Patent Application
20060121909
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to telecommunications, and, more particularly, to wireless communications.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of wireless telecommunications, such as cellular telephony, a system typically includes a plurality of base stations distributed within an area to be serviced by the system. Various users within the area, fixed or mobile devices, may then access the system and, thus, other interconnected telecommunications systems, via a radio link with one or more of the base stations. Typically, a mobile device maintains communications with the system as the mobile device passes through an area by communicating with one and then another base station, as the user moves. The mobile device may communicate with the closest base station, the base station with the strongest signal, the base station with a capacity sufficient to accept communications, etc.
In a wireless system, there are various reasons for a communication session or call to fail, such as traffic channel confirmations failures, lost calls, dropped calls, etc. Moreover, the failure and the reason for it may be unknown to the base station. In fact, even if the base station becomes aware of the call failure relatively promptly, it may nevertheless be unaware of the reason for the call failure. For example, if the call failed because it was dropped due to faulty coverage in a certain geographic location, the base station may simply be unaware of the location of the mobile device at the time of the call failure.
It is a complicated and time-intensive task to obtain sufficient diagnostic information to determine the exact location of the failure events and the reasons for the failure events. Generally, to obtain diagnostic information regarding these call failure events, a diagnostic monitor is connected directly to the mobile device and a series of tests are manually run by a technician at various geographical regions to try and recreate and analyze call failure events.
The present invention is directed to overcoming, or at least reducing, the effects of one or more of the problems set forth above.
In one aspect of the instant invention, a method is provided for controlling a communications system. The method comprises establishing a first communications session with the communications system, and thereafter discontinuing the first communications session with the communications system. Information related to preselected parameters associated with the first communications session is collected in response to the first communications session being discontinued. Once a second communications session is established with the communications system, at least a portion of the stored information is delivered to the communications system via the second communications session.
In another aspect of the instant invention, a method for controlling a communications system is provided. The method comprises establishing a first communications session with a mobile device, and delivering a signal to the mobile device instructing the mobile device to collect information related to preselected parameters associated with the first communications session in response to the first communications session being discontinued. A second communications session is established with the mobile device, and at least a portion of the collected information from the mobile device is received via the second communications session.
The invention may be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals identify like elements, and in which:
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the description herein of specific embodiments is not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
Illustrative embodiments of the invention are described below. In the interest of clarity, not all features of an actual implementation are described in this specification. It will of course be appreciated that in the development of any such actual embodiment, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which will vary from one implementation 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 for those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.
Turning now to the drawings, and specifically referring to
In one embodiment, a plurality of the base stations 130 may be coupled to a Radio Network Controller (RNC) 138 by one or more connections 139, such as T1/EI lines or circuits, ATM virtual circuits, cables, optical digital subscriber lines (DSLs), and the like. Although one RNC 138 is illustrated, those skilled in the art will appreciate that a plurality of RNCs 138 may be utilized to interface with a large number of base stations 130. Generally, the RNC 138 operates to control and coordinate the base stations 130 to which it is connected. The RNC 138 of
As is illustrated in
Returning to
Thus, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the communications system 100 enables the mobile devices 120 to communicate with the data network 125 and/or the PSTN 160. It should be understood, however, that the configuration of the communications system 100 of
Unless specifically stated otherwise, or as is apparent from the discussion, terms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or “determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical, electronic quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system's memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
Referring now to
The mobile device 120 shares certain functional attributes with the base station 130. For example, the mobile device 120 includes a controller 250, an antenna 255 and a plurality of channels: such as a shared channel 260, a data channel 270, and a control channel 280. The controller 250 generally operates to control both the transmission and reception of data and control signals over the antenna 255 and the plurality of channels 260, 270, 280.
Normally, the channels 260, 270, 280 in the mobile device 120 communicate with the corresponding channels 220, 230, 240 in the base station 130. Under the operation of the controllers 210, 250, the channels 220, 260; 230, 270; 240, 280 are used to effect a controlled scheduling of communications from the mobile device 120 to the base station 130.
