Multicast management mechanism for mobile networks

• US 20040203756A1
• Filed: 08/08/2002
• Published: 10/14/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
• Inventors: Pang, Ai-Chun, Lin, Yi-Bing, Feng, Vincent, Chen, Chun-Shiow
• Granted Patent: US 7,058,413 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/433
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/189 in combination with wireless systems selective distribution or broadcast in wireless communication networks H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/40 for selective distribution or broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/06 Registration at serving network Location Register, VLR or user mobility server

Abstract

A multicast management mechanism for mobile networks. The mechanism proposes a multicast table approach to considerably reduce the number of short messages and multimedia messages sent to a service area, thereby reducing its paging cost. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks includes the steps: establishing a VLR recorder table in a home location register (HLR), to record VLR addresses located by multicast users and the total number of multicast users in each VLR; and establishing LA tables, to record LA addresses in each VLR and the total number of multicast users in each LA.

Claims

1. A multicast management mechanism for mobile networks comprising the steps□

establishing a visitor location register (VLR) record table in a home location register (HLR), to record VLR addresses located by all multicast users and the total number of multicast users in each VLR; and

establishing a location area (LA) record table in each VLR, to record LA addresses in each VLR and the total number of multicast users in each LA.

2. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 1, wherein the HLR is implemented in a host.

3. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 1, wherein the HLR is implemented in a server.

4. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 1, wherein all VLRs are implemented in different servers.

5. A multicast management mechanism for mobile networks, each mobile network having a mobile device, a short message-service center (SM-SC), a short message service gateway mobile switching center (SMS GMSC), an HLR, a first mobile switching center (MSC), a second mobile switching center, a first visitor location register (VLR) and a second visitor location register, when the mobile device moves from a first location area (LA) of the first MSC to a second LA of the second MSC, the multicast management mechanism comprising the steps:

receiving a location signal from the second MSC by the mobile device;

according to the location signal, performing a multicast user registration to register the latest LA of the multicast user who owns the mobile device;

according to the latest location area, establishing a multicast table including a VLR record table in a home location register (HLR) and LA record tables, wherein the VLR record table records VLR addresses located by all multicast users and the total number of multicast users in each VLR and LA record tables record LA addresses in each VLR and the total number of multicast users in each LA; and

according to the multicast table, performing a multicast forward procedure when a message is on broadcast, to complete the multicast message forward.

6. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the mobile device is a cellphone.

7. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the mobile device is a personal digital assistant (PDA).

8. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the HLR is implemented in a host.

9. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the HLR is implemented in a server.

10. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the first and second VLRs are implemented in different servers.

11. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein, when the first and second VLRs are different, the multicast user registration comprises the steps:

Step 1;

the mobile device sending a location update request to the second MSC;

Step 2;

according to the location update request, the second MSC sending a location area update message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_AREA) to the second VLR to change the LA of a multicast user who owns the mobile device from the first LA to the second LA;

Step 3;

according to the location area update message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_AREA), the second VLR identifying the address of the first VLR;

Step 4;

according to the first VLR address identified, the second VLR sending a user identification message (MAP_SEND_IDENTIFICATION) to the first VLR to ask for a International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) of the mobile device to obtain the mobile device'"'"'s identity;

Step 5;

storing the identity and according to the identity to determining the HLR address;

Step 6;

according to the HLR address determined, the second VLR sending a location update operation message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION) including the identity to the HLR;

Step 7;

according to the identity, the HLR recording addresses of the second MSC and the second VLR;

Step 8;

the HLR sending back a location update operation acknowledgment message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_ack) to apprise the second VLR of the completed update action;

Step 9;

according to the location update operation acknowledgment message, the second VLR sending a location area update acknowledgement message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_AREA_ack) to apprise the mobile device of the completed update action;

Step 10;

the HLR sending a location cancellation message (MAP_CANCEL_LOCATION) to the first VLR to delete its obsolete record for the mobile device; and

Step 11;

according to the location cancellation message, the first VLR deleting the mobile device'"'"'s location record and informing the HLR of the location cancellation to complete the registration.

12. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 11, wherein step 8 further comprises the HLR respectivley counting the number of the first and the second VLRs and recording the result counted into the VLR record table.

13. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 11, wherein the step 9 further comprises the second VLR increasing a multicast user, who owns the mobile device, by 1 in the second LA and record the result into its respective LA table.

14. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 11, wherein the step 11 further comprises the first VLR decreasing a multicast user, who owns the mobile device, by 1 in the first LA and recording the result into its respective LA table.

15. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 11, wherein the MSCs are implemented in a computer to access the VLRs.

16. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein, when the first and second VLRs are the same, the multicast user registration comprises the steps:

Step 1;

the mobile device sending a location update request to the second MSC;

Step 2;

according to the location update request, the second MSC sending a location area update message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_AREA) to the second VLR to change the LA of a multicast user who owns the mobile device from the first LA to the second LA;

Step 3;

according to the location area update message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_AREA), the second VLR changing the multicast user'"'"'s LA address and the total number of the multicast users in each LA; and

Step 4;

the second VLR sending a location area update acknowledgement message (MAP_UPDATE_LOCATION_AREA_ack) to inform the mobile device of the completed registration.

17. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 16, wherein in the step 3, the changing total number comprises decreasing the number of multicast users in first LA by 1, increasing the number of multicast users in second LA by 1, and recording the result into their corresponding LA record tables.

18. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 5, wherein the multicast message forward further comprises:

Step 1;

the SM-SC sending a multicast message to the SMS GMSC.

Step 2;

through a short message routing request (MAP_SEND_ROUTING_INFO_FOR_SM), the SMS GMSC requesting routing information of the mobile device from the HLR 30 so that the HLR 30 searches the VLR record table according to the routing information;

Step 3;

if the VLR record table'"'"'s content is greater than zero, the HLR sending a mobile station roaming number (MSRN) to the SMS GMSC through a short message routing request acknowledgement (MAP_SEND_ROUTING_INFO_FOR_SM_ack)

Step 4;

according to the MSRN, the SMS GMSC delivering the multicast message by sending short message forward messages (MAP_FORWARD_SHORT_MESSAGE) to respective MSCs of the multicast users who own the mobile device;

Step 5;

the respective MSCs sending a short message forward location area request (MAP_SEND_INFO_FOR_MT_SMS) to its corresponding VLR to obtain the related information of the multicast users and according to the short message forward location area request to search the LA record tables to identify the LAs where the multicast users reside;

Step 6;

after the LA record tables has recorded the multicast users, performing a paging request to LAs having the LA record table'"'"'s content greater than zero;

Step 7;

according to the paging request, using a standard GSM/UMTS paging procedure to broadcast the multicast message to multicast users in the LAs having the LA record table'"'"'s content greater than zero; and

Step 8;

the multicast users including the multicast user who owns the mobile device starting to receive the multicast message.

The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 18, wherein in step 3, the MSRN provides the identification of the respective MSCs of the multicast users who own the mobile device.

19. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 18, wherein the respective MSCs are implemented in a host.

20. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 18, wherein the SMS GMSC is implemented in a host to access information stored in HLR.

21. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 20, wherein the HLR is implemented in a host.

22. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 21, wherein the HLR is implemented in a server.

23. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 18, wherein the SMS GMSC is implemented in a server to access information stored in HLR.

25. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 18, wherein the standard GSM/UMTS paging procedure is in the document 3GPP TS 09.02.

24. The multicast management mechanism for mobile networks of claim 24, wherein the HLR is implemented in a server.