Delivery of broadcast information to a mobile station in a radio communication system

• US 20050014501A1
• Filed: 06/03/2002
• Published: 01/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Motorola, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lobo, Lynette, Aitkenhead, Gary John, Emberson, Grant
• Application Number:
  US10/485,005
• Publication Number:
  US 20050014501A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/435.100
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/14 using user query or user detection

Abstract

A method (300) of delivering broadcast information to a mobile station (12) in a radio communication system (100) having a plurality of communication cells that are able to serve said mobile station (12) with a communication link. The method includes the steps of receiving a broadcast information trigger (310) caused by the mobile station; and transmitting (324), in response to receiving said trigger (310), broadcast information to the mobile station (112).

Claims

1. A method of delivering broadcast information to a mobile station in a radio communication system having a plurality of communication cells that are able to serve said mobile station with a communication link, the method characterised by the steps of:

receiving a broadcast information trigger caused by the mobile station; and

transmitting, in response to receiving said trigger, broadcast information to the mobile station.

2. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 1, wherein the broadcast information includes serving cell and/or neighbour cell information.

3. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 1, the method further characterised by the step of:

receiving a request from said mobile station for said broadcast information to be transmitted, wherein the request is the trigger.

4. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 3, wherein the mobile station requests transmission of the broadcast information in response to a deterioration in a signal condition.

5. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 3, wherein the mobile station transmits a request for said broadcast information after not receiving said information a pre-defined time period after moving into a cell.

6. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 5, wherein the pre-defined time period is variable dependent on whether said mobile station is in a call.

7. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 1, the method further comprising the step of:

detecting when a mobile station arrives in a cell in order to initiate said trigger.

8. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 7, wherein the step of detecting includes the step of:

detecting that said mobile station has performed a handover between a first cell and a second cell to initiate said trigger.

9. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 7, wherein the step of detecting includes at least one of the steps of:

detecting an arrival of said mobile station on a cell;

or

detecting an exchange of signalling information with said mobile station, or

detecting an uplink transmission from said mobile station.

10. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 7, wherein the step of detecting includes the step of:

detecting a registration message of said mobile station.

11. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 2, the method further comprising the steps of:

ranking neighbour cell information based on a likelihood of said mobile station selecting a particular cell to move to; and

transmitting higher ranked neighbour cell information in preference to lower ranked neighbour cell information in response to the step of receiving a trigger.

12. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 11, the method further comprising the steps of:

obtaining an indication of said mobile station'"'"'s location, for example in a registration message or in determining a location from a transmission of said mobile station using a triangulation method; and

ranking said neighbour cell information in response to said location.

13. The method of delivering broadcast information according to claim 1, wherein the transmission of broadcast information is only sent in response to a trigger.

17. A mobile station adapted to perform the method steps of claim 1.

18. A mobile station adapted to perform the method steps of claim 3.

19. The mobile station of claim 17 wherein the mobile station is a mobile phone, a portable or mobile PMR radio, a personal digital assistant, a lap-top computer or a wirelessly networked PC.

20. A storage medium storing processor-implementable instructions for controlling one or more processors to carry out the method of claim 1.

14. A communication system having a plurality of communication cells that are able to serve a plurality of mobile stations with a communication link, the communication system comprising:

a trigger response function for generating a broadcast information trigger, the trigger response function being responsive to at least one mobile station; and

a transmitter, operably coupled to said trigger response function, to broadcast information to the at least one mobile station in response to said generated trigger.

15. The communication system according to claim 14, wherein the broadcast information includes serving cell and/or neighbour cell information.

16. The communication system according to claim 14, wherein the trigger response function is positioned in one or more of:

an operations and management centre, a base transceiver station, a base station controller, a mobile switching centre.