Patent Grant
9380167
This disclosure relates to limiting data transmission to and/or from a communication device. It also relates to a graphical user interface (GUI) for configuring such limiting of data transmission. It further relates to associated methods, machine-readable media, systems and communication devices.
It is not uncommon for wireless carriers or other providers of data services to offer rate plans in which the amount payable by a subscriber during a billing cycle is tied to the total amount of data transmitted, i.e. sent and/or received, by the subscriber's wireless device during that cycle (e.g. monthly). For example, a wireless carrier may charge a subscriber, say, $40/month for data transmission (sometimes referred to colloquially as “bandwidth consumption”) not in excess of a data transmission cap (“rate plan cap”, “bandwidth cap”, “bit cap”, or simply “cap”), which may be, e.g., 25 Megabytes, and a surcharge of $2/megabyte for data transmission in excess of that cap. However, at any given time, the subscriber may be unaware of the amount of data already transmitted in relation to the rate plan cap and, as a result, uncertain whether data transmission will result in a surcharge. Even if the subscriber were aware of the amount of data already transmitted, s/he may fail to take the necessary steps to limit data transmission as the cap draws near, e.g. due to inexperience with device configuration or preoccupation with daily activities. Thus the subscriber may continue to engage in activities which may involve significant data transmission, such as wireless web browsing, file downloads and sending or receiving email or multimedia service (MMS) messages, and may inadvertently exceed the data transmission cap and undesirably incur a surcharge or other penalty.
A solution which addresses the above-noted problem or others would be desirable.
Aspects and features of the disclosed method and device will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon review of the following description of specific embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying figures. In the figures which illustrate at least one example embodiment:
In one aspect of the below described embodiment, there is a method of limiting data transmission to, from, or to and from a communication device, the method comprising: displaying a graphical user interface (GUI), said GUI comprising one or more GUI controls for selecting a data transmission limiting tactic from a plurality of distinct data transmission limiting tactics and for specifying a data transmission threshold at which the selected data transmission limiting tactic is to take effect, said data transmission threshold below an operative data transmission cap, said data transmission cap representing a maximum amount of data that can be transmitted to, from, or to and from said communication device during a subscriber billing cycle without incurring a penalty under a subscriber rate plan; by way of said one or more GUI controls, receiving user input indicating the selected data transmission tactic and the specified data transmission threshold; and based on said user input, configuring said communication device or another electronic device in communication therewith to effect the selected data transmission limiting tactic when the specified data transmission threshold is reached.
In another aspect of the below described embodiment, there is provided a machine readable medium storing instructions for limiting data transmission to, from, or to and from a communication device that, when executed by one or more processors of said communication device, cause said communication device to: display a graphical user interface (GUI), said GUI comprising one or more GUI controls for selecting a data transmission limiting tactic from a plurality of distinct data transmission limiting tactics and for specifying a data transmission threshold at which the selected data transmission limiting tactic is to take effect, said data transmission threshold being below an operative data transmission cap, said data transmission cap representing a maximum amount of data that can be transmitted to, from, or to and from said communication device during a subscriber billing cycle without incurring a penalty under a subscriber rate plan; by way of said one or more GUI controls, receive user input indicating the selected data transmission tactic and the specified data transmission threshold; and based on said user input, configure said communication device or another electronic device in communication therewith to effect the selected data transmission limiting tactic when the specified data transmission threshold is reached.
In yet another aspect of the below described embodiment, there is provided a communication device comprising: at least one processor; and memory interconnected with said at least one processor storing instructions for limiting data transmission to, from, or to and from said communication device that, when executed by said processor, cause said communication device to: display a graphical user interface (GUI), said GUI comprising one or more GUI controls for selecting a data transmission limiting tactic from a plurality of distinct data transmission limiting tactics and for specifying a data transmission threshold at which the selected data transmission limiting tactic is to take effect, said data transmission threshold being below an operative data transmission cap, said data transmission cap representing a maximum amount of data that can be transmitted to, from, or to and from said communication device during a subscriber billing cycle without incurring a penalty under a subscriber rate plan; by way of said one or more GUI controls, receive user input indicating the selected data transmission tactic and the specified data transmission threshold; and based on said user input, configure said communication device or another electronic device in communication therewith to effect the selected data transmission limiting tactic when the specified data transmission threshold is reached.
