Wireless telecommunications system having airborne base station

Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system

Reexamination Certificate

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Details

C455S436000, C455S011100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06324398

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND
1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to telecommunications and more particularly to a wireless telecommunications system.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1
depicts a schematic diagram of a portion of a typical wireless telecommunications system designated generally as
10
. System
10
serves a number of wireless terminals
22
and
24
that are situated within a geographic area. System
10
comprises wireless switching center
12
that is connected to a number of base stations
14
i
and that is also coupled to local and long distance telephone networks
16
. Wireless switching center
12
is responsible for, among other things, routing or “switching” calls from and to wireless terminals or, alternatively, between a wireless terminal and a wireline terminal connected to wireless system
10
, via local and/or long distance telephone networks
16
.
The geographic area serviced by wireless system
10
is partitioned into a number of spatially distinct areas called cells. As depicted in
FIG. 1
, each cell
20
i
is schematically represented by a hexagon. In practice, however, each cell
20
i
usually has an irregular shape that depends, for example, on the topography of the terrain serviced by system
10
. Typically, each cell
20
i
contains a corresponding base station
14
i
. Base station
14
i
comprises antennas and radios to communicate with wireless terminals
22
and
24
. Each base station
14
i
also comprises transmission equipment to communicate with wireless switching center
12
.
In designing system
10
, engineers allocate a limited number of frequency channels to each base station
14
i
using well known techniques. Base stations
14
i
communicate with wireless terminals over these frequency channels. Thus, the number of base stations limits the potential capacity of system
10
for processing calls to and from wireless terminals.
As wireless telecommunications has increased in popularity, designers have developed techniques for increasing the capacity of these wireless telecommunications systems. One common technique is to reduce the size of each cell by “splitting” existing cells into multiple cells. Some designers have even suggested reducing the size of cells to provide so called “microcells” that service very small geographic regions.
The public has resisted use of microcells for several reasons. First, many people fear that electromagnetic radiation from base stations could cause health problems. Further, real estate in populated areas is typically expensive and accounts for about half the cost of the base station. Thus, it is a difficult and expensive proposition to split cells to increase capacity of a wireless telecommunications system.
SUMMARY
In an exemplary embodiment, a telecommunications system uses airborne platforms that are adapted to support wireless telecommunications systems components. The airborne platforms are maintained in position relative to the ground above a geographic region of the earth to which the wireless telecommunications service is to be provided.


REFERENCES:
patent: 2598064 (1952-05-01), Lindenblad
patent: 4697761 (1987-10-01), Long
patent: 5559865 (1996-09-01), Gilhousen
patent: 5565873 (1996-10-01), Dean
patent: 5625867 (1997-04-01), Rouffet et al.
patent: 5644572 (1997-07-01), Olds et al.
patent: 2082995 (1982-03-01), None
patent: WO 95/04407 (1995-02-01), None

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