Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Emergency or alarm communication
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-10
2001-11-06
Kincaid, Lester G. (Department: 2682)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Emergency or alarm communication
C455S421000, C455S456500, C455S561000, C455S063300
Reexamination Certificate
active
06314282
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a base station for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of mobile terminals of a wireless cellular telecommunication system, to a method for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of mobile terminals of a wireless cellular telecommunication system and to a mobile terminal for a wireless cellular telecommunication system.
In many areas the use of mobile terminals of wireless telecommunication systems is regarded as a nuisance for other people, like in restaurants or in the opera, or even dangerous in places like hospitals or airplanes. In the first case particularly audible signals output from mobile terminals are disturbing other people or the spectacle being given. In the second case, the use of mobile terminals, particularly the transmission of high frequency electromagnetic waves, can disturb other electronic devices or the like by interfering with their circuitry what can lead to severe incidents. It is therefore very important to provide a way to protect predetermined areas from disturbing usage of mobile terminals within these areas. Particularly, the protection of a predetermined area should not depend on the user's will, e.g. on a user's input of information to the mobile terminal.
EP 0 891 110 A1 discloses a method and a system for preventing a mobile terminal from causing disturbance within a predetermined area, e.g. inside a plane or inside of hospitals. Particularly, the disclosed method comprises the steps of transmitting a deactivation signal from a base station to a mobile terminal and deactivating a use of the output of the mobile terminal in response to the deactivation signal. Thereby, the transmission output is deactivated. The base station can either be an ordinary base station or a base station specifically designed for mainly transmitting the deactivation signal. Although EP 0 891 110 A1 describes, that the base station could be an ordinary base station, it is not disclosed how the deactivation signals could be implemented and transmitted in an ordinary telecommunication system.
The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a base station and a method for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of mobile terminals of a wireless cellular telecommunication system, which protects a predetermined area by transmitting mode change information for changing an operation mode of the mobile terminals in a simple and effective way, whereby the mode change information is transmitted on the basis of a wireless cellular telecommunication system. The object of the present invention is further to provide a mobile terminal for a wireless cellular telecommunication system, which can be controlled by such mode change information so that the predetermined area is protected from disturbing use of the mobile terminal.
The above object is achieved by a base station for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of mobile terminals of a wireless cellular telecommunication system, with generating means for generating mode change information for changing an operation mode of the mobile terminals to protect the predetermined area, and transmitting means for transmitting said generated mode change information within said predetermined area by means of a paging message of a paging channel of a wireless telecommunication system.
The above object is further achieved by a method for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of mobile terminals of a wireless cellular telecommunication system, with the steps of generating mode change information for changing an operation mode of the mobile terminals to protect the predetermined area, and transmitting said generated mode change information within said predetermined area by means of a paging message of a paging channel of a wireless telecommunication system. According to the present invention, the paging message from the base station comprises, consists of or relates to mode change information for changing an operation mode of the mobile terminal. Thus, the base station and the method for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of mobile terminals of a wireless cellular telecommunication system enable a simple and effective way to change the operation mode of mobile terminals within the predetermined area automatically so that the predetermined area is protected.
The base station of the present invention can thereby be an ordinary base station of the wireless cellular telecommunication system which additionally to its usual elements comprises the generating means and the transmitting means according to the present invention whereby the transmitting means also transmits normal signalling messages or user data information of the telecommunication system. Alternatively, the base station of the present invention is a specialised base station with a restricted functionality compared to an ordinary base station. Depending on the required application, the specialised base station could comprise essentially the generating means and the transmitting means according to the present invention without further elements for communicating data in the telecommunication system. This last possibility would present a very simple and cost-effective way to protect certain areas according to the present invention.
The above object is further achieved by a mobile terminal for a wireless cellular telecommunication system, with transmitting and receiving means for transmitting information to and receiving information from base stations of said telecommunication system and for receiving mode change information transmitted from a base station by means of a paging message of a paging channel of the wireless telecommunication system for protecting a predetermined area from disturbing usage of the mobile terminal, and control means for detecting received mode change information and changing an operation mode of the mobile terminal depending on the received mode change information so that said predetermined area is protected.
The wireless cellular telecommunication system can be any known or future system using paging messages in a broadcast control channel. After switching on a mobile terminal within a cell of a telecommunication system, the mobile terminal registers with the corresponding network through the base station of the cell. After a successful registration the mobile terminal listens to the paging channel of this base station in order to be able to react on incoming phone calls. According to the present invention, the paging messages of the paging channel are used for the transmission of mode change information to protect a predetermined area.
The predetermined area is thereby the restricted area, in which the particular base station transmits the mode change information. e.g., such a predetermined area could be a hospital or a small area around the boarding gate of an airport or inside a plane.
The advantage of the described invention is that it does not rely on peoples responsibility to switch off their phones, but that it will perform this automatically. This will provide much higher safety to the areas to be protected. Furthermore the mode change information is not only broadcast to each phone within the cell site, which makes sure that each mobile terminal supporting the mode change functionality will be reached and prevented from disturbing usage; but it also provides the possibility to address individual phones to prevent them from disturbing usage. However, it will still be possible to exempt mobile terminals from groups of people, e.g. security personnel, from mode change, so that these can still utilise the communication tools provided by mobile telephony. A further advantage is that the described invention will only require a very small upgrade to existing systems and therefore additional investment in infrastructure is not necessary. All the described areas can be performed by changes to the software of the infrastructure. The impact on mobile terminals is also kept to a minimum in order to avoid any major impa
Weber Matthias
Winkler Gregor
Frommer William S.
Frommer & Lawrence & Haug LLP
Kincaid Lester G.
Sony International (Europe) GmbH
LandOfFree
Transmitting group ID information to exclude a group of... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Transmitting group ID information to exclude a group of..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Transmitting group ID information to exclude a group of... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2595501