Collaboration server 20 is a conventional server having memory 30 in communication with at least one processor 32. The exemplary processor 32 executes collaboration software 34, such as Microsoft® Exchange Server, Lotus® Domino® Server or the like. The software 34, maintains accounts for multiple users. Each account has various associated capabilities intended to support collaboration between users, such as electronic messaging (e.g. email and instant messaging), calendaring and address book capabilities for example. Email capabilities typically includes maintaining an inbox for each user that is capable of receiving email messages optionally having attachments. The attachments may for example be “electronic business card” attachments, Microsoft® Word documents, Microsoft® Excel™ spreadsheets, Microsoft® PowerPoint™ presentations, Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) documents, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) files, various image file formats (e.g. .wmf, .emf, .gif, .jpeg, .bmp, .png), .wav files, Zip archive and American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) files. The email messages and attachments may be received at collaboration server 20 in the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) format for example. Some email messages may be formatted using a HyperText Markup Language (HTML), as is conventional. Instant messaging capability may include the ability to define a “buddy list” or “friend list”, receive presence updates regarding users in that list, and send and receive instant messages (possibly with multimedia content such as images, video and documents) to selected users. Calendaring capabilities may include the capacity to schedule appointments, invite other users to attend scheduled appointments, and check other users' public scheduled appointments for example. Address book capabilities may include maintaining contact information (e.g. name, address, telephone numbers, etc.) for numerous contacts. Machine-readable instructions (e.g. an executable image) comprising the collaboration software 34 may be loaded from a machine-readable medium 35 into memory 30 prior to execution by processor 32.
Intermediary server 22 may be a server product sold by Research in Motion Limited. The intermediary server 22 executes two software applications which intercommunicate during operation: the mobile wireless data server software 44 and the attachment service 46.
The mobile wireless data server software 44 is a software application that is responsible for “pushing” certain data associated with a user account at collaboration server 20 (e.g. received email messages) to the wireless communication device 28. The software 44 communicates with collaboration server 20 for purposes of monitoring specified user accounts for activity and for pushing data representative of that activity to the device 28. For example, when a new email message is received, the email message may be automatically converted to a proprietary format known as Compressed Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (CMIME) and transmitted to the wireless communication device 28 as a stream of bytes, via data network 24 (possibly through a firewall, not expressly illustrated in
In pushing email messages to wireless communication device 28, software 44 may be responsible for automatically breaking email messages exceeding a predetermined threshold size into “chunks”. The first chunk is pushed to the device 28 automatically, while subsequent chunks are transmitted to the device 28 individually, on an on-demand basis. The rationale for this functionality is to seek user confirmation that a large message is truly desired at the device 28 before it is transmitted there in full, to avoid unnecessarily transmitting large amounts of data and possibly risking a surcharge or other penalty for excessive wireless data transmission under a subscriber rate plan (as described below). The “on-demand” request for a next chunk of an email message may be generated at device 28 and sent to server 22, e.g., when a user of device 28 selects a “more” menu item within an email message application to indicate a desire to display a next portion of the message. As will be appreciated, the behavior of this mechanism may be capable of being dynamically changed in the present embodiment as a data transmission cap is approached, with a view to limiting data transmission to/from the device 28.
The attachment service 46 is a software application that processes email attachments in preparation for their possible transmission to and viewing at a wireless communication device such as device 28. The attachment service 46 intercommunicates with the mobile wireless data server software 44 for the purpose of handling requests for email attachments, or portions thereof, from wireless communication devices such as device 28 and for coordinating delivery of requested attachments or attachment portions to the wireless communication device 28 via data network 24 and wireless network 26. Generally, when an email message having an attachment is received at a user's inbox at collaboration server 20, the email message (or a first chunk thereof) is pushed to the wireless communication device 28 along with an indication of the existence of the attachment. The user of device 28 will be made aware of the fact that the received message includes an attachment. However, transmission of the attachment to the device 28 may be deferred until the user of device 28 has specifically indicated a desire to view it. This is again to avoid inadvertent transmission of a large amount of data (which the attachment may represent) under a subscriber rate plan in which a surcharge may be owed, or other penalty incurred, for data transmission in excess of a predetermined cap. Large attachments may be broken into chunks to be transmitted to device 28 individually on demand, in a similar fashion to the breaking up of large email messages into chunks, described above. This is possibly in accordance with U.S. patent application Publication No. 2005/0108636, which is hereby incorporated by reference hereinto.
