Patent Application
20120196563
This application claims priority to Canadian Application No. 2,729,301, filed Jan. 28, 2011, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a mobile device indicator for a mobile device user's service plan on the mobile device.
Most users of mobile devices subscribe to a service plan offered by a mobile operator. The service plan outlines limits on services such as data, voice, or Short Message Service (SMS) allowed in a given time period (typically one month) from a particular device.
Typically, once the limit on data, voice or SMS is exceeded for a time period, these services are still available, but the user usually incurs a surcharge for each subsequent use. This surcharge can be exorbitant, and can double the cost of the plan for overages as low as ten percent.
Moreover, most users are unable or unwilling to keep track of the number of SMS messages sent and received, the number of bytes downloaded, or the number of minutes spent talking on the phone. Compounding this problem, is the speed of today's networks. For example, starting a 10 MB video on a High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network at 40 Mb/Sec allows the video to be queued in a matter of seconds. Even if one were to start it by mistake, and cancel it in seconds, the transfer may have already taken place. When off network with a standard non roaming package, such a transfer may cost $500 or more, making this a very costly mistake.
US Publication No. 2004/0260630 to Benco et al. teaches a method whereby users are warned if they are close to reaching their plan limits for a given type of activity. Instead, it is made up of warning messages sent when thresholds are crossed or limits reached. This has the disadvantage of only warning the user when it is potentially too late to avoid surcharges.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,024 to Boltz teaches a system whereby when a user reaches user-defined limits of usage, the mobile device becomes inoperable, until the user enters a password to reactivate it. This also has the disadvantage of only warning the user when it is potentially too late to avoid surcharges, with the added disadvantage of being inconvenient to the user.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for providing an indication of the activity allowed under a mobile plan, the method comprising receiving, at a mobile device, mobile plan information related to the mobile device, the mobile plan information comprising at least one threshold; tracking activity at the mobile device; comparing the tracked activity with the at least one threshold; and updating an indicator on the mobile device based on the comparing step.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mobile device comprising a communications subsystem and a processor, wherein the communication subsystem and the processor are configured for performing the steps of receiving mobile plan information, the mobile plan information comprising at least one threshold; tracking activity on the mobile device; comparing the tracked user activity with the at least one threshold; and updating an indicator on the mobile device based on the comparing step.
The present invention will be better understood after reading the following description of preferred embodiments thereof, made in reference to the appended drawings in which:
Reference is made to
According to at least one embodiment of the present invention, the application server 16 is a carrier server. A carrier server is a server managed by the carrier company with which the user of mobile device 10 has entered into a service agreement for usage of the mobile device. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, a user's mobile plan is part of this service agreement.
Thus, according to at least one embodiment of the present invention, the carrier server 16 has stored thereon, or alternatively has access to data storage having stored thereon, information about the user's mobile plan. Upon requests by the mobile device, the carrier server can provide information about the user's mobile plan to the mobile device. According to at least one embodiment, the carrier server 16 authenticates mobile device 10 before sending plan information. Authentication techniques are known in the art.
The plan information typically includes at least a start date, a duration, a number of voice minutes allowed, a number of SMS messages allowed, and a number of bytes allowed. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, other information can be included in the plan information. This additional information can include, but is not limited to, costs for additional minutes, costs for additional messages, and costs for additional bytes, as well as costs for roaming.
Once the mobile device 10 has received the plan information from carrier server 16, the mobile device can start displaying the plan strength meter.
The plan strength meter can also be displayed based on data manually entered by the user to describe the plan, or received from a corporate server that manages these plans for the mobile workforce. Whether the plan data comes from the carrier or an alternate site or method, the signal strength meter will have the information it needs to display.
According to at least one embodiment, the plan strength meter is displayed in the status area of the mobile device's display. For the purposes of the present description, the term “status area” will refer to the portion of a mobile device's display other indicators such as battery and signal strength indicators reside.
In
Reference is now made to
At 30, the method starts. At step 31, the mobile receives the plan information. As discussed above, this is done in one embodiment by receiving the plan information from a carrier server. However, the present disclosure contemplates other methods of receiving the plan information. For example, the plan information could be entered manually in the mobile device by the user.
At 32, the mobile device starts to track user activity. More specifically, a tracking agent keeps track of all user activities on the mobile device related to the plan. According to at least one embodiment, the tracking agent is software module running on the mobile device, with access to the data necessary to keep track of user activities.
The tracking agent must first determine which values will be tracked. This information will be available from the plan information. For example, if the plan information sets limits on the number of voice minutes, SMS messages, and bytes downloaded, the tracking agent will keep track of the number of voice minutes, SMS messages, and bytes downloaded. This can be performed in a number of ways, as is known in the art. For example, according to at least one embodiment, the tracking agent could provide a callback function to the mobile device's operating system, such that the callback function is invoked after tracked activities. Thus, after a voice call, the tracking agent would be invoked to add the length of the voice call to its running total for voice minutes. Other methods would be known to those skilled in the art.
At step 33, the mobile device checks whether a new plan period has just started. This is done based on the plan information received in step 31. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the plan information should include the dates on which new plan periods begin. Typically, mobile plans are based on monthly billing periods. Therefore, typically, new plan periods begin on the first of every month. However, the present method can be implemented for any plan period.
