Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-09
2004-05-25
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S517000, C455S414100, C455S414200, C455S003040, C455S403000, C455S446000, C340S870030, C340S870030, C340S007460
Reexamination Certificate
active
06741856
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to cellular communication networks and to a communiqué system that makes use of the bandwidth capacity in existing point-to-point cellular communication networks to provide subscribers with access to a plurality of broadcast and narrowcast based services.
PROBLEM
It is a problem in cellular communication networks that the network topology is exclusively point to point in nature. This paradigm represents the historical view of cellular communications as a wireless equivalent of traditional wire-line telephone communication networks, which serve to interconnect a calling party with a called party. An additional problem in cellular communication networks is that the need to concurrently serve many voice subscribers with the limited bandwidth available in cellular communication networks has prevented the provision of wide bandwidth communication services, such as data, to these subscribers.
The third generation (3G) wireless communication systems, as specified by the ITU/IMT-2000 requirements for cellular communications, represent a step toward solving the above-noted problems. The third generation wireless communication systems support the provision of advanced packet data services. In 3G/IMT-2000 systems, dynamic Internet Protocol address assignment is required in addition to static Internet Protocol (IP) address assignment. With static IP address assignment, the wireless subscriber station's static IP address is fixed and assigned by the home wireless network. When the wireless subscriber station is away from its home wireless network (roaming), a special data communications link (Wireless IP tunnel) needs to be established between the visited wireless network and the home wireless network. In this case, IP packets destined to the wireless subscriber station's IP address of the home wireless network are routed to the home wireless network according to standard IP routing. A Wireless IP tunnel is used in the home wireless network to redirect the IP packets that are destined to the wireless subscriber station's static IP address to the visited wireless network where the roaming wireless subscriber station is located and being served. When a wireless subscriber station moves from one wireless network coverage area to another, Wireless IP mobility binding updates are performed between the wireless subscriber station and its Home Agent (HA) in the home wireless network. Since both the wireless station's IP address and its Home Agent IP address are static or fixed, a shared secret between the wireless subscriber station and the Home Agent can be preprogrammed into the wireless station and its Home Agent so that the Home Agent can authenticate Wireless IP registrations requested by the wireless subscriber station and perform mobility binding updates in a secure manner.
However, even with advances in bandwidth utilization and the provision of packet data services, the cellular communication networks still operate on a point to point paradigm, with the networks being unable to concurrently communicate data to a plurality of subscribers, which is the fundamental concept of broadcast communications, especially in the case of a dynamically changing audience for the broadcasts.
SOLUTION
The above described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved by the communiqué system for private virtual narrowcasts that operates with existing cellular communication networks to provide private virtual narrowcast communication services, that are initiated by a narrowcast host, to subscribers. The Communiqué transported by this system can be unidirectional or bi-directional (interactive) in nature and the extent of the Communiqué is narrowcast, where cells and/or cell sectors are grouped to cover a predetermined geographic area or demographic population or subscriber interest group to transmit information to a private group of subscribers who populate the target audience for the narrowcast transmissions. The grouping of cells to form the communiqué coverage area for the narrowcast transmissions need not be contiguous and can comprise dynamic combinations of contiguous and non-contiguous cells as well as combinations of in-building wireless coverage areas, standard terrestrial cells, non-terrestrial cells, orchestrated in a hierarchical manner. The private virtual narrowcasts use the code, frequency and time domains to enable multiple users to share the same wireless resource in a manner that, from the users perspective, has dedicated spectrum or channel capacity to their particular application. The applications can include asymmetric bi-directional communications where private virtual narrowcasts are the stimulus for point-to-point responses from subscriber terminal devices.
The content of these communiqué transmissions can be multi-media in nature and comprise a combination of various forms of media: audio, video, graphics, text, data and the like. The subscriber terminal devices used to communicate with the communiqué system for private virtual narrowcasts are typically full function communication devices that include: standard cellular telephones, WAP enabled cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, Palm Pilots, personal computers, and the like or special communiqué only communication devices that are specific to communiqué reception; or MP3 audio players (essentially a radio receiver or communiqué radio); or an MPEG4 video receiver (communiqué TV); or other such specialized communication device. The subscriber terminal devices used in the communiqué system for private virtual narrowcasts can be mobile wireless communication devices in the traditional mobile subscriber paradigm, or the fixed wireless communication devices in the more recent wireless product offerings, or wireline-based communication devices. Furthermore, the communiqué communication services can be free services, subscription based services, or toll based services, while the data propagation can be based on push, pull and combinations of push/pull information distribution modes.
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Graziano James M.
McKenna Daniel B.
Ferguson Keith
Patton & Boggs LLP
Trost William
Vesuvius Inc.
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