Patent Application
20080081611
The present invention will be understood more fully from the detailed description given below and from the accompanying drawings of various embodiments of the invention, which, however, should not be taken to limit the invention to the specific embodiments, but are for explanation and understanding only.
A method and device for sharing a SIM card among multiple devices are disclosed.
Those of ordinary skill in the art will realize that the following detailed description of the present invention is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other embodiments of the present invention will readily suggest themselves to such skilled persons having the benefit of this disclosure. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that these specific details may not be required to practice to present invention. In other instances, well-known circuits and devices are shown in block diagram form to avoid obscuring the present invention. In the following description of the embodiments, substantially the same parts are denoted by the same reference numerals.
In the interest of clarity, not all of the features of the implementations described herein are shown and described. It will, of course, be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, numerous implementation-specific devices must be made in order to achieve the developer's specific goals, wherein these specific goals will vary from one implementation to another and from one developer to another. Moreover, it will be appreciated that Such a development effort might be complex and time-consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of engineering for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.
In accordance with the present invention, the components, process steps, and/or data structures may be implemented using various types of operating systems, computing platforms, computer programs, and/or general purpose machines. In addition, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that devices of a less general purpose nature, such as hardwired devices, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), or the like, may also be used without departing from the scope and spirit of the inventive concepts disclosed herein.
While particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will now be apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure that many more modifications than mentioned above are possible without departing from the inventive concepts disclosed herein. Therefore, the appended claims are intended to encompass within their scope all such modifications as are within the spirit and scope of this invention.
The present invention discloses a technique of sharing a subscriber identity data repository (“SIDR”) with multiple devices. An example of SIDR is a subscriber identity module (“SIM”) card. In one embodiment, the system includes a SIM card, a handset device, a digital processing device, and a wireless modem. The SIM card includes subscription information, also known as SIM data. A handset device, which may be a cellular phone, is coupled to the SIM card. The handset device also employs short-range wireless circuitry for short-range wireless communications such as personal area networks (“PANs”). PANs, for example, may use the technology of infrared transmission, or radio frequency (“RF”) based communications such as Bluetooth technology. The digital processing device uses its on-board short-range wireless circuitry to communicate with the handset device via a PAN. In another embodiment, a secured cable connection is used between the handset device and the digital processing device for short-range communications. In one embodiment, the digital processing device is capable of obtaining the SIM data from the SIM card via a PAN, and then uses received SIM data to access the wireless communications network. The wireless communications network provides long-range wireless communications and it is supported by wireless communications network providers such Verizon and T-mobile.
Handset device 120 and digital processing device 110, in another embodiment, include cable communication circuits for short-range communications using cable connections. Instead of using short-range wireless communications as discussed earlier, a cable is used to connect between handset device 120 and digital processing device 110 for data transfer. The cable can be one of several conventional cables, such as a Universal Serial Bus (“USB”) cable, an optical cable, or a FireWire (IEEE 1394) cable. To establish data transfer over a cable connection, a secure channel 132, in one embodiment, should be established before the cable is used for transmitting the SIM data.
SIM card 124 stores data or the SIM data wherein the SIM data includes subscriber related information such as subscriber configuration, customization information, requirements and/or preferences. The subscriber configuration information may also identify a home service area, a list of frequently called numbers, voice recognition samples, a list of most recent calls received and/or placed by the subscriber, a notification setting (e.g., ring or vibrate), a list of short messages, etc. To facilitate wireless communications, a cellular phone obtains the SIM data from a SIM card, which may be inserted into a SIM socket in the cellular phone and uses the SIM data to access a wireless communications network, such as a Verizon or a Cingular wireless network. The SIM data may further include information about the identity of subscriber, telephone number, location area identity, and authenticate of the mobile subscriber and it can be accessed by a remote device for accessing the wireless communications network. In one embodiment, the SIM card is a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (“USIM”).
