Telecommunications – Transmitter and receiver at separate stations – Plural transmitters or receivers
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-15
2001-04-24
Vo, Nguyen T. (Department: 2682)
Telecommunications
Transmitter and receiver at separate stations
Plural transmitters or receivers
C455S434000, C455S466000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06223046
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and methods for informing requesting nodes that a terminal has become available, and more particularly, to a system and method for coordinating terminal availability notifications.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Cellular telecommunications is one of the fastest growing and most demanding telecommunications applications. Today it represents a large and continuously increasing percentage of all new telephone subscriptions around the world.
With reference now to
FIG. 1
of the drawings, there is illustrated a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), such as wireless network
10
, which in turn is composed of a plurality of areas
12
, each with a Mobile Services Switching Center (MSC)
14
and an integrated Visitor Location Register (VLR)
16
therein. The MSC/VLR areas
12
, in turn, include a plurality of Location Areas (LA)
18
, which are defined as that part of a given MSC/VLR area
12
in which a mobile station (MS)
20
may move freely without having to send update location information to the MSC/VLR area
12
that controls the LA
18
. Each Location Area
12
is divided into a number of cells
22
. Mobile Station (MS)
20
is the physical equipment, e.g., a car phone or other portable phone, used by mobile subscribers to communicate with the wireless network
10
, each other, and users outside the subscribed network, both wireline and wireless.
The MSC
14
is in communication with at least one Base Station Controller (BSC)
23
, which, in turn, is in contact with at least one Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
24
. The BTS
24
is the physical equipment, illustrated for simplicity as a radio tower, that provides radio coverage to the geographical part of the cell
22
for which it is responsible. It should be understood that the BSC
23
may be connected to several BTSs
24
, and may be implemented as a stand-alone node or integrated with the MSC
14
. In either event, the BSC
23
and BTS
24
components, as a whole, are generally referred to as a Base Station System (BSS)
25
. It should be noted that the BSC
23
functionality can be included within the MSC
14
, instead of being implemented as a separate node as shown in FIG.
1
.
With further reference to
FIG. 1
, the PLMN Service Area or wireless network
10
includes a Home Location Register (HLR)
26
, which is a database maintaining all subscriber information, e.g., user profiles, current location information, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) numbers, and other administrative information. The HLR
26
may be co-located with a given MSC
14
, integrated with the MSC
14
, or alternatively can service multiple MSCs
14
, the latter of which is illustrated in FIG.
1
.
The VLR
16
is a database containing information about all of the Mobile Stations
20
currently located within the MSC/VLR area
12
. If an MS
20
roams into a new MSC/VLR area
12
, the VLR
16
connected to that MSC
14
will request data about that MS
20
from its home HLR database
26
(simultaneously informing the HLR
26
about the current location of the MS
20
). Accordingly, if the user of the MS
20
then wants to make a call, the local VLR
16
will have the requisite identification information without having to reinterrogate the home HLR
26
. In the aforedescribed manner, the VLR and HLR databases
16
and
26
, respectively, contain various subscriber information associated with a given MS
20
.
In some instances, the MS
20
may not respond to attempts to contact it for a variety of reasons, including being powered off, being in radio shadow, congestion, etc. If the MS
20
cannot be reached, the party or application trying to contact the MS
20
normally has to retry contacting the MS
20
after a period of time. An alternative to this is for the party or application to request the network
10
to notify it of when the MS
20
is known to be available, for example, at power on, location registration, or contact by another party. This request is normally made to a control point (not shown) in the network
10
which stores data indicating the address of the party or application who requires notification.
In GSM networks, notification to the requesting application of the availability of the MS
20
normally occurs in the situation where a Short Message Service Center (SMS-C) (not shown), which has unsuccessfully attempted to deliver a short message to the MS
20
, requests the HLR
26
to send an “Alert” message to the SMS-C when the MS
20
becomes available. If more than one SMS-C is requesting an “Alert” message, timers can be implemented within the network
10
to coordinate the alert procedures.
However, there are many other types of applications being developed that also need to know when an MS
20
becomes available, such as voice mail call-back, call completion, and e-mail delivery. In order to allow all the requesting applications to contact the MS
20
, a management procedure needs to be implemented to notify the requesting applications in a coordinated fashion of when they can attempt to contact the MS
20
. The timers currently utilized for coordinating SMS “Alert” messages do not allow for the different time needs for various types of nodes and applications.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for coordinating terminal availability notifications for a variety of requesting nodes and applications.
It is a further object of the present invention to allow requesting nodes and applications to have a priority notification associated therewith in order to allow a control node to prioritize the notification requests.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a timer value for each priority associated with the requesting applications, in which each timer value corresponds to the amount of time needed for a requesting application to complete its communication function toward the terminal.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to telecommunications systems and methods for coordinating requests by nodes and applications for notification about when a mobile terminal becomes available, in order to allow each requesting node and application to contact the mobile terminal in a logical order without burdening the system with numerous simultaneous contact attempts by the various requesting nodes and applications. When attempts to contact a mobile terminal directly by different nodes and/or applications are unsuccessful, a control node, such as a Home Location Register (HLR) or a Service Control Point (SCP) within an Intelligent Network (IN), can receive notification requests from these nodes or applications and prioritize them according to the time received and/or the priority of each requesting node or application. Thus, priorities between different applications can be set and intervals between notifications can be controlled to values appropriate for the requesting applications, in order to provide an efficient and effective system and method for coordinating notification requests. Therefore, applications which have requested notification are less likely to meet congestion following notification.
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Björk Petri
Hamill-Keays Jeremy
Appiah Charles N.
Jenkens & Gilchrist P.C.
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
Vo Nguyen T.
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