Telecommunications – Transmitter and receiver at same station – Radiotelephone equipment detail
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-20
2001-11-06
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Transmitter and receiver at same station
Radiotelephone equipment detail
C455S509000, C455S566000, C370S329000, C348S014010, C348S014020
Reexamination Certificate
active
06314302
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method for supporting multimedia services via a radio interface between a mobile telecommunication system with radio-oriented transceiver apparatuses and a mobile terminal device with radio-oriented transceiver apparatuses, as well as a corresponding mobile telecommunication system and a corresponding mobile subscriber terminal device.
In telecommunication there is an increasing effort to enable universal personal telecommunication, which means that the services of a telecommunication system should be made available to a subscriber of such a system over as wide an area as possible. As a result, telecommunication systems with a radio interface or with a line-bound interface to subscriber terminal devices are subject to the demand of offering as many services as possible with suitable quality—also, in particular, for mobile subscribers via the air interface. Mobile communication systems comprise for example a radio interface to/from mobile stations of mobile radio subscribers, via which signaling signals and useful signals are transmitted. The signals are thereby produced at the transmit side and at the receive side, and are sent out by transceiver apparatuses of the telecommunication system or, respectively, of the mobile stations. For a supporting of multimedia services, such as for example video conferences, in telecommunication systems with radio interface there is the problem that the radio interface represents a bottleneck with respect to the transmission bandwidth. Its radio-oriented resources for signal transmission via air must thus be allocated very carefully and sparingly.
In addition, the mobile stations are relatively small and light, for which reason the possibilities for the display of images according to a multimedia service at the mobile terminal device are limited. For this reason, currently multimedia services are in any case offered in telecommunication networks with a line-bound interface, and up to now have not been supported by telecommunication systems with radio interface. Nonetheless, there already exist considerations relating to a prototype of a multimedia mobile terminal device—see “Mobile multimedia by MAVT—A starting point of many applications,” distributed at the RACE Mobile Telecommunications Summit, Lisbon, 22-24 November 1995 (publication date on the last page 08/95).
From European reference EP-0 619 679 A1, an arrangement and a system are known for a multi-local teleconference with several subscribers who communicate with one another exclusively via wire-bound terminal devices in a line-bound telecommunication system (e.g. ISDN network). The essential step of the known teleconference is thereby that a speech localization unit detects the speech signals of several subscribers at various locations, and an image combination unit combines the image signals of the speaking subscribers to form a resulting image signal. This resulting image signal enables the simultaneous display of images of all speaking subscribers at particular zones of the display screen of each wire-bound terminal device involved in the conference.
From the article “The enabling technology for multi-application domestic wireless systems,” PTR Philips Telecommunications Review 52 (1995) October, no. 4, pages 9 to 11, a DECT wireless system is known as a video conference system for “in-house” applications (domestic). The wireless system uses an air interface between a wireless base station and a wireless terminal device, but this is however not comparable with the radio interface of a mobile radio system with respect to the use and allocation of the radio-oriented resources for signal transmission. The wireless house videotelephone system has a limited range, whereby the DECT base station receives signals from the fixed network via a wire-bound videophone, and sends signals via the air interface to a television screen for the graphic display of the signals. This design can be used (e.g. as a DECT-based home security system) in situations in which videotelephones are not yet available.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is to indicate a method for supporting multimedia services via a radio interface, as well as a corresponding mobile telecommunication system and a corresponding mobile subscriber terminal device, by means of which the flexibility can be improved with respect to the transmission bandwidth in the use of multimedia services, with acceptable quality. In particular, the use of multimedia services via the air interface, which is critical with respect to the transmission bandwidth, is also to be enabled for the mobile radio subscribers of a mobile communication system.
Accordingly, in the inventive method, in the mobile telecommunication system N logical speech channels, with N>=2, are used for the transmission of the speech signals of N subscribers, and only M, with M<N, logical image channels, which are previously selected, are used for the transmission of the image signals of M subscribers. The mobile subscriber terminal device outputs to the subscriber the speech signals, received by the radio-oriented transceiver apparatuses, of the N subscribers, and displays to the subscriber the image signals, received by the transceiver apparatuses, of the M subscribers. In the simplest case M=1, which is also the most advantageous case with respect to the transmission bandwidth, it is thus necessary to select only one logical image channel for the transmission of the image signals of a single subscriber and to route this channel to the subscriber or, respectively, to the terminal device thereof via the interface, in addition to the N logical speech channels. In the case of application of a video conference, for example only the image of one subscriber is displayed at the mobile subscriber terminal device. In principle, the selection of several image channels (M>1) for the transmission of the image signals, and the display of the images of several subscribers of the multimedia service, is also possible. By means of the deliberate selection of one image channel or several image channels from a plurality of image channels, the transmission bandwidth required at the radio interface for the support of the multimedia services can be flexibly constructed and adapted to the existing transmission capacity of the interface. This has a particularly advantageous effect on the supporting of the multimedia service via a radio interface to/from the mobile subscriber terminal device of a radio subscriber, by which the multimedia service can thus be used despite the limited radio resources.
In mobile telecommunication systems, it has proven advantageous to select automatically the image channel that contains the image signals of the subscriber currently speaking. Alternatively to the automatic transmission and display of the image signals of the subscriber currently speaking, it is also advantageously possible to select an image channel for the transmission of the image signals of a particular subscriber or of a particular image segment, and to display the respective image signals, received via the radio interface, at the subscriber terminal device. For this purpose, the selection of the image segment, or of that subscriber whom the subscriber wishes to see at that moment, takes place via at least one user action initiated by the subscriber at the mobile subscriber terminal device.
For the activation of the user action, an actuation of one or more keys of an input means of the mobile subscriber terminal device or of a menu-type user interface of the subscriber terminal device takes place, in order to transmit the image of the desired subscriber in the image channel and to display it at the subscriber terminal device. For the selection of the image segment, the subscriber preferably uses an interactive input means of the subscriber terminal device, e.g. input controlling via a mouse.
For the exemplary case of application of the video conference as a multimedia service, the deliberate selection of one o
Ernst Detlef
Haferbeck Ralf
Schiff & Hardin & Waite
Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
Tran Congvan
Trost William
LandOfFree
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