HK1053920B - Method for operating a cellular telecommunications network, and method for operating a personal cellular telecommunications device - Google Patents

Description

Method for operating a cellular telecommunications network and method for operating a personal cellular telecommunications device

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the operation of cellular telecommunications networks, and to personal cellular telecommunications devices.

Background

Global system for mobile communications (GSM) digital cellular telecommunications networks have been deployed in hundreds of countries along with wireline telecommunications networks. GSM supports so-called Short Message Service (SMS) functionality in two forms: point-to-point is used to send point-to-point messages (SMS/PP) from a network operator to a single personal cellular telecommunication device, while point-to-multipoint is used to send cell broadcast (SMS/CB) messages from a network operator to multiple personal cellular telecommunication devices within one or more cells. For more details on different classes of SMS messages, reference may be made to ETSI TS 100900 version 7.2(GSM03.38V7.2), the contents of which are incorporated by reference.

A method and apparatus for sending an SMS/CB display message to a user prompted to press a button in response to immediately initiate a telephone call or SMS/PP message to an embedded callback number is illustrated and described in WO98/10604 entitled "Interactive Cell Broadcast Service". One particular application of interactive cell broadcast services is for requesting a service which may thus be provided by a so-called over-the-air program. Each SMS/CB message is either displayed immediately upon receipt or on the entire display screen when requested by the user (see page 11, lines 27-29 of the specification). Both of these schemes severely limit the interactive cell broadcast service in terms of the rate at which SMS/CB messages are transmitted, as follows. From the user's point of view, the former would display the SMS/CB message immediately on the display, undesirably interrupting the operation of the device, and the user would tend to disable the service. In the latter case, storing SMS/CB messages requires considerable memory resources and requires the user to retrieve each SMS/CB message one by one (and then delete them one by one), which is time consuming and battery consuming.

Summary of The Invention

In general, the present invention is directed to streaming at least some interactive display messages of most diverse content on personal cellular telecommunications devices for the benefit of the user, since the user often only glances at the display screen of his personal cellular telecommunications device occasionally, e.g., at least at check time. The present invention may display point-to-point (PTP) display messages and point-to-multipoint (PTMP) display messages, but if PTP display messages and PTMP display messages are transmitted simultaneously on respective air interface channels, the former display message will typically have a higher display priority than the latter, so that they are displayed preferentially.

The intent of displaying a message is to have most of the different content in the form of alphanumeric messages, graphical messages, video clips, etc., including, inter alia, news items, financial information, promotional product offers, etc. Although some display messages are repeated on a periodic basis in nature, such as a display message of a soft drink advertisement, the terms are largely different and are used to express: the same display message is not displayed for say a continuous time interval (e.g. 1-5 minutes). At least some display messages are defined to be interactive in the sense that the user can automatically activate the point-to-point transmission response mechanism from a dedicated response means provided integrally in the display message. The presence of the dedicated response means need not be indicated to the user on the display message but can be understood by him as being of course available. The response mechanism may be button activated, voice activated, or touch pad activated. In the case of button activated response means, each response means may be a dedicated "more info" key, or a key that is selectively dedicated to the response means but is otherwise a conventional key, e.g. a "more info" key may appear in the displayed message, e.g. "more info, please press a" key ". The display messages are preferably based on so-called 24/7, i.e. sent at a maximum rate of new display messages, i.e. 24 hours per day, approximately every 5 seconds, 7 days per week, thus enabling, on the one hand, the eye of interest to capture the traffic of the flowing display messages, but, on the other hand, still providing the user with sufficient response time to activate the response mechanism. It is apparent that the display messages may be sent at a lower rate, say down to about every 2 minutes or down to about every 5 minutes, and for a shorter period of time, say only one hour during a peak period of the broadcast, the messages are displayed every 10 minutes.

The display message may occupy different areas of the display screen as follows: first, they can replace the so-called "idle screen" which usually occupies the entire space of the display screen, in particular for displaying information about the network, such as the name of the operator, the time, the signal strength, the amount of power, the presence of one or more voice messages and/or SMS messages stored in the permanent storage buffer before being deleted, etc. Second, they may occupy a portion of the split screen, e.g., a horizontally disposed banner portion, and typically have a large portion for normal display of idle screens. In the latter example, the banner portion may be a permanent feature of the display screen or replaced with the first portion in a similar manner as in the first example when a non-idle activity specific screen is invoked that has an indication of at least some ongoing activity (including, inter alia, the full process from setting up to tearing down a voice call regardless of whether the user is a caller or a recipient) and any other user initiated activity (e.g., obtaining an item saved in memory, playing a game, writing a memo, etc.). An exemplary "idle screen" in accordance with the spirit of the present invention is displayed in the so-called user idle screen available event (see 3GPP TS 31.111V4.0.0 third Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification group terminal; USIM Application Toolkit (USAT) (Release 4)).