Turning now to
Generally, it is desirable for the system 100 to obtain diagnostic information regarding a call failure event after actual failure event occurs. Using this approach, a large amount of data from actual call failure events can be collected and then analyzed to determine the location and the reasons for the failures.
In some applications in which the instant invention may be employed, there may be a high rate of mobile devices 120 having failure events, and thus, it may be useful in at least one embodiment of the instant invention for selected mobile devices 120 to be controllably instructed to send the diagnostic data. That is, to avoid scenarios in which many mobile devices 120 attempt to transmit diagnostic data at the same time, it may be useful to schedule the mobile devices 120 to transmit data at a desired time period.
The classification of the mobile devices 120 may be used in determining a schedule at which the various mobile devices 120 may be allowed to transmit their diagnostic data. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that any of a variety of factors may be used, such as the Access Overload Class of the mobile device 120 and the type of call failure events. The Access Overload Classes and Call Failure Events Required information may be broadcast in overhead channel messages (i.e., System Parameters) by the base station 130 so that the mobile device 120 knows to collect this data on failure prior to acquiring the system 100. This change may be accomplished by modifying the air interface standards for the various wireless protocols (i.e., IS-2000 for CDMA).
The ability to activate this data collection mechanism for the mobile devices 120 may be controlled on a per cell site basis. The activation shall be for specific failure events and shall be able to be required only for a subset of mobile phones that attempt to make calls on the given cell site. Various other configurable parameters can be added as required to obtain the desired amount of data. This allows for specific studies of geographical areas where performance rates are not at desired levels. As illustrated in block 305, the base station 130 may send a message to the mobile devices 120 in an overhead channel message identifying one or more call failure events for which data items should be collected by the mobile devices 120. In this way, the mobile devices 120 are aware that they need to collect the required information upon the occurrence of one or more particular call failure events identified in the message broadcast in the overhead channel.
As shown in block 310, if the failure event being broadcasted in the overhead message occurs, and the mobile device 120 is in the-subset of mobile devices 120 required to send diagnostic information, then the mobile device 120 will collect diagnostic data items, if the data items are available. For example, the mobile device 120 may collect one or more of the following types of information:
As discussed above, it is desirable for the system 100 to obtain diagnostic information regarding a call failure event after the actual failure event occurs. However, after these failure events, the mobile device 120 is no longer in communication with the base station 130, and thus, the mobile device 120 cannot relay this information back to the system 100. Thus, as shown in block 315 in one embodiment of the instant invention, it may be useful for the mobile device 120 to at least temporarily store diagnostic information in its local memory after the failure event occurs. Thereafter, as shown in block 320, when the mobile device 120 subsequently establishes communications with the system 100, the diagnostic information can then be relayed to the base station 130 using any of a variety of communications schemes, such as a data burst capability (Short Message Service) currently available for wireless networks.
After a failure event occurs for the mobile device 120, it will store at least some of the above-identified types of data in memory. Once the mobile device 120 reconnects to the same system 100 (e.g., based on System ID), it will send the above data using a data burst message on a reverse channel. This data can then be sent to an offline data storage center where it can be post processed. The data can be used to create location specific information for failure events. In addition, the other diagnostic information can be processed to determine the probable causes for the failure events at the specific locations.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the various system layers, routines, or modules illustrated in the various embodiments herein may be executable control units (such as the controllers 210, 250 (see
The particular embodiments disclosed above are illustrative only, as the invention may be modified and practiced in different but equivalent manners apparent to those skilled in the art having the benefit of the teachings herein. Furthermore, no limitations are intended to the details of construction or design herein shown, other than as described in the claims below. Consequently, the method, system and portions thereof and of the described method and system may be implemented in different locations, such as the wireless unit, the base station, a base station controller and/or mobile switching center. Moreover, processing circuitry required to implement and use the described system may be implemented in application specific integrated circuits, software-driven processing circuitry, firmware, programmable logic devices, hardware, discrete components or arrangements of the above components as would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art with the benefit of this disclosure. It is therefore evident that the particular embodiments disclosed above may be altered or modified and all such variations are considered within the scope and spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the protection sought herein is as set forth in the claims below.
