USER-INITIATED REPORTING OF MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM ERRORS

• US 20090207749A1
• Filed: 02/13/2009
• Published: 08/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Carrier Iq
• Inventors: Roskowski, Steven G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,509,100 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5074 Handling of user complaints or trouble tickets
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/10 Scheduling measurement reports ; Arrangements for measurement reports

Abstract

Systems and methods that automatically collect data associated with system-identified errors as well as data associated with events associated with user-initiated actions. A data collection profile defines data to be collected and a user-initiated trigger. When the user-initiated trigger is sensed, data is collected according to the data collection profile. The collected data can be uploaded immediately, or stored for some period of time before being transmitted to a collection system. A user recognizes an event which may not be recognizable by the system and the user provides an input defined as the user-initiated trigger. Data may be collected for a brief time before, during and a brief time after sensing the user-initiated trigger and may be uploaded to a system. The user may annotate the collected data by explaining the error, after which the explanation is correlated with the collected data.

Claims

1. In a wireless communication system used by multiple devices, a method for collecting data related to events that occur in the system, the method comprising:

identifying data that is to be collected by a device operating in a wireless communication system;

receiving input from a user that triggers collection of the identified data;

collecting the identified data at the device; and

receiving, from the device, data that has been collected by the device in response to the input from the user.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising defining, in a data collection profile, the data that is to be collected,

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving input from a user that triggers collection of the identified data further comprises receiving at least one of input of a key sequence, input of pressing a dedicated key, or input of selection of an option from a menu.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving input from a user further comprises receiving input from the user in response to an event not automatically recognized by the system.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising receiving an explanation of the event detected by the user.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising receiving the explanation as one of a short message service text message, a multimedia messaging service voice message, or information input into a website by the user.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising correlating the received explanation with the received collected data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the data comprises any combination of contextual and environmental data about the device, an application operating on the device, a service utilized by the device at or near the time of the user-initiated triggering condition, and the system.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving, from a device, data that has been generated in response to the data collection profile, comprises receiving the data in a metrics package and receiving an identifier that associates the metrics package with the device.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising collecting the data from any combination of before, during or after detection of the user-initiated trigger.

11. The method of claim 2, further comprising defining in the data collection profile one or more additional triggering conditions.

12. In a wireless network that includes multiple devices, a method for collecting data that can be used to analyze an event, the method comprising:

sensing a user-initiated trigger that is provided by a user at a device of the user, wherein the user-initiated trigger is in response to an event identified at least by the user;

collecting data in response to the user-initiated trigger, wherein the collected data is associated with the event identified by the user;

preparing a metrics package that includes the collected data; and

forwarding the metrics package to a collection system, wherein the collection system analyzes the collected data to evaluate the event.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the collected data includes one or more of:

data describing conditions of the wireless network including signal strength, signal to noise ratio, neighbor list, or any combination thereof; and

data describing the device including current application, device settings, firmware version, user entered data, or any combination thereof.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising collecting data according to a data collection profile, wherein the data collection profile defines the data to be collected in response to the user-initiated trigger.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein sensing a user-initiated trigger further comprises receiving input from the user at the device via one of a sequence of keys, a dedicated key, or a menu option.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising annotating the collected data with an annotation that includes information describing the event.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein annotating the collected data further comprises receiving an annotation in an SMS or MMS message.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein annotating the collected data further comprises receiving an annotation for the collected data via input from a website.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising correlating the annotation with the metrics package.

20. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

storing the metrics package at the device and

transmitting the metrics package to the collection system at a later time.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the collected data includes data collected before the event, data collected at a time of the event, and/or data collected after the event.

22. The method of claim 12, wherein the collected data represents a state of the network and a location of the device within the network at a time of the user-initiated trigger.