The flow of display messages under consideration provides the most convenient platform for m-commerce applications, and interactive m-commerce applications in particular cater to a wide range of ages, lifecycles, etc. In view of the ubiquity of personal cellular telecommunications devices, the fact that most users carry their personal cellular telecommunications devices wherever they go, and the fact that they are in idle mode for most of the time they are powered on, it is believed that their public affinity will be much greater than that of conventional radio, television and cable broadcast services. Furthermore, unlike conventional broadcast services, which are at most regional services, the present invention readily facilitates sending far more location-specific content down to the granularity of a single BTS than has heretofore been available, since each BTS can be individually addressed. In this connection, additional BTSs can be easily deployed for the sole purpose of transmitting specified content at a particular location.

Brief Description of Drawings

In order to understand the invention and to see how it may be carried out in practice, a preferred embodiment will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which like parts are given like numbers, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic representation of an 24/7 cellular broadcast service for transmitting a multi-program channel, a cellular telecommunications network for streaming display messages in a screen saver-like manner on a personal cellular telecommunications device;

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic representation of a voice activated display message that allows a user to activate one of at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms;

FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic representation showing programs to be broadcast during the first hour of each of the 3 program channels of the cellular broadcast service;

FIG. 4 is a diagrammatical representation of a display message staggering sequence showing the advertising of football game tickets at lower and lower purchase prices in smaller and smaller geographic areas;

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatical representation of a personal cellular telecommunications device supporting streaming of display messages thereon in a screen saver-like manner;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of streaming display of messages on a personal cellular telecommunications device in a screen saver-like manner;

figures 7A-7D are diagrammatic representations of different modes of operation of a personal cellular telecommunications device having a split screen display screen.

Detailed description of the drawings

The cellular telecommunications network 1 shown in fig. 1 is capable of transmitting multi-program channel 24/7 cellular broadcast service to a plurality of individually addressable BTSs 2, each BTS2 providing bi-directional signal coverage over a predefined geographic area ranging from so-called typical indoor pico-cells each covering several square meters, to so-called micro-cells each covering several tens to several hundreds of square meters, up to cells covering several square kilometers, each BTS2 is capable of transmitting point-to-multipoint (PTMP) display messages and point-to-point (PTP) display messages for streaming most of the different content, most of the interactive display messages on the personal cellular telecommunications device 3. The PTMP display messages are scheduled from the point-to-multipoint display message scheduler 4 and the PTP display messages are scheduled from the point-to-point display message scheduler 6. Both PTMP and PTP display messages originate from the display message input entity 7. The device 3 comprises, among others, a simple handset, a smart phone, a combination PDA/phone, a combination MP3 music player/phone, etc.

Fig. 1 also shows two successive exemplary display messages that are time sensitive, replacing one normally displayed idle screen display in a screen saver-like manner. The display message includes "the nask index dropped by 10% displayed at 9:00, details, please press the SND key", and "the nask index raised by 20%" displayed at 9: 01. The 9:00 display message is an example of a display message that prompts the user for the actions he needs to take to obtain additional information from the information provider. While the display message of 9:01 is one example of a display message that does not prompt the user as to what action he needs to take to obtain additional information, because he already knows the fact that: pressing the SND key will automatically connect to an appropriate information service. FIG. 2 illustrates a display message prompting a user to call from voice; SMS; a data session (e.g., an internet browsing session, a SIM browsing session, etc.); the point-to-point transmission response mechanism is activated in the email and fax transmission list.

Fig. 3 illustrates that a cellular broadcast service can contain non-regional or national program channels, as well as one or more regional program channels for transmitting PTMP and PTP display message streams from a logical group of BTSs each containing one or more BTSs. Each BTS logical group either covers an extended contiguous geographic area, such as a city area, or covers a geographic area that shares the same theme, such as a school, highway along, etc. Typically, program channels comprise time slots for transmitting programs that are either common to national and regional program channels, such as news, or specific to a particular logical group of BTSs, such as programs for anti-narcotic drugs transmitted at BTSs covering the logical group of BTSs in schools, traffic updates transmitted at BTSs covering the logical group of BTSs in major highways, and so forth. In addition, a regional program channel may itself be divided into two or more so-called regional program sub-channels, each of which is transmitted over a subset of BTSs of the logical group of BTSs associated with the regional program channel. For example, a school program channel may be divided into a primary school program sub-channel, a high school program sub-channel, and a college program sub-channel.