As will be described, either or both of mobile wireless data server software 44 and attachment service 46 may be modified from its conventional form to support the limiting of data transmission to and/or from wireless communication device 28 as a data transmission cap is approached. Machine-readable instructions (e.g. an executable image) comprising the mobile wireless data server software 44 and attachment service software 46 may be loaded from a machine-readable medium 47 into memory 40 prior to execution by processor 42.
The intermediate server may also store in memory “collections” of data representing a back-up of user-specified data form the wireless communication device 28, on a per-user basis
Data network 24 is a conventional data network which is used to transmit data, which in this embodiment includes electronic messages such as email message and any attachments or instant messages, and possibly synchronization's of data (e.g. address book contacts) between the collaboration software 34 on server 20 and the relevant application (e.g. address book 64) at the wireless communication device 28. The network may deliver the data to a network operation centre (not illustrated) for purposes of relaying to the wireless network 26. The data network 24 also transmits on-demand requests for email chunks or email attachment chunks in the opposite direction to the intermediary server 22. Data network 24 may be the public Internet or a privately managed and operated Internet Protocol (IP) network for example.
Wireless network 26 is a conventional wireless network which serves as the final link in the communication chain between the intermediary server 22 and the wireless communication device 28. Network 26 may for example be a mobile data communication network, such as a Mobitex™, DataTAC™ or General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) mobile data communication network, or a conventional voice communication network, such as Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Code Division Multiple Access CDMA, Personal Communications Service (PCS) or Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) for example. Other types of data and voice networks, separate and integrated, could alternatively be utilized for network 26.
Wireless communication device 28 is a two-way radio frequency (RF) communication device having data communication capabilities, such as a handheld device sold by Research In Motion Ltd. The use of device 28 for receiving and/or transmitting data is governed by a subscriber rate plan between the user of device 28 (a “subscriber”) and a wireless service provider. The plan defines an operative data transmission cap representing a maximum amount of data that can be transmitted to, from, or to and from the device 28 during a subscriber billing cycle (e.g. monthly) without incurring a surcharge or other penalty. The device 28 has been modified from a conventional configuration in order to support configuration of components of system 10 for limiting data transmission to and/or from the device 28 as the data transmission cap is approached), as described below. Wireless communication device 28 is illustrated in greater detail in
Referring to
Pointing device 49 is a user input device which permits the user to move a cursor about display 52 for the purpose of highlighting and/or selecting GUI controls such as buttons or menu items. The device 49 may for example be a trackwheel, trackball or touchscreen.
Keyboard 50 is a user input device which permits a user of the wireless communication device 28 to enter text for such purposes as composing and sending email for example.
Display 52 is an output device that is capable of presenting a graphical user interface to a user. The display 52 may be a full graphic Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) for example. The dimensions of display 52 may be limited due to the limited overall size of the device 28.
Processor 54 is a conventional processor which controls the overall operation of the wireless communication device 28 based on user manipulation of pointing device 49, user actuation of keys on the keyboard 50 and the receipt of data from wireless network 26. The microprocessor 54 executes operating system software and application software that is stored in local memory 56. Microprocessor 54 is communicatively coupled (either directly or indirectly) to the keyboard 50, display 52, memory 56 and communication subsystem 68, as illustrated in
Memory 56 stores operating system and other software used at the device 28, including operating system software 58, email application 60; browser application 62, and address book application 64. Memory 56 may consist of flash memory, random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), or a combination of these for example. Typically, at least some of memory 56 will be persistent. It will be appreciated that memory 56 is a form of machine-readable medium.
Operating system (“o/s”) software 58 is software which governs the basic operation of wireless communication device 28. In the present embodiment, the o/s software 58 has been modified to provide a GUI that permits the user of device 28 to configure various components of system 10 for limiting data transmission as the subscriber's data transmission cap for device 28 is approached, as will be described. In general, the GUI may be part of the same software component that includes the SyncManager API (described below), which is not necessarily part of the operating system. Additionally, the o/s software 58 of the present embodiment includes a SyncManager Application Programming Interface (API). This API provides a mechanism for a software application executing at device 28 to cause an application-specified collection of data to be periodically backed up at (i.e. synchronized with) collaboration server 20, e.g. for possible later restoration to the device 28. A known version of this API is presently described at blackberry.net/developers/docs/4.1api/net/rim/device/api/synchronization/SyncManager.html, which description is hereby incorporated by reference hereinto. The API permits the user to specify whether a particular collection shall be synchronized “over-the-air” (OTA), i.e. via a wireless transmission medium (referred to as the “primary” transmission medium), or “serially”, i.e. via a wired transmission medium (referred to as the “secondary” transmission medium). For example, by invoking SyncManager.allowOTASync( ) with a first parameter indicating the collection to be “synced” (i.e. backed up) and a second parameter set to “true” or “false”, the identified collection may be synchronized using the primary or secondary media, respectively.