Digital processing device 110 includes a modem 116, a CPU 114, and a short-range wireless component 112. In one embodiment, digital processing device 110 is a laptop computer with wireless capabilities. Modem 116 is capable of communicating with various wireless communications networks via wireless media 144. CPU 114, which will be described more detail in
Base station 102 transmits and/or receives voice modulated signals and digital data to or from a mobile switching center, not shown in the figure. Switching center communicates with a remote device (e.g. a telephone and/or a gateway device) over the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). Base station 102 is also coupled to an Internet Service Provider server 104 (“ISP server”) for transmitting/receiving data modulated signals. ISP server 104 transmits/receives data to/from a gateway or router 106, which further sends/receives the data to/from a remote device over the Internet 108.
System 100 allows the handset device 120 to share its SIM card 124 with wireless device. For example, digital processing device 110 obtains the SIM data from SIM card 124 to access a wireless communications network. A mobile user usually carries a cellular telephone 120 which contains a SIM card 124 and cellular telephone 120 is most likely to be within close proximity to the user. When cellular telephone 120 is being located or identified within a vicinity of a computer 110 used by the user, system 100 allows the digital processing device 110 to obtain the SIM data from SIM card 124 to access a wireless communications network via a wireless media 144. In one embodiment, system 100 facilitates a process of sharing a SIM card including the steps of initializing devices, identifying nearby devices, establishing a PAN, and connecting to a wireless communications network.
For the initialization stage, a series of commands is executed on both cellular phone (handset device) 120 as well as a laptop computer (digital processing device) 110 so that cellular phone 120 and laptop computer 110 will recognize with each other during the process of authentication for establishing a PAN. In one embodiment, the commands for the initialization only need to be executed once for both cellular phone 120 and laptop computer 110. In another embodiment, the commands for the initialization need to be executed prior to every identification stage.
Referring back to
After a secured channel 132 and/or a PAN 130 is established between laptop computer 110 and cellular phone 120, laptop computer 110 can request a wireless connection 144 to a wireless communications network via its modem 116. All requests for validation and verification of SIM data received from the network are then processed into appropriate data query commands that are sent to cellular telephone 120 through secure channel 132. Cellular telephone 120 executes the requests received from laptop computer 110 and sends responses back to laptop computer 110. Laptop computer 110 then uses the answers received from cellular telephone 120 to respond to the queries from the wireless providers for accessing the wireless communications network. Once the requests are validated, laptop computer 110 is successfully logged onto the wireless or cellular network.
In one embodiment, communications between digital processing device 110 and cellular telephone 120 may be accomplished through encapsulation of commands specified in 3GPP of the Subscriber Identity Module—Mobile Equipment (SIM-ME) interface. For example, laptop computer 110 may use handset device 120 to perform the necessary authentication and cipher key generation procedure. When laptop computer 110 receives a Random Number (RAND) from the cellular network, it passes the RAND to handset device 120 through the secure communications channel 132 in the encapsulated command RUN GSM ALGORITHM. Handset device 120 then passes the RAND received from laptop computer 110 to SIM card 124 in the command RUN GSM ALGORITHM. SIM card 124 returns the values SRES and Kc to handset device 120, which in turn sends these values to laptop computer 110 through the secure communications channel 132. Laptop computer 110 then sends the SRES to the wireless or cellular network. The network compares this value with the value of SRES which it calculates for itself. The comparison of these SRES values provides the authentication. The value Kc is used by laptop computer 110 in any future enciphered communications with the network until the next invocation of this mechanism.
In one embodiment, the access of the SIM information may be limited only to a specific subset of the data on the SIM card. In addition, digital processing device 110 may need to satisfy the requirements identified in 3GPP TS 11.10-4 Mobile Station (MS) Conformance Specification.
It should be noted that the underlying concept of the present invention would not change if handset device 120 is replaced with any other types of digital processing device. Moreover, it is apparent to one of ordinary skilled in the art that SIM card 124 can be replaced with a SIDR.
Referring back to
Referring back to
It should be noted that some wireless communications networks only allow a single device to be registered on the network for each set of SIM information. Various control mechanisms may be used to ensure the compliance of such requirement. As mentioned earlier, cellular handset device 202 can implement a token passing mechanism so that if a laptop computer is successfully registered with the network, the laptop computer would be deemed to hold the “registration token”, and the handset's radio or modem is disabled to prevent it from registering with the network. Furthermore, handset 202 would reject SIM data requests from other trusted devices. In order to avoid loss of the token, a periodic token keep-alive message exchange may be implemented. Additional token passing messages may be implemented to allow the laptop computer to return the token to cellular handset 202 when it is no longer needed.
