Method and apparatus for routing short messages

Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Auxiliary data signaling

Reexamination Certificate

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Details

C455S426100, C455S445000, C379S221140

Reexamination Certificate

active

06308075

ABSTRACT:

COPYRIGHT NOTICE/PERMISSION
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and its interfaces as described below and in the drawing hereto: Copyright© 1998, ADC NewNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to mobile telephone systems, and more particularly to method and apparatus for routing short messages between multiple message centers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The Short Message Service for IS-41 (ANSI-41) mobile networks is defined in the ANSI/EIA/TIA standard starting with version C (also known as IS-41-C) (See ANSI/EIA/TIA Standard 41-D,
Cellular Radio
-
Telecommunications Intersystem Operations
, Electronics Industries Association, 1997) (“IS-41D Specification”). This document defines network entities called Mobile Centers (MCs) which are responsible for receiving, storing and forwarding short messages from and to Short Message Entities (SMEs). In most cases, these entities correspond to mobile handsets (MSs), and are formally defined as MS-based SMEs. In some cases, these SMEs can be based on the mobile center or other network nodes, and are known as fixed SMEs.
The underlying transport layer for IS-41 messages is usually SS7. The IS-41 entities in the SS7 network are addressed using Point Code/Subsystem Number (PC/SSN) identifiers. On the other hand, short messages are addressed using MINs (Mobile Identification Numbers) or DNs (Destination Numbers). corresponding to the telephone numbers of the mobile handset.
In general, the short message is delivered to an MC, which stores the message. The MC will attempt to deliver a message during a certain period. Since the destination may be temporarily unreachable (e.g., the subscriber's handset is out of range), the MC may attempt to deliver several times. The standard also allows one MC to forward the message to another MC, which will actually make the delivery.
The signaling procedures for standard MC interworking are specified in Section 6 of the IS-41D Specification. Section A4.46.6 MC Receiving and SMSDeliveryPointToPoint INVOKE@ describes in pseudo-code how a short message is treated by an MC. There are three actions that while mentioned are not specified:
1) How to determine if the original originating address is a SME homed to the local MC
10
(step
1
-
16
-
1
).
2) How to determine if the destination address is a SME homed to this MC
10
(step
1
-
17
-
1
).
3) How to determine where to forward the message (step
1
-
16
-
1
-
3
, referring to procedure 4.46.7).
Thus, the standard ([IS41D]) does not specify how to determine the home MC or how to route (that is, how to determine the PC/SSN address) a short message from one MC to another. In their book entitled
Mobile Telecommunication Networking with IS
-41, (McGraw-Hill, 1997), Michael D. Gallagher and Randall A. Snyder discuss the routing for forwarding the short message between two MCs. Their suggestions are fixed MIN-to-MC table (similar to the internal MC route table described below) or MIN-to-MC Global Title Translation (GTT). While Gallagher and Snyder describe how to do routing, they offer no solution for making the home MC determination.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One embodiment of the invention offers a flexible approach for determining whether a given subscriber is homed to the local MC. The combination of subscriber database profiles and default subscriber profiles allows the customer to implement schemes such as white-listing (only explicitly provisioned subscribers receive service), black-listing (all receive service except those explicitly disallowed in the database), or some combination.
In addition, one embodiment of the invention offers a flexible routing mechanism which allows a combination of point code and global title translation routing. Furthermore, the invention allows the customer to try to deliver a message directly if the forwarding fails (for instance of the destination's home MC is unknown or consistently unreachable).


REFERENCES:
patent: 5768509 (1998-06-01), Gunluk
patent: 5793752 (1998-08-01), Clarke et al.
patent: 5878397 (1999-03-01), Stille et al.
patent: 5887249 (1999-03-01), Schmid
patent: 5905958 (1999-05-01), Houde

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