Email application 60 is a software application that is capable of managing and displaying email messages and email message attachments at device 28. The email application 60 incorporates an attachment viewer component which facilitates the viewing of recognized attachments.
Browser application 62 (or simply “browser 62”) is a software application that is capable of displaying markup language documents (e.g. HTML or Wireless Markup Language documents) having embedded images. The browser 62 is dynamically user-configurable to either display or not display such embedded images, at the election of the user.
Address book application 64 is a software application that allows the user of device 28 to view and maintain contact information (name, address, telephone numbers, etc.) for numerous contacts. The contacts are the same contacts as are maintained by the collaboration software 34 at server 20 (
The above software applications may be accompanied by various other software applications, such as an instant messaging application for example, resident in memory 56 (not expressly illustrated). Machine-readable instructions (e.g. an executable image) comprising the o/s software 58 and the various software applications in memory 56 may be loaded from a machine-readable medium 65 prior to execution at wireless communication device 28. This may occur at the factory in which device 28 is assembled. Alternatively, such instructions may be downloaded to the device 28 via wireless network 26 by way of an over-the-air download. Similarly, any software aspects of data transmission tallier 70 (described below) may be loaded or downloaded in like fashion.
Communication subsystem 68 is responsible for effecting data communications (and possibly voice communications) between the device 28 and rest of system 10 via wireless network 26. Subsystem 68 may include such components as a receiver, a transmitter, one or more antennas, and a digital signal processor, none of which are expressly illustrated. The subsystem also includes a data transmission tallier module 70. The tallier module 70 is a software, firmware, or hardware component (or a component that is a combination of two or more of those types of components) that is responsible for tallying how much data has been transmitted to and/or from the wireless communication device 28 during a current billing cycle. The tallier module 70 may operate at a transport protocol level, tracking the number and size of packets being transmitted to and/or from the device 28 for example. The tallier module 70 may interact with o/s software 58, e.g. for the purpose of being instructed to reset a tally (e.g. at the beginning of a billing cycle) or to report a current tally. The o/s 58 may be configurable, either by the user or through automated processing of an electronic communication from the wireless service provider, for the purpose of setting the billing cycle start date and duration. This is so that the dates at which the tallier module 70 should be instructed to “reset” to zero may be automatically computed.
The wireless communication device 28 also includes a speaker 72 and may further include various other device subsystems 74.
Operation for limiting data transmission to and/or from the wireless communication device 28 as a data transmission cap is approached shall now be described. It is initially assumed that a user of device 28, concerned over the possibility of incurring a surcharge or other penalty for excessive data transmission to and/or from the device 28 under a subscriber rate plan, wishes to configure the system 10 to automatically limit data transfer as the cap is approached. Accordingly, the user interacts with the device 28, e.g. using pointing device 4, so as to invoke a GUI 300 on display 52 for performing such configuration. GUI 300 illustrated in
Referring to
Spinner 304 is used to set the data transmission cap that is defined by the subscriber's rate plan. The spinner may default to zero or to a value that is communicated by the wireless service provider, e.g. via an email message from the provider indicative of the operative cap. Such an email message may be automatically processed at the device 28 in order to populate spinner 304. In the present example, the spinner 304 shows that the currently operative cap is 25 megabytes. In some embodiments, this amount is user configurable (e.g. may be set, increased or decreased by the user).