An advantage of using the present invention is to allow more than one wireless devices to share a single set of SIM data for accessing the cellular services. Each mobile user only needs to set up a single SIM card account with the cellular carrier for multiple wireless devices (or services). With reduced number of SIM card accounts, the present invention improves the wireless network traffic and consequently, enhances the network performance.
Main memory 304, which may include multiple levels of cache memories, stores frequently used data and instructions. Main memory 304 may be RAM (random access memory), MRAM (magnetic RAM), or flash memory. Static memory 306 may be a ROM (read-only memory), which is coupled to bus 311, for storing static information and/or instructions. Mass storage memory 307, which may be a magnetic disk, an optical disk, hard disk drive, floppy disk, CD-ROM, and/or flash memories for storing large amounts of data. I/O unit 320, in one embodiment, includes a display 321, keyboard 322, and cursor control device 323. Display device 321 may be a liquid crystal device, cathode ray tube (“CRT”), touch-screen display, or other suitable display device. Keyboard 322 may be a conventional alphanumeric input device for communicating information between computer system and computer operator(s). Another type of user input device is cursor control device 323, such as a conventional mouse, touch mouse, trackball, or other type of cursor for communicating information between system and user(s).
Long range communication device 332 is coupled to bus 311 for accessing information from remote computers or servers through a wide-area network. Long range communication device 332 may include a modem or a network interface device, or other similar devices that facilitate communication between computer 200 and a network. Short-range communication device 330 is coupled to bus 311 for facilitating and establishing a PAN with other short-range wireless devices.
The present invention includes various processing steps, which will be described below. The steps of the present invention may be embodied in machine or computer executable instructions. The instructions can be used to cause a general purpose or special purpose system, which is programmed with the instructions to perform the steps of the present invention. Alternatively, the steps of the present invention may be performed by specific hardware components that contain hard-wired logic for performing the steps, or by any combination of programmed computer components and custom hardware components. While embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to wireless communications network, the method and apparatus described herein is equally applicable to other network infrastructures or other data communications environments.
At block 404, the process issues a request for establishing a secure short-range wireless communication channel between the handset device and a digital processing device. To establish a secure short-range wireless communication, the process further includes the steps of transmitting a first secret authentication key from the digital processing device to the cellular phone, and then, passing a second secret authentication key from the cellular phone to the digital processing device. Once the first secret authentication key and the second secret authentication key are verified and confirmed, a secured short-range wireless communication channel is established. In one embodiment, the secured short-range wireless communication network is a PAN. PAN includes, but not limited to, Bluetooth, Ultra Wideband, ZigBee, or Ambient networks. After the secured short-range wireless communication network is established, the process moves to block 406.
At block 406, the process obtains SIM data from the SIM card via the secure short-range wireless communication channel. In one aspect, the SIM data includes identifying mobile subscriber, telephone number, and location area identity. In one embodiment, the process encrypts the SIM data before it is being transmitted through the secure short-range wireless communication channel. After block 406, the process proceeds to the next block.
At block 408, the process requests a connection to a wireless communications network in accordance with the SIM data. In one aspect, the process instructs a wireless modem residing on a removable PCI-Express MiniCard that is logically coupled to the digital processing device to issue a request for connecting to the wireless communications network. In one embodiment, the process first allows the digital processing device to obtain a token, which permits the digital processing device to access the SIM card. The token, in this embodiment, is used to ensure that only one device can request for wireless communications network at any given time with one set of SIM data. During the operation, the process transmits the authentication request to the SIM card through the secure short-range wireless communication channel and then, receives an authentication response for the authentication request from the SIM card via the secure short-range wireless communication channel. Upon receipt of the authentication response, the process transmits the authentication response to the wireless communications network. When a connection to the wireless communications network is established, the process ends.
While particular embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that, based upon the teachings herein, changes and modifications may be made without departing from this invention and its broader aspects. Therefore, the appended claims are intended to encompass within their scope all such changes and modifications as are within the true spirit and scope of this invention.
