Multiplex communications – Communication over free space
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-24
2003-07-01
Kizou, Hassan (Department: 2662)
Multiplex communications
Communication over free space
C370S329000, C370S395510, C370S373000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06587441
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the transportation of data from one or more remote wireless terminals to one or more central hosts. It uses a system comprised of a managed, virtually constructed, wireless network and a communication protocol including a system of routing across unlike networks. The communication protocol is independent of the underlying physical network.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In the United States and Internationally, electronic commerce markets today are experiencing a fundamental shift from wired to wireless communications. This shift is being driven by the compelling economic advantage of wireless communication. Revenues can be increased through greater functionality and flexibility in remote terminal locations. The primary example used in this document is of financial institutions offering banking services to their customers by opening bank branches and deploying ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) at locations that allow them to reach their customers at sites remote from the main facility. Other industries also depend on secure, reliable data collection from remote locations including, but not limited to, security systems, health care, insurance, sales/service force management, and retail.
In the example of financial institutions, banking practice requires each ATM to communicate in real time with bank computers to confirm customer identities and associated banking privileges. This communication has heretofore been facilitated by increasingly costly and/or complex methods.
Initially the communication was done through the use of hard-wired methods. Leased Lines are expensive, take a long time to deploy, are maintenance heavy, and have no provision for redundancy unless more than one line is run. ISDN lines frequently require changes to the central host system and reprogramming and retraining of staff. ISDN lines have no ability to manage and monitor the remote terminal, have low reliability, unpredictable costs, inflexible transmission speeds and lower security of data. Dial-up telephone lines also require changes to the central host system, and carry disadvantages including the inability to manage and monitor the remote terminal, low reliability, unpredictable costs, slow transmission speeds and lower security. All of these hard-wired methods require coordination with multiple regional telephone companies simply to achieve national coverage. As today's industries grow into larger multi-regional or national entities, the hard-wired methods of connection of a remote terminal to the central host system become unmanageable and prohibitively expensive.
To reach terminals in more remote or transient locations, to more quickly deploy communications to remote terminals and to process more transactions, and to reduce the number of transactions lost due to communications failures, the communications path needs to be more reliable than ISDN, Dial-Up or Native Wireless communications. Greater reliability also allows for the implementation of an increased variety of transaction applications, as many of the new applications are more data-intense and require more reliable communications simply to succeed. Therefore, many industries including banking, turned to cellular communications, proprietary radio communications and satellite communications to deliver remote terminal communications. The ability to reach remote terminals in more remote or transient locations increased the number of terminals. Reaching terminals more quickly allowed remote users to be connected and productive sooner. Both contribute to larger transaction volumes. However, the native cellular, radio and proprietary communications technologies have associated problems.
Circuit switched cellular communications have the same problems as dial-up lines, including required changes to the central host system, inability to manage and monitor the remote terminal, lower reliability and security, unpredictable monthly costs and slow transaction speeds. In addition, circuit switched cellular communications are more expensive and less reliable than dial up due to the high pricing structure and the inherent unreliability of the cellular network. Finally, the cellular networks are regional or metropolitan based, with no single cellular network providing nationwide coverage for all types of protocols.
Proprietary radio communications share most of the problems of cellular communications. Proprietary radio offers lower monthly communication costs, but this is offset by the high start up cost associated with building the proprietary radio towers to establish communications. In addition, the ability to locate and or relocate a remote terminal site is limited by the proximity to the tower set up for communications.
Satellite communications offer nationwide coverage as opposed to the regional coverage offered by cellular or radio communications. Satellite communications typically offer network-like bandwidth. However, because satellite networks are often designed more for data transmission than for transaction processing, there are problems associated with processing transactions via satellite links. The latencies inherent in the data transmission based satellite network are frequently incompatible with the time delay tolerances set up by network transport protocols for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the transaction. These latencies are exacerbated as the system seeks to recover lost data.
In addition to the problems listed above with various communication devices and methods, the current standard protocols (e.g. TCP/IP, X.25, 3270, SNA/SDLC (Systems Network Architecture/Synchronous Data Link Control) and others) have additional problems that exacerbate their ability to transport data securely and reliably over the wireless network. Protocols define the rules of interaction between devices attached to the network. These standard protocols are limited in their effectiveness over the wireless networks because of inadequacies in working within time constraints, inadequacies in security, inability to communicate with dissimilar protocols and network topologies, and the unavailability of single, national network supporting CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data), GSM (Global System for Mobile communication), and G3 (generation 3) wireless protocols.
While there are national wireless networks available, BellSouth Intelligent Wireless Data Networks (BSWD Mobitex) is not compatible with other standard protocols used by older host systems, thus requiring expensive and extensive upgrading of the entire host system. The national wireless networks, Hughes network, Space net and BSWD Mobitex all share the problem of latencies in the network and reliability problems in actual use. Another wireless transport protocol, UDP/IP, has the additional problem of data loss during the communication process. None of the standard devices and methods of wireless data transportation have the ability to transition between different transport protocols or across different wireless networks.
Because many remote terminal applications are driven by host computers resident on older infrastructures, the host computers use different protocols than those supported by the wireless networks. In order for a wireless communication to get to the host computer, there must be a conversion from the wireless protocol to the host protocol. Even where an application is written to work on a wireless network, differences in the protocols supported by the different wireless networks render the communication ineffective on different wireless networks. For example, many of the current networks use the TCP/IP protocol, but the BSWD Mobitex system does not accept that method and has devised a separate protocol. Thus, an application written to communicate over TCP/IP would be ineffective over a BSWD Mobitex network. This limits the applicability of wireless networking to usability over a single communication network and forces the host to accept that network's limitations.
Previously, no combination of comm
Albert Adam
Barhorst Jeffrey
Edwards Herbert
Oltrogge Chris
Solomon Christopher C.
Greenberg & Traurig
Kizou Hassan
Levitan D
McQuade Paul F.
Technology Alternatives, Inc.
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