Patent Application
20080057975
Features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description with reference to the drawings, in which:
The present invention reduces the number of messages required in networks where location-based services are deployed.
Consequential Watch services in accordance with the principles of the present invention provides location information to one or more services OTHER than or in ADDITION to the service currently requesting location information, based on subscription to a suitable service, referred to herein as a consequential watch application. Of course, a suitable service may have any name other than consequential watch yet perform the same or similar function(s) as does the described consequential watch.
In the disclosed embodiments, a consequential watch service notifies one or more OTHER applications other than the particular application responsible for a latest location request, whenever location information for a particular subscriber is updated. A consequential watch application allows the avoidance of polling of subscribers for latest location information, and instead replaces polling as in conventional wireless systems with a monitoring and reporting service that reports to relevant applications that have previously requested monitoring service for the particular subscriber(s), even though those applications were not currently responsible for an update to the relevant subscriber's location information.
Thus, the disclosed consequential watch application notifies other applications or services, e.g., upon a request for update of a mobile subscriber's position, state, preferences or feature set, as a consequence of another service requesting location information (thus updating the location database at, e.g., a Location Server (LS)). Note that the other applications or services are not necessarily notified only when the particular subscriber changes location: but rather as a consequence of a different application or service requesting updated location information regarding that particular subscriber.
The present invention solves fundamental disadvantages of conventional wireless systems regarding location reporting. For instance, conventional wireless networks including a location-based service update location information on a scheduled, regular basis, i.e., using polling. However, polling of every single mobile subscriber in a mobile network is extremely resource intensive.
For example, if a mobile network has 10,000,000 subscribers, and a mere 5% of those 10,000,000 subscribers, or 500,000 actually use a location service requiring location tracking of their handset, the entire network would be subjected to location tracking. With 5-minute updating of each wireless device in the network this translates into a need to support 1,667 transactions per second. This puts a strain on the wireless network, and consumes valuable data bandwidth in the communications.
In accordance with a consequential watch system in accordance with the principles of the present invention, various applications or services will, from time to time, request an update of the location of a particular subscriber anyway. A consequential watch application reduces this redundancy by allowing entities in communication with the wireless network to subscribe to a consequential watch service wherein when a particular user's location information is updated in the Location Server (LS), then applications or services requesting location information upon update of that particular subscriber will also receive relevant, updated location information regarding the same wireless user.
The subscriber to the consequential watch service may be inside or outside the carrier's network.
For example, presume a wireless subscriber with a phone number, e.g., (206) 390-9150 is subscribed to, e.g., Starbucks Promotions, Yahoo! Messaging, & The Battle in Seattle (a multi-player mobile game), and that wireless subscriber (206) 390-9150 dials #777 to ask for the nearest Bank of America ATM, the location data update made for #777 will be pushed to the other three applications as a consequence of the #777 request and the functionality of the consequential watch.
In particular, as shown in
Typically, location information regarding a particular wireless device is requested of a home location register (HLR). In accordance with the principles of the present invention, the home location register can also serve as a basis for presence services. Exemplary presence services may include, e.g., the state and/or status of a subscriber.
Importantly, in accordance with the present invention, information relating to an initial location request spawns or triggers the provision of additional location request information messages to subscribers to a consequential watch application or service.
In the exemplary embodiment, the messaging cycle is initiated (shown in step 1) by a location services client 204, that transmits a location request message to a location services server 206 in the relevant carrier's network.
In step 2, a location server 206 sends a Provide Subscriber Info message to a Home Location Register 208 (or other node containing subscriber identity information) regarding a particular subscriber. The Provide Subscriber Info message can request location information and/or subscriber state. In this use case, location information regarding a particular subscriber is requested, and within the same message, presence information such as subscriber state may also be requested. Requested presence information can include, e.g., idle, bust, not reachable, etc.
In step 3, the network node containing the location information (e.g., the carrier's Home Location Register (HLR) 208) provides the requested subscriber information for the requested subscriber back to the location server 206.
In step 4, the location services server 206 requests information regarding the relevant wireless user by message to either an MSC or Packet Data node 210. The MSC or Packet Data Node preferably provides precise location information using, e.g., a global positioning satellite (GPS), triangulation techniques, or other relevant locating technology. Alternatively, precise location information may be obtained from an appropriately equipped wireless device (e.g., a wireless device including a GPS receiver).
In step 5, the MSC or packet data node 210 requests updated location information of the wireless network, i.e., sending a request for current location information from a relevant node or application of the wireless network (e.g., from the Radio Access Network (RAN) 212).
The MSC, packet data node 110, Radio Access Network 212, etc. may determine a current location of the relevant wireless device using any suitable location technology, e.g., using a global positioning satellite (GPS) system, using triangulation, using angle of arrival, etc.
As part of the determination of a current location of the wireless device, as shown in Step 5, the location request may be forwarded to the relevant Radio Access Network 212. This would be necessary for certain locating technologies, e.g., for triangulation, angle of arrival, etc.) If a global positioning satellite system is utilized, the location request may be forwarded to a suitable GPS application in the wireless network that receives GPS location information regarding a relevant wireless device.
In step 6, a response to the update location information request including precise, updated location information regarding the requested subscriber is transmitted to the location services server (LS) 206. (The updated location information may also be forwarded to the HLR (not shown in
In step 7, an ultimate response to the original location request is sent to the LCS client 204 that initially requested the location information. This location information ideally includes current location information freshly obtained from the MSC 210 or other network node, but may instead be cached location information stored in the HLR 208 if the location information is not returned within a sufficient time window (e.g., causing a timeout). This would be the end of an otherwise conventional location request. However, the invention importantly continues on. In some applications, if desired, the process may end in the event of a timeout. However, the consequential provision of location information to subscribed other applications or services may be provided even in the event of a timeout waiting for new location information.
Step 8 particularly shows the advantages of a consequential location application or service, in accordance with the principles of the present invention.
In particular, in accordance with important principles of the present invention, although location information has already been provided to a requesting application or service, the same location information is also provided to one or more additional applications or services that have previously requested such information in the event of somebody else requesting information regarding the particular subscriber.
This ‘freebie’ location information is an important aspect of the present invention. For instance, an entirely separate application or service may register with a particular carrier for a consequential location service, perhaps by paying suitable fees, for the right to receive location information for those wireless devices that otherwise have location information retrieved. This avoids the need for the location server 206 to separately handle additional requests from each separate application desiring location information regarding the same subscriber(s).
In particular,
Applications or services may also be provided location updates by default, whenever location information regarding anyone in a particular subscriber group, or fitting particular aspects of subscribers, is provided.
As an example of consequential watch services, presume that Application 2 and Application 3 subscribe to a consequential watch service of a particular wireless carrier, as shown in
Steps 8 and 9 show this latest example where location information, provided in response to a location request from one application, is also provided to Application 2 (Step 8) and also to Application 3 (Step 9).
The present invention provides benefits such as reducing core network messaging traffic, thus providing better system performance.
While the invention has been described with reference to the exemplary embodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will be able to make various modifications to the described embodiments of the invention without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention.
This application claims priority from co-pending U.S. Appl. No. 60/367,708, entitled “Location Derived Presence Information”, filed Mar. 28, 2002, to Hines et al.; U.S. Appl. No. 60/367,709, entitled “Consequential Location Services”, filed Mar. 28, 2002, to Hines et al.; and U.S. application Ser. No. 10/______, entitled “Location Derived Presence Information”, filed Mar. 25, 2003, to Hines, et al., the entirety of all three of which are explicitly incorporated herein by reference.
