Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Special service
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-01
2001-05-08
Chang, Vivian (Department: 2682)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Special service
C455S436000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06230005
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to cellular communication systems, and more particularly to an overlay to an existing cellular switching structure to provide post-second generation services without the need to make modifications or updates to the existing infrastructure.
2. Description of Related Art
The demand by consumers all over the world for mobile communications continues to expand at a rapid pace and will continue to do so for at least the next decade. Over 100 million people were using a mobile service by the end of 1995, and that number is expected to grow to 300 million by the year 2000. Several factors are contributing to the exciting growth in the telecommunications industry. For example, a combination of technology and competition bring more value to consumers. Phones are smaller, lighter, had a longer battery life, and are affordable now for the mass market. Operators are providing excellent voice quality, innovative services, and roaming across the country or world. Most important, mobility is becoming less expensive for people to use. Around the world, as well as in the United States, governments are licensing additional spectrum for new operators to compete with traditional cellular operators. Competition brings innovation, new services, and lower prices for consumers.
For cellular telephony to continue its spectacular growth, it must handle more subscribers per base station and higher-bandwidth services. Toward that end, the industry's third technology generation (3G) is envisioned as a move beyond voice-only terminals to information communicators that will pass images and data.
Europe's Universal Mobile Telecommunications Standard (UMTS) is the follow-on to the second-generation Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) digital cellular standard. The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is intended to provide a worldwide standard for personal mobile communications with the mass-market appeal and quality of wireline services. Over recent years, digital cellular technologies, such as GSM, have led the way towards personal communications, making mobile communications available to millions of users all around the world at reasonable cost. But to match the UMTS vision, a communications system must include support for flexible bearer and bandwidth-on-demand services for local (indoor) environments and for wide area coverage; a variety of mixed traffic types and relevant charging capability for mobile multimedia applications; customized services, service creation environments and service flexibility using, for example, intelligent network (IN) tools; and wideband wireless local loop (WLL) enhancement to the fixed network.
However, the wireless market in the United States is not as settled. For example, there are efforts to pursue a third-generation mobile standard based on the CDMA-One air interface.
Accordingly, any post-second generation air interface, e.g., a post-second generation (3G) air interface, must provide high speed packet data and second generation services as a subset of the post-second generation services. Herein post-second generation will be used to referred to any type of entity that is developed and implemented after the second generation entities.
As operators are forced to implement post-second generation infrastructure, second generation switching infrastructure must be modified or replaced to support the new services such as high speed packet data. Still, the framework of the existing infrastructure may not be optimal for support of post-second generation services, and practically, the operator may have to stay with the same switch supplier.
It can be seen that there is a need for a method and system that preserves second generation switching while providing post-second generation services.
It can also be seen that there is a need for an overlay to existing switching infrastructure to provide post-second generation services without requiring modifications or updating to the existing infrastructure.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To overcome the limitations in the prior art described above, and to overcome other limitations that will become apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, the present invention discloses an overlay to an existing cellular switching structure to provide post-second generation services without the need to make modifications or updates to the existing infrastructure.
The present invention solves the above-described problems by providing a method and system that preserves second generation switching while providing post-second generation services.
A system in accordance with the principles of the present invention includes a post-second generation infrastructure for providing processing of post-second generation communication services, a first interface manager, coupled to the post-second generation infrastructure, for providing an access interface to a base station subsystem and processing base station subsystem signaling based upon a type of service and a type of call flow associated with the received signaling from the base station subsystem, and a second interface manager, coupled to the post-second generation infrastructure, for providing an inter-system interface to a signaling network and processing inter-system signaling between the signaling network, the first interface manager, the existing switching infrastructure and the post-second generation infrastructure.
Other embodiments of a system in accordance with the principles of the invention may include alternative or optional additional aspects. One such aspect of the present invention is that the first interface manager comprises an access interface manager, the access interface manager outputting access interface signaling based on base station subsystem signaling received from the base station subsystem according to a type of service and a type of call flow associated with the received base station subsystem signaling.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the access interface manager further comprises a base station subsystem manager and a protocol interworking manager.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the second interface manager further comprises an inter-system interface manager.
Yet another aspect of the present invention is that the post-second generation infrastructure further comprises a general packet radio service system including a packet handoff manager and a serving general packet radio service support node.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the post-second generation infrastructure further comprises a gateway general packet radio service support node coupled to the serving general packet radio service support node.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the inter-system signaling comprises access interface signaling for the access interface manager, post-second generation signaling for the post-second generation switching infrastructure, existing switch signaling for the existing switching infrastructure, and signaling network signaling for the signaling network.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the existing switching infrastructure comprises a mobile switching center and a visitor location register.
Still another aspect of the present invention is that the existing switching infrastructure further comprises a home location register coupled to the second interface.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the home location register provides administrative information and the current location of each registered subscriber accessing the existing switching infrastructure in the network.
Another aspect of the present invention is that the call flows comprise, among others, registration signal flows, mobile origination call flows and hard handoff signal flows.
These and various other advantages and features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed hereto and form a part hereof. However, for a better understanding of the i
Hsu Liangchi (Alan)
Länsisalmi Atte
Le Khiem
Altera Law Group LLC
Chang Vivian
Mehrpour N.
Nokia Telecommunications OY
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