It has to be noted that a BTS may be assigned to one or more regional program channels depending on its location, e.g. a BTS covering the geographical area comprising football stadiums and malls is most likely to be assigned to a sports program channel and a shopping program channel of a cellular broadcast service in order to be most efficient in terms of regional content. In such an example, a program channel allocation scheme 8 may be provided to determine which stream of PTMP or PTP display messages should be displayed at each BTS. The scheme may be time dependent, for example, sports programming channels may be transmitted within a time interval of 2 hours before the start of a football game and 2 hours after the end of the game, shopping programming channels may be transmitted during other transmission available periods, and national programming channels may be transmitted at all other times when neither sports programming channel nor shopping programming channel is available for transmission.

Figure 4 shows a staggered sequence of displayed messages advertising tickets to football matches held at a football stadium in smaller and smaller geographical areas and at lower and lower prices, assuming there are still unsold tickets on the same day of the match. Such a display message may be a PTMP display message or PTP display message sent to users in the pool home team fan club list. The geographic area is typically centered around the stadium so that the user can still reach the stadium in a timely manner before driving the ball. Such advertising campaigns are readily applicable to other items having a fixed "late sale" date or limited inventory, such as advertising a warehouse sale item to consumers in a retail outlet.

Figure 5 shows a GSM-based personal cellular telecommunications device 3 comprising an antenna 11, a transceiver 12 and a radio frequency identification tag provided as T_CLOCKA controller 13 of the clock time, a SIM card 14 (constituting a smart card), a user interface 16 and a speaker 17. The user interface 16 includes a display screen 18, a keypad 19, and a microphone 21. The display screen 18 may be a touch panel. The device 3 may also include a voice recognition capability 22 to support voice activated activities including, inter alia, dialing numbers, invoking response mechanisms, etc. The SIM card 14 includes two fixed-size dynamic memory buffers 23 and 24 for temporarily storing PTMP display messages and PTP display messages, respectively, which are passed to by the controller 13 before being automatically discarded in accordance with a display message discard scheme whether or not they have been displayed. Regardless of whether the display message has been displayed, the overall processing of the display message from receipt to being automatically discarded is a completely silent process.

With respect to the dynamic memory buffers 23 and 24, the screen saver-like application operates as follows: the display message discard scheme automatically discards non-displayed display messages in the dynamic memory buffer on a first-in-first-out basis, thereby ensuring that the dynamic memory buffer only stores recently received display messages and automatically discards the display messages after they are displayed. In addition, assuming that the display screen is available for displaying a display message, immediately before the display message is actually displayed, the following checks are performed: first, each display message may be incomplete due to one of several events, such as air interface interference, cell switching, etc., so the integrity of each display message is checked and automatically discarded if found to be incomplete. Second, since at least some display messages are time sensitive, the following conditions are met: t is_CLOCK-T_RECEIVE＜T_DISCARDChecking that each display message is not outdated, wherein T_CLOCKIs the time of a clock，T_RECEIVEIs the time of receipt of the message, T_DISCARDIs a predefined time interval, e.g. 3 minutes, which is necessary.

Figures 7A-7D show different modes of streaming messages on a personal cellular telecommunications device having a split screen display screen 26 comprising a main portion 27 and a smaller horizontal banner portion 28. Fig. 7A shows the main section 27 displaying an idle screen while the banner section 28 displays at least some of the interactive display message stream, while fig. 7B shows the display message being displayed in the banner section 28 only when the main section 27 displays an idle screen. Fig. 7C shows that the banner portion 28 is a permanent feature of the split screen display screen 26, either occupying only a portion thereof, or being capable of extending to include the entire display screen 26 in place of displaying the main portion 27 of the idle screen (see fig. 7D).

While the invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, it will be appreciated that the invention is susceptible to many variations, modifications and other applications within the scope of the appended claims. For example, although the invention has been described with reference in part to its GSM implementation, it is suitable for use with existing or yet-to-be-developed technologies, including specifically PCS, GPRS, 3G, CDMA, UMTS, W-CDMA, etc., and/or existing and yet-to-be-developed services, including specifically PTM-M, PTM-G, IP-M, MDS, etc.

