Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-16
2001-11-06
Hunter, Daniel (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S427000, C455S430000, C455S432300, C455S433000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06314288
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to telecommunications networks, and in particular to the automatic location update for messaging in a global telecommunications network.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
With the development of a global economy, business persons who regularly travel to other countries are a fast growing breed. To meet their needs, satellite-based global telecommunications networks are being developed. The first such network was commercially activated by Iridium LLC on Nov. 1, 1998. These networks provide international wireless phone, paging, fax, and data services. Often a subscriber will have both a network wireless subscriber unit, such as a wireless phone, and a network pager. Whenever a network subscriber roams outside of his local delivery area with his pager, the subscriber must manually update his location, typically by calling in and giving his current location. The location is conventionally a code which represents a particular geographic area in which the subscriber plans to roam. When a page is to be sent to a subscriber, the signal is sent to this entire geographic area. This manual updating is time consuming for the subscriber. If the subscriber forgets to update his location or enters the wrong location code, then he will miss pages. Also, to achieve a high probability of reaching the subscriber's pager, the pager signal is sent to the entire geographic area since the subscriber could be anywhere within that area. This means that the area paged is often larger than is necessary to reach the pager, resulting in inefficient use of network resources.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a method for an automatic location update for network paging. The method should include error management to improve reliability. It should also save subscribers time, reduce the number of missed pages, and result in a more efficient use of network resources. The present invention addresses such a need.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method for updating a location of a subscriber for paging in a global telecommunications network where the subscriber has both a wireless subscriber unit and a pager. The method includes obtaining a first current location for the wireless subscriber unit, attempting to update a second current location for the pager based upon the first current location; updating the second location based upon a default location if the attempt fails. In the preferred embodiment, the second current location is updated based upon the first current location if the attempt is successful. The method of the present invention bundles a subscriber's wireless subscriber unit number with his pager number and uses the wireless subscriber unit's current location to determine the first delivery area for a page. When an error occurs, the method uses a default delivery area and attempts delivery there. By managing errors in this manner, message delivery is more reliable. This method also saves the subscriber time which he would otherwise spend manually updating his position. It eliminates the problem where the subscriber misses pages when he forgets to update his location or enters the wrong location code. It has the added advantage of reducing the number of location delivery areas in the delivery list which results in more efficient use of network resources.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5404569 (1995-04-01), Schwendeman et al.
patent: 5797097 (1998-08-01), Roach, Jr. et al.
patent: 6070050 (2000-05-01), Penny, Jr.
patent: 6073012 (2000-06-01), Vanden Heuvel et al.
patent: 6128487 (2000-10-01), Wiedeman
Hunter Daniel
Iridium IP LLC
Pepper Hamilton LLP
Zewdu Meless
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