Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-15
2003-08-26
Le, Thanh Cong (Department: 2684)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C340S990000, C701S200000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06611687
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications in general, and, more particularly, to a wireless telecommunications system.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1
depicts a schematic diagram of a portion of a known wireless telecommunications system, providing wireless telecommunications service to a number of wireless mobile units (e.g., wireless mobile units
101
-
1
through
101
-
3
) that are situated within a geographic region. The heart of a typical wireless telecommunications system is a wireless switching center (“WSC”)
120
. Typically, the WSC
120
is connected to a plurality of base stations (e.g., base stations
103
-
1
through
103
-
5
) that are dispersed throughout the geographic region serviced by the system and to the local and long-distance telephone and data networks (e.g., local-office
130
, local-office
138
and toll-office
140
). WSC
120
is responsible for, among other things, establishing and maintaining a call between a first wireless mobile unit and a second wireless mobile unit or, alternatively, between a wireless mobile unit and a wireline mobile unit (e.g., wireless mobile unit
150
), which is connected to the system via the local and/or long-distance networks.
The geographic region serviced by a wireless telecommunications system is partitioned into a number of spatially distinct areas called “cells.” As depicted in
FIG. 1
, each cell is schematically represented by a hexagon. In practice, however, each cell has an irregular shape that depends on the topography of the terrain surrounding the cell. Typically, each cell contains a base station, which comprises the radios and antennas that the base station uses to communicate with wireless mobile units in that cell and also comprises the transmission equipment that the base station uses to communicate with the WSC
120
. However, locating wireless mobile units within a cell was often difficult.
Prior art
FIG. 2
illustrates a base station
203
and the typical coverage area of a three sector antenna typically utilized on a base station
203
. Since the base station antenna typically has three sectors (which are typically
3
separate antennas), each of the three sectors covers about a
1200
area of the cell
205
. These three sectors, labeled
207
a
,
207
b
, and
207
c
each correspond to one of the three sector antennas of base station
203
.
When a wireless mobile unit
210
, shown being utilized in a car in
FIG. 2
for example, it is turned on, the nearest cell site or base station such as base station
203
becomes aware of its location in terms of antenna face or sector direction. Thus, the base station
203
is not only aware of wireless mobile unit
210
, but it is also aware that the wireless mobile unit
210
is within a particular sector of its coverage region, such as sector
207
a
. Hence, the base station
203
knows the approximate geographic location of wireless mobile unit
210
. This method of locating a wireless mobile unit
210
requires only one cell site or base station
203
, although the area covered by the sector could be quite large.
Prior art
FIG. 3
depicts a known triangulation technique for locating the wireless mobile unit
310
. Using this triangulation technique, three base stations
303
a
,
303
b
, and
303
c
are used to pinpoint the location of wireless mobile unit
310
. A propagation delay between the wireless mobile unit
310
sending a message to each of the three base stations
303
a
,
303
b
, and
303
c
is used to determine the distance to the wireless mobile unit
310
, such as distance X, distance Y and distance Z as shown in prior art FIG.
3
. Triangulation requires the cell sites to be synchronized to a reference clock so when the wireless mobile unit
310
contacts each of base stations
303
a
,
303
b
, and
303
c
, a time stamp of when the message was received is created. Then, the time stamps are compared and used to determine the exact location using radio wave propagation characteristics and some rudimentary mathematics. This method requires three cell sites for accurate positioning.
Further, global positioning systems (GPS) have recently been developed to the point where they are cheap to implement. Thus, such systems may soon be prevalent in wireless mobile units to determine the precise location thereof. In addition, in an area of wireless technology, assisted GPS is being developed to improve on normal GPS for position or location detection of wireless mobile units. In addition, other position determining systems are constantly being developed. Thus, with all these various ways being developed to locate a wireless mobile unit and to pinpoint the location of the wireless mobile unit, a need exists to create other uses for the location or position information of wireless mobile units.
Further, as wireless units, such as those in cars for example, travel from region to region a user might find information specific to the particular region to be quite useful. For example, weather warnings, traffic problems or other road problems, if received by the user, would allow the user to take appropriate action. Knowing about traffic accidents on major highways or roads closed for construction would enable the user to find an alternate route to avoid the problem. Thus, a need exists for getting region-specific information to a user.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a wireless telecommunication system or method that uses location or position information of a wireless mobile unit to enable the sending of messages to travelers. As it is determined that the wireless mobile unit has entered a designated region for example, information specific to the designated region is output for the wireless mobile unit (information which is eventually output to the wireless unit via a base station, for example). In another embodiment, information relating to a problem in a designated region is received; wireless mobile units located within the designated region are identified; and information related to the problem is output to the wireless mobile units located in the designated region. As such, information specific to that of a designated region is output to users within the region so that they can make use of the information in a timely manner.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5461390 (1995-10-01), Hoshen
patent: 5502757 (1996-03-01), Bales et al.
patent: 5559520 (1996-09-01), Barzegar et al.
patent: 5808566 (1998-09-01), Behr et al.
patent: 5818356 (1998-10-01), Schuessler
patent: 6249740 (2001-06-01), Ito et al.
patent: 6292743 (2001-09-01), Pu et al.
patent: 2001/0001848 (2001-05-01), Oshizawa et al.
patent: 97/41654 (1997-11-01), None
patent: WO-98/08314 (1998-02-01), None
“Activehome” website, Oct., 1999.
Clark Doug
DiPatri Nicholas James
Holmes Michael Andrew
Matsuevich Alex
Robinson Mathew John
Cong Le Thanh
Harry Andrew
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
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