Claims (36)

1. A method of operating a cellular telecommunications network for use in a cellular telecommunications network comprising a plurality of individually addressable Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) providing bidirectional signal coverage over a predefined geographical area, capable of transmitting point-to-multipoint (PTMP) messages over a point-to-multipoint service (PTMPS) functionality, and capable of transmitting point-to-point (PTP) messages, the method comprising the steps of:

transmitting a cellular broadcast service comprised of a substantially continuous stream of mostly different content, at least some interactive display messages, such that instead of displaying an idle screen in one display screen on at least one enabled personal cellular telecommunications device, the interactive display messages are streamed for display on the display screen,

wherein each interactive display message allows a user to automatically activate a point-to-point transmission response mechanism that is integrally provided within the display message and that is activatable by a dedicated response means associated therewith.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending step streams the display messages at a rate of one display message every approximately 5 seconds to one display message every approximately 5 minutes.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the sending step streams the display messages at a rate of one display message every approximately 5 seconds to one display message every approximately 2 minutes.

4. A method according to any of claims 1 to 3, wherein the step of transmitting comprises transmitting an interleaved sequence of display messages advertising an item within a progressively smaller geographical area centred on a predefined location.

5. A method according to claim 4 wherein the staggered sequence of display messages advertises purchase prices that are progressively lower according to a pricing scheme.

6. A method according to any of claims 1-3, wherein displaying a message allows a user to automatically activate a voice call; SMS; a data session; one of at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms in the list of e-mail and fax transmissions, wherein each response mechanism is integrally provided within the display message and is activatable by a dedicated response means associated therewith.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein at least two response mechanisms are displayed on the personal cellular telecommunications device in response to a user activating a dedicated response means integrally provided within the displayed message.

8. A method according to any of claims 1-3, wherein the transmitting step comprises simultaneously transmitting at least two display message streams of different content, and further comprising providing a program channel allocation scheme for determining the display message streams to be transmitted at each BTS.

9. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein the cellular broadcast service consists of a substantially continuous stream of PTMP display messages for streaming display on a particular personal cellular telecommunications device.

10. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein the cellular broadcast service consists of a substantially continuous stream of PTP display messages for streaming display on a plurality of personal cellular telecommunications devices.

11. A cellular telecommunications network comprising a plurality of individually addressable Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) providing bidirectional signal coverage over a predefined geographical area, capable of transmitting point-to-multipoint (PTMP) messages over a point-to-multipoint service (PTMP) functionality, and capable of transmitting point-to-point (PTP) messages, characterized in that,

the base transceiver station is configured to transmit a cellular broadcast service comprised of a substantially continuous stream of mostly different content, at least some interactive display messages;

the at least one enabled personal cellular telecommunications device is configured to: instead of displaying an idle screen in its display screen, the interactive display message is streamed on the display screen,

wherein each interactive display message allows a user to automatically activate a point-to-point transmission response mechanism that is integrally provided within the display message and that is activatable by a dedicated response means associated therewith.

12. A cellular telecommunications network according to claim 11, wherein the cellular telecommunications network is a GSM network and the display message is of the SMS category 2 type.

13. A method of operating a personal cellular telecommunications device for use in a cellular telecommunications network including a plurality of individually addressable Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) providing bi-directional signal coverage over a predefined geographical area and capable of transmitting mostly different content, at least some interactive display messages, wherein each interactive display message allows a subscriber to automatically activate a point-to-point transmission response mechanism integrally provided within the display message by dedicated response means associated therewith, the personal cellular telecommunications device having at least one dynamic storage buffer, and a subscriber interface including a display screen, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) temporarily storing the display message in a dynamic memory buffer in preparation for display on a display screen;

(b) automatically streaming the message from the dynamic memory buffer on the display screen instead of displaying an idle screen on the display screen, but interrupting its display if the display screen is called to display a non-idle activity-specific screen; and is

(c) Display messages are automatically discarded from the dynamic memory buffer according to a display message discard scheme, regardless of whether they have already been displayed on the display screen.

14. A method according to claim 13, wherein the display message discarding scheme automatically discards non-displayed display messages from the dynamic memory buffer on a first-in-first-out basis.

15. A method according to claim 13 or 14, wherein if a display message is incomplete, the display message discard scheme automatically discards it immediately before its display.

16. A method according to claim 13 or 14, if the condition T is satisfied_CLOCK-T_RECEIVE＜T_DISCARDThen the display message discard scheme automatically discards an out-of-date display message before it is displayed, where T_CLOCKIs the clock time, T, of the personal cellular telecommunications device_RECEIVEIs the time at which the display message was received at the personal cellular telecommunications device, and T_DISCARDIs a predetermined time interval.

17. A method according to claim 13 or 14, wherein the display message discard scheme automatically discards displayed display messages from the dynamic memory buffer.

18. The method according to claim 13 or 14 wherein the PTP display message ready for display is displayed on the display screen in preference to the PTMP display message ready for display.

19. A method according to claim 13 or 14, wherein the overall process of automatically discarding a display message from receipt, irrespective of whether the display message is displayed on the display screen, is a completely silent process.

