Patent Application
20140254456
1. Field
The following description relates to a multicast/broadcast service in a WiMAX system, and more particularly, to a method for efficient use of radio resources by identifying the number of terminals currently using a particular service or being interested in the service.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a communication system had developed more focusing on voice-oriented services, and is gradually evolving to provide more various services, such as data services and multimedia services. However, the conventional communication system uses narrow transmission bandwidth and is costly to use, so that it cannot sufficiently respond to growing user needs for services. Moreover, a need of an advanced communication system that can efficiently provide Internet services is increasing with the development of communication industries and an increase in user demand for Internet services. Accordingly, a broadband radio communication system has been adopted to allow bandwidth broad enough to satisfy the user needs and efficiently provide Internet services.
A radio connection method of a broadband radio connection system is standardized in Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 working group. IEEE 802.16 provides wider bandwidth which allows for the transmission of more data within a shorter period of time, as compared to a conventional radio technique for voice-oriented services, and enables all users to share channels (or resources) so that the efficient use of channels is feasible.
For an IEEE 802.16 system, multicast and broadcast service (MBS) standards are established, according to which multicast and broadcast services are provided to a plurality of mobile terminals.
The MBS may be provided by transmitting the same broadcasting content over the same frequency, at the same time and from a number of base stations, unlike the existing unicast services and a receiving terminal receives packets from the different base stations and combines the packets to use, and thereby the reception performance can be increased.
The channels used for the MBS may be classified into common channels and dedicated channels according to a way of radio resource management schemes. The same broadcast service data is transmitted as MBS data bursts over the common channel, so that it can be prevented to waste radio resources for the same data. Data for each user is transmitted in unicast mode over dedicated channels.
However, the unicast service of the MBS may an unnecessary waste of radio resources.
The following description relates to a method of counting the number of terminals currently using a particular service or being interested in the service and switching mode of the corresponding service to unicast mode or MBS mode according to the counting result in an effort to prevent an unnecessary waste of radio resources due to a unicast service of MBS.
In one general aspect, there is provided A method of a multicast/broadcast server to count a number of terminals, comprising: transmitting a request message to a base station to request to count the number of terminals currently being provided with one or more multicast/broadcast services or interested in the multicast/broadcast services; and switching mode of a corresponding service to unicast mode or multicast/broadcast mode according to whether the number of counted terminals is greater than a predefined threshold wherein the number of counted terminals is contained in a message received from the base station as a response to the request message.
Other features and aspects will be apparent from the following detailed description, the drawings, and the claims.
Throughout the drawings and the detailed description, unless otherwise described, the same drawing reference numerals will be understood to refer to the same elements, features, and structures. The relative size and depiction of these elements may be exaggerated for clarity, illustration, and convenience.
The following description is provided to assist the reader in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the methods, apparatuses, and/or systems described herein. Accordingly, various changes, modifications, and equivalents of the methods, apparatuses, and/or systems described herein will be suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. Also, descriptions of well-known functions and constructions may be omitted for increased clarity and conciseness.
Referring to
In addition, the MBS server 100 manages an MBS zone.
Referring to
Thus, the MBS server 100 according to the exemplary embodiment of the present invention requests the base station 103 via the gateway 102 to count the number of terminals currently using the MBS service or being interested in the MBS service, and determines shift of communication mode of a corresponding service in response to a received counting result. That is, the MBS server 100 determines unicast mode or MBS mode to transmit the corresponding service.
The gateway 102 receives multimedia traffic transmitted over the IP network 101 and transmits it to an advanced base station (ABS) 103, and internally provides an end-to-end service in response to a multicast service request.
The ABS 103 receives the multimedia traffic through the gateway 102 and transmits it to the terminal 104 via a radio interface. The ABS 103 counts the number of terminals 104 currently using an MBS service or being interested in the MBS service in response to the request from the MBS server 100, and transmits the counting result to the MBS server 100 via the gateway 102.
In response to a service request from a new user, an MBS server 100 may request a base station 103 to count the number of terminals related to services in a corresponding MBS zone. Then, the MBS server 100 switch mode of terminals related to the service to MBS mode or unicast mode based on the counting result.
Referring to
In operation 302, the base station 103 counts the terminals for signal transmission/reception with one or more terminals 104.
Although not illustrated in drawings, more specifically, the base station 103 may transmit an inquiry message to the terminal 104 to ask whether to be provided with services listed in the service list that is contained in the MBS counting request message or whether to be interested in the services listed in the list. One of available message formats is an MBS scheduling information message used for transmitting MBS scheduling information, which can contain time information about duration of time for which the counting is performed. In response to the MBS counting request message, each terminal 104 may transmit a response message containing a list of the services currently being used or services of interest to the ABS 103.
In operation 303, the ABS 103 transmits, to the MBS server 100, an MBS counting response message containing a result of counting terminals related to each service based on the responses received from the terminals 104.
In response to the MBS counting response message, the MBS server 100 determines switch of communication mode for each terminal according to the result of counting the number of terminals, and this process will be described in detail with reference to
Referring to
If it is determined in operation 401 that the number of counted terminals is smaller than the predefined threshold, the MBS server determines whether the particular service is one of MBS services in operation 403.
If it is determined in operation 402 that the relevant service is an MBS service, the MBS server switches the mode of the service to unicast mode. In contrast, if it is determined in operation 402 that the current service is not an MBS service, that is, the current service is in unicast mode, the MBS server maintains the current mode of the service. This is because resource waste may not incur in the course of provision of services in unicast mode when the number of counted terminals is smaller than the threshold.
If it is determined in operation 401 that the number of counted terminals is greater than the predefined threshold, the MBS server 100 determines whether the particular service is one of MBS services in operation 405.
If it is determined in operation 405 that the service is an MBS service, the MBS server maintains the current mode of the service. In contrast, if it is determined in operation 405 that the current service is not an MBS service, the MBS server switches mode of the service to MBS mode. A reason to switch to MBS mode is because resource waste may incur in the course of provision of services in unicast mode when the number of counted terminals is equal to or greater than the threshold.
As described above, according to the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, it is possible to reduce a waste of radio resources due to unnecessary data transmission by counting the number of terminals and identifying actual multicast and broadcast service users. In addition, the resources can be more efficiently used by switching mode of a plurality of unicast users to multicast mode or broadcast mode.
A number of examples have been described above. Nevertheless, it will be understood that various modifications may be made. For example, suitable results may be achieved if the described techniques are performed in a different order and/or if components in a described system, architecture, device, or circuit are combined in a different manner and/or replaced or supplemented by other components or their equivalents. Accordingly, other implementations are within the scope of the following claims.
