Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-30
2001-03-27
Legree, Tracy (Department: 2681)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S404200, C705S014270, C701S213000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06208866
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to telecommunications systems and methods for transmitting marketing advertisements to mobile stations within a cellular network, and specifically to providing location-based marketing to mobile stations within a cellular network.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTS OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
Cellular telecommunications is one of the fastest growing and most demanding telecommunications applications ever. Today it represents a large and continuously increasing percentage of all new telephone subscriptions around the world. A standardization group, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), was established in 1982 to formulate the specifications for the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) digital mobile cellular radio system.
With reference now to
FIG. 1
of the drawings, there is illustrated a GSM Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN), such as cellular network
10
, which in turn is composed of a plurality of areas
12
, each with a Mobile 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
14
/
16
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 cellular network
10
, each other, and users outside the subscribed network, both wireline and wireless. The MS
20
may also include a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card, or other memory, which provides storage of subscriber related information, such as a subscriber authentication key, temporary network data, and service related data, such as language preference.
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
.
With further reference to
FIG. 1
, the PLMN Service Area or cellular 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 MSs
20
currently located within the MSC/VLR area
12
. If an MS
20
roams into a new MSC/VLR area
12
, the MSC
14
will request data about that MS
20
from the HLR database
26
(simultaneously informing the HLR
26
about the current location of the MS
20
) and store the data in the VLR
16
connected to that MSC
14
. 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 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
.
An Operation and Support System (OSS)
30
is connected to the HLR
26
, MSC
14
, VLR
16
and BSC
23
to provide customer cost-effective support for the centralized, regional and local operational and maintenance activities for the PLMN
10
. The main purpose of the OSS
30
is provide a network overview and support maintenance for the PLMN
10
.
In today's society, marketing companies use all kinds of data to market their products to target consumers. For example, the telephone companies sell their telephone listings to various telemarketing companies to enable them to perform direct marketing to consumers. The telephone listings typically contain the name of the person associated with the telephone number and the address of the person. There are currently products available in the market that can collect data from various listings and include this data with the telephone listings.
Cellular network operators also sell their telephone listing to telemarketing companies in order to provide an extra source of revenue. However, one additional piece of information which could be of great important to telemarketing companies is mobility information regarding mobile subscribers. This mobility information is currently not provided by the cellular network operators to the telemarketing companies.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to allow cellular network operators to collect and analyze mobility information regarding mobile subscribers and provide this mobility information to telemarketing companies to generate additional revenue.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to telecommunications systems and methods for collecting and analyzing mobility information regarding mobile subscribers and providing this mobility information to telemarketing companies to generate extra revenue for cellular network operators. A telemarketing application can define a target area, which includes a cell or a number of cells that are of interest for the telemarketing application, and include this defined target area in a mobility request to an Operation and Support System (OSS) within the cellular network. The OSS instructs Mobile Switching Centers (MSCs) within the target area to log the movement of each MS located in the target area and store this mobility information in a Home Location Register (HLR) or Visitor Location Register (VLR). Once all the mobility information has been collected by the MSC's, the mobility information is passed onto the OSS, which can utilize filter parameters specified by the telemarketing application in order to generate tailored mobility information for the telemarketing application, which can provide this tailored mobility information to the telemarketing companies for use in targeteting specific MS's for telemarketing advertisements.
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patent: 5406271 (1995-04-01), Sonnendorfer et al.
patent: 5835861 (1998-11-01), Whiteside
patent: 5852775 (1998-12-01), Hidary
patent: 5919239 (1999-07-01), Fraker et al.
patent: 6097313 (2000-08-01), Takahashi et al.
patent: 6098048 (2000-08-01), Dashefsky et al.
patent: 6112074 (2000-08-01), Pinder
patent: 6154172 (2000-11-01), Piccionelli et al.
patent: 6154727 (2000-11-01), Karp et al.
patent: 6157841 (2000-12-01), Bolduc et al.
Bhatia Ranjit
Rouhollahzadeh Bagher
Ericsson Inc.
Jenkens & Gilchrist P.C.
Legree Tracy
LandOfFree
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