Private multiplexing cellular network

Details Private multiplexing cellular network Private multiplexing cellular network

1999-10-22

2004-12-07

Trinh, Sonny (Department: 2685)

Telecommunications

Radiotelephone system

Zoned or cellular telephone system

C455S422100, C455S435100, C455S560000, C455S552100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06829477

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to apparatuses and methods for implementing mobile communication. More particularly, the present invention relates to a novel private multiplexing cellular network, as well as components therefor, that advantageously offers cellular coverage to private cellular phone sets, i.e., private mobile stations (MS's), public cellular phone sets, i.e., public mobile stations (MS's), and hybrid private-public cellular phone sets, i.e., hybrid mobile stations (MS's) in a seamless manner. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the coverage area under control of the private radio subsystem can be used by private MS's (and hybrid MS's in certain predefined circumstances) as if it is part of the private network, and by the public MS's (and hybrid MS's in certain other predefined circumstances) as if it is part of the public network.
Mobile communication is known in the art. One limited form of mobile communication involves prior art cordless phones. In the prior art cordless phone system, each cordless phone set typically comprises a base unit and a cordless unit. The base unit, typically located inside a residence or a business office, is usually coupled physically by copper wires or fiber optics to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). To uniquely identifies it in the public network, each cordless phone set is specifically associated with a telephone number.
Further, each cordless phone's base unit is specifically associated with its cordless unit and communicates therewith in a wireless manner. As long as a user of the prior art cordless unit stays within the limited range of the associated base unit (under a quarter mile in most cases due to technical limitations inherent in cordless technology), calls may be made to and from the public network in a wireless manner.
However, the prior art cordless phone has some significant disadvantages. Besides the limited range, the prior art cordless technology is limited in the number of cordless units that a base unit can support. Typically one, no more than two, handset is provided per base unit in the prior art cordless phone. Because of this limitation, a telephone service provider must still run wires, either along telephone poles or in trenches, to each residence or business to enable telephone service, whether or not cordless. Therefore, although the cordless unit appears mobile to the user, the network that is required to implement this service is still essentially a wired telephone network.
Users'demand for mobile communication services, as well as the increasing costs of building and maintaining a wired telephone infrastructure, has turned many service providers to other wireless technologies for answers. Among existing technologies, cellular technology has emerged the clear leader in term of market penetration. In particular, cellular phone systems using a standard known as Global Systems for Mobile Communication (GSM) has steadily gained popularity among service providers as the system of choice for implementing cellular service. The popularity of the GSM standard stems from its robustness and its ability to support a rich set of features such as world-wide roaming, phone mail, data services, supplemental services, and the like. Information regarding the GSM standard is widely available in the public domain, some of which are cited in Appendix B herein.
For illustration purposes,
FIG. 1
illustrates a representative prior art public cellular communication system. For illustration purposes, a cellular communication system for use with the Global Systems for Mobile Communication (GSM) protocol is shown in FIG.
1
. Referring to
FIG. 1
, there are shown four mobile station units (MS), also known as cellular handsets,
150
,
152
,
154
, and
156
, which communicate to an antenna subsystem
158
. As is known to those familiar with the GSM protocol, MS's
150
-
156
typically communicate with antenna subsystem
158
via a radio link (RL) protocol. As is known, the radio link (RL) protocol is a LAPD-M protocol at GSM layer
2
and is defined by standard GSM 08.58.
Antenna subsystem
158
couples to transceiver units (TRX)
160
and
162
of base transceiver station (BTS) unit
164
as shown. Each of TRX's
160
-
162
outputs bearer data, which may be 8 Kbits per second (Kbps) or 16 Kbps (GSM) time division multiplexed (TDM) data representing, for example, voice conversations, facsimile, digital data, and the like. A TRX also outputs signaling information which is packet information that is forwarded either to antenna subsystem
158
for transmitting to the MS's or to a base station control function (BCF)
166
for communicating with a base station controller (BSC) or a mobile services switching center (MSC). The mobile services switching center (MSC) will be discussed later herein.
From the GSM point of view, each of MS's
150
-
156
contains hardware and software that can handle from its end functions such as radio resources control (RR), mobility management (MM), call control (CC), short message service (SMS), and supplemental services (SS). Base control function (BCF)
166
is coupled to a transcoder-rate adapter unit (TRAU)
168
for switching between either 8 Kbps or 16 Kbps to 64 Kbps TDM data before being passed on to the BSC. A transcoder-rate adapter unit (TRAU) is used for performing rate adaptation, or voice transcoding, between MS units communicating at different rates.
TRAU unit
168
is coupled to an E1 module
170
of BTS unit
164
. E1 module
170
represents the means by which BTS unit
164
can communicate with a base station controller (BSC) unit
172
. In one embodiment, E1 module
170
represents a 2.048 Mbits signaling wired interface that is channelized into 64K bits channels. BCF
166
represents a CPU module that runs the software to handle provisioning of the TRAU or E1 resources at the request of base station controller (BSC)
172
.
In the prior art, BTS unit
164
is essentially a “dumb” subsystem that operates responsive to commands from BSC unit
172
. For example, when BSC
172
first powers up, it will configure BTS unit
164
via a link
174
by down loading the configuration data across link
174
. Link
174
represents the terrestrial link that carries the TDM data between BTS unit
164
and BSC unit
172
, typically using an interface known as Abis.
A BSC unit may have multiple E1 modules for communicating with multiple BTS's. For example, BSC unit
172
is shown having 3 E1 modules
176
,
178
, or
180
for communicating with 3 or more BTS's. Furthermore, although BTS
164
shows only two transceiver units
160
and
162
for illustration purposes, it should be understood that a typical BTS unit may have any number of transceiver units.
Functionally speaking, the job of BSC unit
172
is radio resource (RR) control. It manages certain requirements regarding the status and location of the mobile stations and details regarding how to communicate with the mobile stations in the appropriate modulation scheme. In this manner, BSC unit
172
helps to hide this level of detail from any components upstream, e.g., mobile services switching center (MSC)
182
or the public network that is upstream from MSC
182
. BSC unit
172
also handles power control. BSC unit
172
directs BTS unit
164
and a transceiver unit therein to increase or decrease its transmission power from a handset to improve transmission quality.
Furthermore, BSC unit
172
also monitors handset communication quality to prepare for power handovers, e.g., when one of the handsets roams among the different areas controlled by different BTS's. When a hand-over is eminent, BSC unit
172
further initiates the hand-over. The intra-BSC hand-over of the prior art ensures that communication for a single circuit between a given mobile station and MSC unit
182
remains uninterrupted during handover.
BSC unit
172
further includes processor
184
for handling the aforementioned radio resourc

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