Digital signal receiver with charge metering equipment

Details Digital signal receiver with charge metering equipment Digital signal receiver with charge metering equipment

1999-01-19

2000-07-04

Hunter, Daniel S.

Telecommunications

Radiotelephone system

Usage measurement

455406, 455405, H04M 1100

Patent

active

060850825

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a receiver for digital signals emitted by radio as well as to a method for operating such a device according to the preamble of the independent claims.


DISCUSSION OF RELATED ART

Devices of this kind are mainly known as pagers, but they can e.g. also be an integrated part of mobile phones. Usually, they are part of a radio paging net, such as it is e.g. described in EP-A-198 448 and serve for receiving messages or information of various type. For this purpose, they usually posses several calling addresses, which make possible the receipt of data of different providers or services. Thus, a pager can e.g. receive finance information at address and, at an other address, the road conditions or individual messages only directed to it. In practice, pagers nowadays possess up to 16 different addresses or more and accordingly can receive and process different service messages. When a pager owner wants to receive a new service, the calling number (address) of the service must be programmed into the pager. This can be carried out directly on the pager or by radio from the center. If the service is not free of charge, the additional costs must be charged to the user's subscription by the provider of the information or his representative. This leads, however, to considerable administrative and technical expense and has for the pager owner the disadvantage that he needs to get into contact with the operator or the service provider for adding a new service to his pager.
In EP 538 933 and EP 360 228 pagers are described where memory cards can be used. On these cards a credit counter is stored. This counter is decremented during operation of the pager until the credit is exhausted. Thereby, billing of costs is simplified for the provider, but the end user now must regularly recharge or replace the card. Also the problem of charging for the receipt of several services is not solved satisfactorily with a single card.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,252 a pager is shown where the receipt of individual services can be blocked via radio. However, this involves considerable administrative expense for the network operator and is also an inflexible and therefore unsatisfactory solution for the end user.


DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object to provide a method or a receiver, respectively, of the type mentioned initially where a simple billing becomes possible for provider and user. This object is implemented by the independent claims.
As conventional devices, the receiver according to the invention comprises a receiver control unit, by means of which the digital signals to be processed and therefore being available for the user can be recognized, e.g. because of their address. In addition to this, however, a charge counter or charge determination unit is provided, which limits the choice or number, respectively, of the groups or services, respectively, to be processed. Hereby, processing is to be understood as the operations that are required for giving the user the benefit of the signal, i.e. especially the receipt, the decoding, the storage and the possibility of displaying. If at least one of these steps is missing, the signal is not processed.
Within his credit limit the user can choose, which services or groups, respectively, he wants to receive. He can also remove certain services from the selection and replace them by others, without needing to contact the network operator for this. Also, the user needs not be concerned for a renewal of his credit.
The charge counter can comprise a memory where a charge limit or credit, respectively, is stored and which is compared to the accrued charges. The memory can be modified directly at the device by means of suited manipulations or, preferably, also by radio by authorized persons.
Expensive services or groups, respectively, can also be counted several times, groups of free services may not be counted and groups of advertising services can be counted negatively (i.e. be credited as a bonus). It is also possible, by means o

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