20. A method according to claim 13 or 14, wherein a display message allows the user to automatically activate a voice call; SMS; a data session; one of at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms in the list of e-mail and fax transmissions, each response mechanism being integrally provided within a display message and being activatable by a dedicated response means associated therewith.

21. The method according to claim 20, wherein at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms are displayed in response to user activation of a dedicated response means integrally provided within a display message.

22. For use in a cellular telecommunications network including a plurality of individually addressable Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) providing bi-directional signal coverage over a predefined geographic area and each capable of transmitting mostly different content, at least some interactive display messages, wherein each interactive display message allows a subscriber to automatically activate a response mechanism integrally provided within the display message and actuable by a dedicated response means associated therewith, a method of operating a personal cellular telecommunications device having at least one dynamic memory buffer, and a subscriber interface including a split-screen display screen including a first portion and a second portion, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) temporarily storing the display message in a dynamic memory buffer in preparation for display on the second portion of the display screen;

(b) normally displaying an idle screen on a first portion of the display screen and automatically streaming messages from the dynamic memory buffer on a second portion of the display screen;

(c) providing a dedicated response means on the user interface, selectively actuable by a user, for actuating a response mechanism integrally formed with the displayed message;

(d) displaying a non-idle activity-specific screen on the first portion and the second portion of the display screen if the display screen is called; and is

(e) According to one display message discard scheme, display messages are automatically discarded from the dynamic memory buffer regardless of whether they have already been displayed on the display screen.

23. A method according to claim 22, wherein the display message discarding scheme automatically discards non-displayed display messages from the dynamic memory buffer on a first-in-first-out basis.

24. A method according to claim 22 or 23, wherein if a display message is incomplete, the display message discard scheme automatically discards it immediately before its display.

25. A method according to claim 22 or 23, if the condition T is satisfied_CLOCK-T_RECEIVE＜T_DISCARDThen the display message discard scheme automatically discards an out-of-date display message before it is displayed, where T_CLOCKIs the clock time, T, of the personal cellular telecommunications device_RECEIVEIs the time at which the display message was received at the personal cellular telecommunications device, and T_DISCARDIs a predetermined time interval.

26. A method according to claim 22 or 23, wherein the display message discard scheme automatically discards displayed display messages from the dynamic memory buffer.

27. The method according to claim 22 or 23 wherein the PTP display message ready for display is displayed on the display screen in preference to the PTMP display message ready for display.

28. A method according to claim 22 or 23, wherein the overall process of automatically discarding a display message from receipt is a completely silent process, irrespective of whether the display message is displayed on the display screen or not.

29. A method according to claim 22 or 23, wherein a display message allows the user to automatically activate one of at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms in the list of voice calls, SMS, data sessions, e-mail and fax transmissions, each response mechanism being integrally provided within a display message and being activatable by a dedicated response means associated therewith.

30. The method according to claim 29, wherein at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms are displayed in response to user activation of a dedicated response means integrally provided within a display message.

31. A method of operating a personal cellular telecommunications device for use in a cellular telecommunications network including a plurality of individually addressable Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) providing bidirectional signal coverage over a predefined geographical area and capable of transmitting mostly different content, at least some interactive display messages, wherein each interactive display message allows a subscriber to automatically activate a response mechanism integrally provided within the display message and actuable by a dedicated response means, the personal cellular telecommunications device having at least one dynamic storage buffer, and a subscriber interface including a split screen display screen having at least two portions, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) temporarily storing the display message in a dynamic memory buffer in preparation for display on at least one of the first portion and the second portion of the display screen;

(b) permanently streaming display of messages from the dynamic memory buffer on one of the first and second portions of the display screen when a non-idle active particular screen is displayed on the other portion of the display screen or on the first and second portions of the display screen when the display screen is idle; and is

(c) According to one display message discard scheme, display messages are automatically discarded from the dynamic memory buffer regardless of whether they have already been displayed on the display screen.

32. The method of claim 31 wherein the display message is displayed on only a portion of the display screen.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the display message is displayed on either a portion of the display screen or the entire display screen.

34. The method according to any one of claims 31 to 33 wherein a PTP display message ready for display is displayed on the display screen in preference to a PTMP display message ready for display.

35. A method according to any of claims 31-33, wherein a display message allows the user to automatically activate a point-to-point transmission response mechanism in the list of voice calls, SMS, data sessions, e-mail and fax transmissions, each response mechanism being integrally provided within a display message and being activatable by a dedicated response means.

36. The method according to claim 35, wherein at least two point-to-point transmission response mechanisms are displayed in response to user activation of a dedicated response means integrally provided within a display message.