joins as a transmitting station.

That is, the terminal 12C serves as the transmitting station and the line 3 between the terminals CB is used.
4 to send a mail to the terminal 12B, when the terminal 12B is already in communication with the terminal 12A via the terminal AB line 15, the terminal 12B communicates with the terminal 12B in the same manner as in the conventional method. The transmission request is repeated with a waiting time until the end of. But terminal 12
When B is not in the communication state, it reserves the transmission by the method described above and transmits at the designated time.

As described above, in the e-mail communication control method according to the embodiment, the amount of mail body data is included in the header part, so that the receiving side can calculate the required receiving time. Therefore, it is possible to finely distribute the time when assembling the reception reservation schedule.

Further, in the method of this embodiment, the transmission time desired by the transmission side is included in the header portion, so that the transmission time can be returned in consideration of this at the reception side.

[Modification]

FIG. 4 shows a modification of the present invention. In this modification, the loop network used as the communication line in the above-described embodiment is replaced with a network via an exchange. Therefore, this modified example will be described in association with the above-described embodiment.

That is, the terminal 41A in FIG. 4 is the terminal 1 in FIG.
2A, similarly, the online storage device 44A is the online storage device 16A, the terminal 41B is the terminal 12B,
The online storage device 44B is the online storage device 16B.
In addition, the terminal 41C is connected to the terminal 12C and the online storage device 4
4C corresponds to the online storage device 16C.
Further, in the above-described embodiment, the establishment of the electrical connection relation of the line connecting each terminal is realized independently of the present electronic mail communication control method at the network interface portion with respect to the local network 11 of each terminal. In the example, the internal processing of the exchange 40 similarly realizes this electronic mail communication control method independently. Therefore, this modified example is basically the same as the procedure in the above-described embodiment in applying the present electronic mail communication control method, and therefore the following description will be omitted.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above, the present invention manages a mail by dividing it into a mail body and a header portion, notifies the receiving terminal of the header portion before sending the mail body, and reserves the sending time. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the occurrence of competition between the transmitting side terminals. In particular, when the amount of information in the mail body sent by the sending terminal is large with respect to the unique information transmission capability of each communication line, competition of the transmission path between sending terminals is likely to occur. In such an application environment, the present invention has an effect that the limited line can be efficiently used.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 to 3 are diagrams for explaining one embodiment of the present invention, in which FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of an electronic mail device, and FIG. 2 is schedule management of a file device configured by each terminal. FIG. 3 is an explanatory view showing the contents of the mail part of each terminal, and FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an electronic mail device according to a modification of the present invention. 11 ... Network line, 15 ... Terminal-AB line, 26 ... Send / receive schedule group, 33 ... Mail group, 34 ... Terminal-CB line, 45 ... Line A, 46 ... Line B, 47 ... Line C.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location H04L 29/08

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. In an electronic mail communication system in which a plurality of terminals are connected to a communication cable and mail can be communicated between these terminals, a sending terminal for sending electronic mail creates a header part together with the mail body. , This header part is separated from the mail body and sent to the receiving terminal first, and the receiving terminal notifies the sending terminal that sent this header part of the time data indicating the receivable time of the mail body, and the sending terminal An e-mail communication control method characterized in that the transmission timing of the mail body is determined based on this time data. 2. The electronic mail communication control method according to claim 1, wherein the header portion transmitted by the transmitting terminal includes the data amount of the mail body.