Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Remote data accessing – Accessing a remote server
Reexamination Certificate
1999-01-15
2001-11-20
Vu, Viet D. (Department: 2154)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Remote data accessing
Accessing a remote server
C709S206000, C709S241000, C455S422100, C455S426100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06321257
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to digital mobile communication systems and more particularly to providing data service in a mobile communication system.
Mobile communication systems refer, in general, to different telecommunication systems providing personal wireless data transmission while subscribers roam the system area. A typical mobile communication system is the public land mobile network PLMN.
Besides conventional speech transmission, digital mobile communication systems provide a plurality of other services: short messages, facsimiles, data transmission, etc. Of these, the data transmission service, in particular, provides a mobile subscriber a chance of wireless access to nearly all data services of fixed networks.
The use of the Internet data network in fixed networks has increased very rapidly. As is well known, the Internet network actually comprises a large number of smaller interconnected networks. Data transmission in Internet is packet-switched in accordance with the TCP/IP protocol (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). The growing popularity of Internet is primarily due to a system called World Wide Web (WWW). The WWW system consists of servers in the Internet network and customer programs used by these servers, called WWW browsers. The information in the WWW servers is arranged into pages which are the basic units of the WWW technique, as whole pages are always transferred between a server and a browser. In addition to text, the page may also contain graphics and various other file types, such as voice and video. The pages used by the WWW technique are described with the HTML language (Hyper Text Mark-up Language). Information on text format, graphics, etc. is coded among the actual text contents by HTML tags. The browser program uses these tags to give a WWW page the desired format.
There is a connection between a WWW server and a user only during the transfer of a WWW page to a user. This means that when requesting a WWW page, a user sends a transfer request to a WWW server which sends the requested page back via the line. Transfer requests and WWW pages are transferred by the HTTP protocol (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). The receiver's browser program restores the WWW page received into the right form in accordance with the HTML language. A transferred WWW page is stored in the memory of the user's computer, the user being able to browse the page on his/her own screen. The addressing format of the Internet WWW servers is URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
Through the data transmission services of mobile communication systems, the numerous information sources of the Internet network are, in principle, available to mobile subscribers, too. However, the use of data transmission services typically requires a mobile station provided with data transmission properties, and a computer connected thereto. At present, mobile stations including an integrated computer, such as the Nokia Communicator, are available. However, these are relatively expensive alternatives and hence not suitable to occasional usage by an ordinary mobile subscriber.
The Internet network, however, offers numerous information sources which could be useful to an ordinary user, too. These could include e.g. flight, train, bus schedules, weather and traffic reports, telephone number and address information etc. At present, most of these services are free of charge and available to everybody. Internet is also commonly used in companies for internal services. Thus it would be advantageous to render the various information sources offered by Internet available to users of mobile stations without any data transmission facilities.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to retrieve information from the Internet network without the need to use the data transmission service of a mobile communication network, or a browser program of World Wide Web pages in a mobile equipment.
This is achieved with a method of accessing a data network in a digital mobile communication system providing short message service. The method is characterized by the steps of
transferring a short message including an identifier indicating a Word Wide Web (WWW) page in the Internet network from a mobile station over the mobile communication network to a short message service centre having access to the Internet network either directly or via a computer in connection with said service centre,
communicating towards the Internet network using the protocols of the Internet network and retrieving said WWW page indicated by said short message, or a part of said WWW page,
converting a relevant part of the contents of said WWW page into a short message,
sending the short message over the mobile communication network to the mobile station,
displaying the contents of the short message on the display of the mobile station.
The invention also relates to a short message service centre for a digital mobile communication system providing short message service, the short message service centre comprising: first means for accessing a mobile communication network for transferring short messages between the short message service centre and mobile stations, and second means for accessing a data network. The service centre is characterized in that
said data network is the Internet network,
said second means comprise means for retrieving Word Wide Web (WWW) pages from the Internet network using the protocols of the Internet network in response to a short message sent by a mobile station, the message either directly or indirectly indicating said WWW page, and that
the short message service centre further comprises means for converting the relevant part of the contents of the WWW page into a short message to be sent to the mobile station via the mobile communication network.
The invention further relates to an equipment for connecting the short message service centre of a digital mobile communication system to a data network. The equipment is characterized in that said data network is the Internet network, and that the equipment comprises
means for retrieving Word Wide Web (WWW) pages from the Internet network using the protocols of the Internet network in response to a short message sent by a mobile station to the short message service centre, the message indicating said WWW page, and
means for converting the relevant part of the contents of the WWW page into a short message to be sent to the mobile station via the short message service centre and the mobile communication network.
In the present invention, a mobile subscriber searches the Internet WWW pages for information by the aid of the short message service of the mobile communication network. For this purpose the short message service centre or other equipment in connection thereto is provided with access to the Internet network and uses HTML, HTTP, and TCP/IP protocols towards Internet. In addition, the short message service centre is connected to a mobile communication system in the usual manner such that short messages are transferred between the short message service centre and mobile stations in a manner defined for the mobile communication system.
When requiring information from an Internet WWW page, a mobile user sends to the service centre a short message including an identifier for directly or indirectly indicating said WWW page. Direct indication includes e.g. the address of the WWW page, URL. URL addresses are often quite long and hard to remember, and it is not always useful to transfer them to the service centre in a short message. In an embodiment of the invention, a mobile station sends, instead of an address, a short keyword indirectly indicating the desired WWW page. The short message service centre or said other equipment comprises a table for linking the keywords and the addresses of WWW pages.
Having received a short message, the short message centre or said other equipment contacts the desired WWW server via Internet, receives therefrom the WWW page and stores it.
The length of a short message is limi
Gustafsson Patrik
Kotola Sakari
Tarnanen Teemu
Nokia Telecommunications Oy
Pillsbury Wintrop LLP
Vu Viet D.
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