If a new plan period is just beginning, as determined at step 33, the activity values are reset to zero at step 34.
At step 35, the tracked user activities are compared against allowed plan values. For example, if the tracking agent has recorded 100 minutes of voice calls since the beginning of the last plan period, and the mobile plan allows for 250 minutes of voice calls, it is determined that 150 minutes of voice calls are available for the current plan period. Similar calculations are performed for other types of user activity such as SMS messages and data.
At step 36, the indicator is updated with the values computed in step 35, in order to reflect how much user activity is available for the current period based on the mobile plan information. The appearance of the indicator and how it is updated to reflect the availability of user activity is discussed in greater detail below.
After step 36, the method returns to step 32 where the tracking agent keeps on tracking user activity.
According to at least one embodiment of the present invention, the present method is adapted to group plans. As is known in the art, a group plan is a plan which allows members of a group to have shared limits for user activities such as voice calls, SMS messages and data. For example, instead of having a plan allowing each of Alice and Bob to have 500 minutes, it might be preferable to have a plan where both Alice and Bob can share 1000 minutes.
However, as would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the above method would not perform well with such plans. A block diagram of a method according to one embodiment of the present disclosure which is adapted to group plans is shown in
The method starts at 40, and at step 41, the mobile device receives the plan information, as in the case of
If a new plan period is starting, the method moves on to step 44, where the user activity values are reset to zero, and the method continues as it would under the embodiment described in
If a new plan period is not starting, the mobile device checks whether it is time to perform a group update at step 47. A group update could be triggered by a number of things, depending on the embodiment of the method being practiced. For example, according to one scenario, a group update may be scheduled at specific time periods, such as at 8 AM every morning. In another embodiment, the group update may occur based on how much user activity has been accumulated in the current plan period. For example, if 10% of the user activity allowed under a plan has been consumed, a group update may be triggered.
If it's not time to perform a group update, the method moves on to step 45 where the user activity is compared to plan information, as described above.
Otherwise, the mobile device performs a group update at step 48. The group update consists of obtaining user activity information from other members of the group in order to properly reflect the amount of activity recorded against the current plan.
The group update can be performed in a number of ways. In one example, group updates are performed amongst members of the groups. Specifically, in this embodiment, a mobile device looking to perform a group update first checks the identity of the group members. This information is provided, according to at least one embodiment, in the plan information.
The mobile device then attempts to communicate with each mobile device of the group, in order to request user activity information as compiled on each of the mobile devices.
Such communications between mobile devices is known in the art and can take various forms. Under one scenario, the mobile device requesting the information creates a socket connection, PIN to PIN, or sends an MMS or SMS message of a predefined format to the mobile device from which the information is requested. This mobile device with another SMS message, also of a predefined format, and including the information requested. However, other means of communicating between mobile devices are known and the present invention is not limited to a particular means of communication. The appropriate means of communication can be selected based on what is supported by the device
In another embodiment, the group user activity information is maintained at an application server. According to this embodiment, when a mobile seeks to perform a group update, it sends a request to an application server. The request should include a group identifier, or alternatively, a mobile device identifier, to allow the server to properly determine which group the mobile device belongs to. In response to the request, the server sends the mobile device the group user activity information. The group user activity information may just provide the total group activity, or may be broken down on a per-user basis.
The mobile device may also send the application server its own user activity information, for the application server to disseminate to other members of the group. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, this operation may be performed independently from the request for group user activity, but it could also be performed at the same time.
In yet another embodiment, the group user activity information is maintained on a carrier server. As discussed above, a carrier server is a server maintained by the company with which a user has entered into a mobile service agreement. As would be appreciated by those skilled in the art, this company also keeps track of the activities of the user, as it needs to do so for billing purposes. Accordingly, the present method may take advantage of this by requesting the user activity from the carrier server, in the event that the carrier server makes this information available.
As would also be appreciated by those skilled in the art, in this embodiment, there is no need for the mobile device to track its own user activity, as it may request user activity information—including that of its own user—from the carrier server. Alternatively, the mobile device may track user activity, and obtain group activity information from the carrier server. In this last scenario, the mobile device may simply track user activity in between group updates, or may use user activity information from the carrier to confirm its own activity tracking.
Returning now to
Reference is now made to
However, indicators 51, 53, 54, 55 and 56 are provided as examples only, and those skilled in the art will appreciate that other types of indicators are within the scope of the present disclosure.
The present disclosure further contemplates that the tracking of user activity can be performed in various ways, as is known in the art. While the present disclosure is not limited to any particular method of tracking user activity, the following is provided for illustrative purposes.
According to at least one embodiment, the mobile device includes an operating system which allows for callback functions to be registered by third party applications. For examples, callback functions could be registered to be called following each of the user activities being tracked. One callback function could be registered to be called following the completion of a voice call. This callback function would add the length of the just completed voice call to a running total. Similarly, after an SMS message is sent or a UDP packet over a socket, a callback function would increment the running total of the number of SMS messages sent by one, and after a data download, another callback function would add the size of the data download to a running total of data downloads. However other means of tracking user activity are known and the present invention is not so limited.
The above describes various embodiments of methods, systems and apparatuses for practicing the present invention. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that none of the embodiments described above limit the scope of the present invention, which is defined by the claims below.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2729301 | Jan 2011 | CA | national |
