Communication system

• US 20060143266A1
• Filed: 02/02/2006
• Published: 06/29/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Kameda, Kenji, Ohto, Yasunori, Ueda, Yuichi
• Application Number:
  US11/345,387
• Publication Number:
  US 20060143266A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1021 based on client or server locations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1029 using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/32 by location or mobility data, e.g. speed data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/326 by proximity to another entity
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/20 based on geographic position or location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/248 Connectivity information update
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/36 due to handover

Abstract

A communication system adopts communication means having a small effective communication range for communication between mobile terminals and a server functioning as a cell station, so that each server is responsible for a small range only. In this manner, the communication system produces information about how servers are distributed on the network based on the geographic location of each server, thereby pre-delivering the information about such geographic locations and estimating how much and when data is to be delivered based on the positional relationship between servers and mobile terminals for load sharing.

Claims

1. A communication system comprising:

a mobile terminal configured to transmit a current location and receive a streaming content;

connection servers, each configured to acquire its own location and store the streaming content;

control servers, each configured to receive the location of each connection server from each connection server,

form a Voronoi diagram of geographic regions surrounding each connection server location, each geographic region containing only locations that are closer to a corresponding connection server location than to any other connection server location,

identify a target geographic region in the Voronoi diagram that is likely to contain a future location of the mobile terminal at a future time based on the current location of the mobile terminal and a previous location of the mobile terminal received from the mobile terminal, and

send selected content to the connection server in the target geographic region, the content selected based on the future time at which the target geographic region is likely to contain the future location of the mobile terminal,

wherein said selected content is stored on the connection server, given assessment scores based on weighted access time, access frequency, and number of access users, and when new selected content is received, existing selected content is deleted in ascending order of assessment score until free space is available for the new selected content.