List box 306 shows the currently defined rules for limiting data transmission to and/or from device 28. A single entry 308 in
Buttons 310, 312, 313 and 314 are for adding a new rule to list box 306, deleting a selected rule from list box 306, accepting the rules as defined, or exiting the dialog box 302 without accepting any changes to the rules, respectively. Selection of button 310 results in the invocation of a further dialog box 320 of GUI 300, which is shown in
Referring to
User interaction with combo box 322 results in the presentation of a drop-down menu 340, as shown in
Referring to
A second menu item 344 represents a data limiting tactic whereby a size of a body of an electronic message is reduced prior to its transmission to or from said wireless communication device 28. Specifically, the tactic causes any email message in an HTML format to be converted to ASCII before being sent to or from the device 28, as noted above. For messages that are incoming to the device 28, this tactic may be implemented at mobile wireless data server software 44 of server 22 (
A third menu item 346 represents a data limiting tactic whereby a size of an attachment of an electronic message is reduced prior to its transmission to the wireless communication device 28. The reduction in size of the attachment may for example by achieved through such techniques as data compression, reduction in image resolution, or other approaches. For example, it may be possible for certain attachment types to be broken down into a number of pieces, the first of which could be sent to the device with the option provided to the user to fetch the rest if desired (e.g. an attached email thread or plain text file attachment). In the present example, this tactic applies to attachments to messages that are incoming to the device 28, and may thus be implemented within attachment service 46 at server 22 (
A fourth menu item 348 represents a data limiting tactic whereby only a header portion of an electronic message is transmitted to or from the wireless communication device 28. For messages that are incoming to the device 28, this tactic may be implemented at mobile wireless data server software 44 of server 22 (
A fifth menu item 350 represents a data limiting tactic whereby the transmission of data to or from the device 28 is changed from occurring over a primary transmission medium (to which the data transmission cap is applicable) to a secondary transmission medium (to which the data transmission cap is not applicable). In particular, the rule specifies that address book synchronization between application 64 of
A sixth menu item 352 represents a data limiting tactic whereby browser 62 at device 28 (
It will be appreciated that the six menu items illustrated in
Next, and with reference to
Subsequent user interaction with combo box 326 results in the presentation of a drop-down menu 360. The three menu items in the drop-down menu 360 represent three different user notifications that may be provided when the selected data transmission tactic is effected. Specifically, the first menu item 362 is for configuring the device 28 to provide no user notification when the tactic takes effect. The second menu item 364 specifies that user notification is to take the form of an email message (which may not be an email message by strict definition, but rather may be a new entry in a message list that actually originates at the device 28 but is made to appear as a received email message or other type of message, with the rationale being that, because the user is familiar with checking for new messages in the message list, the message is likely to be seen.) The third menu item 366 (which is shown as having been selected in
When the user has completed interaction with the GUI controls 322, 324 and 326 of
Referring to
Once the necessary configuration has been performed, the subscriber may use wireless communication device 28 to engage in various activities which may involve data transmission, such as wireless web browsing, file downloads and sending or receiving email messages with large attachments. The o/s 58 will automatically instruct the data transmission tallier module 70 (
For example, in the present embodiment, when 50% of the data transmission cap is reached, the first data transmission limiting tactic (i.e. email conversion from HTML to ASCII), represented by entry 308 of
Later, when 90% of the data transmission cap is reached, the second data transmission limiting tactic (i.e. address book syncing via cable rather than over the air), represented by entry 309 of
It will be appreciated that, when the second data limiting tactic is effected at 90% of the cap, this is in addition to the first data limiting tactic which has already been in effect since the data transmission tally reached 50% of the cap. This illustrates the fact that definition of “tiers” of data limiting tactics is possible. That is, the user may configure the system 10 so that, the closer the data transmission tally is to the cap, the more data limiting tactics will take effect. This may have the effect of progressively reducing data transmission by ever-increasing amounts as the cap is approached, with a view to reducing the likelihood that the cap will be exceeded. This occurs even absent user awareness of the current data transmission tally. In some embodiments, the user may be kept aware of the current tally, as well as any currently active data limiting tactics, e.g., through the use of suitable icons or text in a GUI displayed during run time. The tally may be represented as a percentage for example, while the currently active data limiting tactics may be represented as icons.
As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, various modifications can be made to the above-described embodiments. For example, some embodiments may not display the operative data transmission cap as shown in
It will be appreciated that the above-described approach for limiting data transmission may be used for various types of communication devices, regardless of the transmission medium or media over which they are capable of communicating (wireless, wired, fiber optic, etc.). This approach is not limited to wireless communication devices, nor is it necessarily only for use in push email systems. Moreover, the GUI that is used to configure the data limiting tactics and thresholds at which they are to take effect need not necessarily be displayed at the communication device to and/or from which data transmission is to be limited. For example, GUI 300 could have been displayed at intermediary server 22 (
It should further be appreciated that the type of GUI control(s) used for selecting data transmission limiting tactics and associated data transmission thresholds need not be exactly as shown in
Other modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art and, therefore, the invention is defined in the claims.
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