Telephonic communications – With usage measurement – Call traffic recording or monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-30
2002-08-06
Nguyen, Duc (Department: 2743)
Telephonic communications
With usage measurement
Call traffic recording or monitoring
C379S111000, C379S112030, C379S112040, C379S134000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06430278
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to subscriber's busy hour detection system and device and, more particularly, to subscriber's busy hour detection system and device for detecting a time when subscribers most frequently use communication lines in a telecommunication system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a telecommunication system such as a telephone network, for the maintenance and management of the system, it is necessary to observe traffic (the amount or the number of calls) on a subscriber basis to know a time zone when subscribers most frequently use communication lines, that is, subscriber's busy hour (hereinafter, simply referred to as busy hour). In a case, for example, where a person in charge of maintenance should turn off a subscriber's control circuit accommodated in an electronic exchange for the purpose of maintenance, conducting such operation so as to prevent a subscriber's busy hour in advance enables effects of the operation on subscribers to be minimized.
Knowing such subscriber's busy hour as mentioned above is also indispensable for providing various kinds of services including subscriber's auditing service. By picking up subscribers whose calling rate of subscriber is high and collecting and considering their detailed data, for example, useful keys to the provision of various services can be obtained. It is therefore necessary to detect subscriber's busy hour by any method or other.
For detecting such subscriber's busy hour as described above, selecting as many subscribers to be observed as possible and observing their calling conditions at the same time is important in order to obtain more precise data. Selection of subscribers to be observed is conventionally the responsibility of a person conducting maintenance, and the maintenance staff arbitrarily selects a subscriber to be observed and observes the subscriber's calling condition.
Selecting too many subscribers to be observed, however, gives a burden on an electronic exchange to reduce its processing capacity, so that the number of subscribers to be observed which can be selected is as a matter of course limited.
In conventional subscriber's busy hour detection systems, because subscriber's busy hour is detected by observing the limited number of subscribers to be observed, it is difficult to obtain detailed data which reflects subscribers' patterns of behavior whose life style has been diversified in recent years.
More specifically, since subscribers' life styles used to be substantially uniform and within a day, subscriber's busy hour used to be substantially fixed (e.g. 10 o'clock in the morning and 2 o'clock in the afternoon), observing target subscribers could obtain approximately accurate results. Under such circumstances, busy hour could be handled uniformly for each subscriber.
However, in recent years when life style has been so diversified that a behavior pattern irrespective of day and night is not unusual, subscribers' behavior patterns can not be applied to a fixed time frame, which makes it impossible to handle busy hour of each subscriber uniformly that has been possible before. It is therefore demanded to detect subscriber's busy hour and obtain detailed data from a wider viewpoint.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is, in view of the above-described situations, to provide subscriber's busy hour detection system and device enabling detailed data to be obtained which reflects subscribers' behavior patterns whose life styles have been diversified in recent years.
According to the first aspect of the invention, a subscriber's busy hour detection system for observing traffic of a subscriber of a communication line in a telecommunication system to detect a subscriber's busy hour, comprises
a first step of setting a first observation period with respect to each of a plurality of subscribers to be observed and comparing the number of calls of each subscriber stored in a first counter within a specific first time zone in the first observation period with a first threshold value set in advance to select a subscriber whose the number of calls exceeds the first threshold value as a target whose traffic within a second time zone shorter than the first time zone is to be observed,
a second step of setting a second observation period after the first observation period with respect to each of the plurality of selected subscribers to be observed and comparing the number of calls of each subscriber stored in a second counter within specific the second time zone in the second observation period with a second threshold value set in advance to select a subscriber whose the number of calls exceeds the second threshold value as a target whose traffic within a third time zone shorter than the second time zone is to be observed, and
a third step of setting a third observation period after the second observation period with respect to each of the plurality of selected subscribers to be observed and storing the number of calls of each subscriber within the third time zone in a third counter.
According to the second aspect of the invention, a subscriber's busy hour detection system for observing traffic of a subscriber of a communication line in a telecommunication system to detect a subscriber's busy hour, comprises
a first step of setting a plurality of observation days as a first observation period with respect to each of a plurality of subscribers to be observed and storing the number of calls of each of the subscribers on each observation day in a day counter, and comparing the number of calls in the day counter with a day threshold value preset in advance to select a subscriber whose the number of calls exceeds the day threshold value as a target whose per hour traffic is to be observed,
a second step of setting a plurality of observation days as a second observation period after the first observation period with respect to each of the plurality of selected subscribers to be observed and storing the number of calls of each of the subscribers in each hour on each observation day in an hour counter, and comparing the number of calls in the hour counter with an hour threshold value set in advance to select a subscriber whose the number of calls exceeds the hour threshold value as a subscriber whose per unit of minutes traffic is to be observed, and
a third step of setting a plurality of observation days as a third observation period after the second observation period with respect to each of the plurality of selected subscribers to be observed and storing the number of calls of each of the subscribers in each unit of minutes on each observation day in a unit of minutes counter.
In the preferred construction, at the first step, used as the number of calls in the day counter to be compared with the day threshold value is a mean value per day of the plurality of observation days as the first observation period.
In another preferred construction, at the second step, used as the number of calls in the hour counter to be compared with the hour threshold value is a mean value per hour in the total hours of the plurality of observation days as the second observation period.
In another preferred construction, at the first step, used as the number of calls in the day counter to be compared with the day threshold value is a mean value per day of the plurality of observation days as the first observation period, and at the second step, used as the number of calls in the hour counter to be compared with the hour threshold value is a mean value per hour in the total hours of the plurality of observation days as the second observation period.
In another preferred construction, the subscriber's busy hour detection system further comprising in place of the third step:
a fourth step of setting a plurality of observation days as a third observation period after the second observation period with respect to each of the
NEC Corporation
Nguyen Duc
Whitham Curtis & Christofferson, P.C.
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