Text message processing

• US 20040248596A1
• Filed: 06/04/2003
• Published: 12/09/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Panchal, Jignesh S.
• Application Number:
  US10/453,782
• Publication Number:
  US 20040248596A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/466
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• 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 68/00 User notification, e.g. alerting and paging, for incoming communication, change of service or the like
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/30 Resource management for broadcast services

Abstract

Methods of scheduling, broadcasting and/or receiving one or more broadcast short text messages, constructing and/or scheduling one or more broadcast general page messages, preparing and/or scheduling one or more broadcast text messages, updating a broadcast slot cycle index, and/or a broadcast message queue for storing text messages.

Claims

1. A method of scheduling broadcast text messages comprising:

scheduling for transmission at least one constructed general page message for each of the broadcast text messages; and

scheduling each of the broadcast text messages for which the corresponding at least one general page message was transmitted.

2. The method of claim 1, said scheduling for transmission at least one constructed general page message step comprises:

identifying a number of the broadcast text messages to be sent;

identifying a number of slots in the wireless communications channel assigned to broadcast text messages; and

prioritizing the broadcast text messages.

3. The method of claim 1, said scheduling for transmission at least one constructed general page message step comprises storing the at least one general page message including at least one record in a queue.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said scheduling for transmission at least one constructed general page message step comprises keeping track of which general page messages are constructed and scheduled, but not transmitted.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one general page message may not be transmitted, due to transmission of other, higher priority services.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the other, higher priority services comprises at least one of voice, data, and paging services.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one general page message may not be transmitted, due to transmission of other, higher priority broadcast text messages.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the higher priority broadcast text messages comprise at least one emergency broadcast text message.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of scheduling the at least one general page message comprises scheduling as many general page messages as possible for a given slot cycle.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said step of scheduling as many general page messages as possible for a given slot cycle comprises increasing or decreasing a broadcast slot cycle index.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein said step of scheduling the at least one general page message further comprises rescheduling any of the at least one general page message not transmitted, in a subsequent slot cycle.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of scheduling each of the broadcast text messages is performed for each of the at least one general page messages that were transmitted.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of scheduling each of the broadcast text messages comprises storing the each of the broadcast text messages in a queue.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said step of scheduling each of the broadcast text messages comprises keeping track of which broadcast text messages are prepared and scheduled, but not transmitted.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said step of scheduling each of the broadcast text messages comprises rescheduling any of the broadcast text messages not transmitted, in a subsequent slot cycle.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless communications channel is a paging channel and the at least one general page message and the broadcast text messages are sent in slots of the paging channel.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is performed in a wireless communications system comprising at least one of an IS-2000, UMTS, and GSM wireless communications system.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the method is performed by a base station of the wireless communications system.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the method is performed by a broadcast schedule and agent of the base station.

21. A network entity in a communication system, comprising:

a broadcast message queue having a memory for storing a plurality of broadcast text messages of differing priorities;

wherein the plurality of broadcast text messages are stored in said memory in priority order and higher priority broadcast text messages are sent first in a given broadcast clock cycle;

wherein remaining broadcast text messages of the plurality of broadcast text messages are reprioritized in said memory so that remaining higher priority broadcast text messages are sent first in a subsequent broadcast clock cycle.

22. The network entity of claim 21, wherein said network entity is a base station.

23. A method of constructing broadcast general page messages, comprising:

identifying a number of broadcast text messages in a broadcast message queue for transmission in a broadcast slot cycle using a broadcast slot cycle index; and

constructing a broadcast general page message for each of the broadcast text messages in a broadcast message queue, the broadcast general page messages comprising a record for each of the number of broadcast general page messages in the broadcast message queue.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein each broadcast general page message contains a record corresponding to one broadcast text message.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein at least one broadcast general page message includes more than one record.

26. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

scheduling and sending the number of broadcast general page messages in a given slot of the broadcast slot cycle;

wherein if any of the number of broadcast general page messages cannot be sent because the given slot of the broadcast slot cycle is full, a flag is set for each of the number of broadcast general page messages containing records of corresponding broadcast text messages stored in the broadcast message queue and a broadcast general page message corresponding to each of the number of broadcast text messages that cannot be sent is dropped.

27. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

preparing the number of broadcast text messages from the broadcast message queue, comprising

preparing a first of the number of broadcast text messages to be sent out in a in a given slot of a broadcast slot cycle,

if a flag, which indicates that the broadcast general page message is sent or not, is set for the first of the number of broadcast text messages, incrementing a retry counter,

if the retry counter for the first of the number of broadcast text messages exceeds a threshold, removing the first of the number of broadcast text messages from the broadcast message queue and incrementing a drop counter,

sending the first of the number of broadcast text messages if there is space in the given slot of a broadcast slot cycle,

if there is no space, incrementing the retry counter,

if the retry counter for the first of the number of broadcast text messages exceeds the threshold, removing the first of the number of broadcast text messages from the broadcast message queue and incrementing the drop counter,

if the first of the number of broadcast text messages from the broadcast message queue is not dropped, sending the first of the number of broadcast text messages over a paging channel,

if a next of the number broadcast text messages is not a last messages, repeat the above steps, and

if a next of the number broadcast text messages is the last message, constructing an empty general page message with broadcast-done bit set and sending the empty general page message over the paging channel.

28. The method of claim 23, further comprising:

updating a broadcast slot cycle index, comprising

updating an average number of dropped broadcast text messages using a drop counter,

determining how many broadcast text messages remain in the broadcast message queue at the end of each broadcast slot cycle,

updating an average number of unserved broadcast text messages based on how many broadcast text messages remain in a broadcast message queue at the end of each broadcast slot cycle,

if the average number of dropped broadcast text messages or the average number of unserved broadcast text messages is higher than a threshold, decrementing the broadcast slot cycle index,

if the average number of dropped broadcast text messages or the average number of unserved broadcast text messages is lower than the threshold, incrementing the broadcast slot cycle index, and

if a paging channel is overloaded, incrementing the broadcast slot cycle index.