Method and system for Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring for wireless devices

• US 20100020717A1
• Filed: 09/25/2009
• Published: 01/28/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Root Wireless Incorporated (Ziff Davis, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Quality Experience Testing LLC (Mark Baerwaldt)
• Inventors: McGregor, Gregory M., McGregor, Christopher M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,423,014 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/23 Indication means, e.g. displays, alarms, audible means
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/24 with feedback of measurements to the transmitter
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/309 Measuring or estimating channel quality parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2207/185 wireless packet-switched
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2227 Quality of service monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 7/0084 Network monitoring; Error detection; Error recovery; Network testing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

Method and apparatus to monitor MQoS of wireless mobile devices is described. In one embodiment, the present invention provides a method to monitor the health of 3G mobile devices and provide a status check of such health to network technicians, supervisors, and management. In one aspect, mobile devices on the network perform measurement of MQoS factors that are reported to a quality of service backend. The MQoS data is combined to show current and historical network status. In another aspect, alarms may be set to notify specific managers when manager programmable conditions occur, such as low system performance, or specific error conditions occur. Reports may be generated summarizing and illustrating performance in tabular and graphical form. Parameters used for testing and monitoring mobile devices may be input to specific mobile devices or groups of mobile devices in a system. In one aspect, customer care or call centers may be enabled to request specific tests from specific mobile devices and utilize the overall network status to diagnose and/or resolve customer issues.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring quality of service in a wireless device in communication with a transceiver in a packet-based wireless network, wherein the wireless device comprises a mobile handset having an internal processor and program for processing quality of service data in the handset, comprising:

establishing a packet-based communication signal between the wireless device and the transceiver;

instructing the transceiver to provide the wireless device with data associated with determining the status of the communication signal;

testing the status of the communication signal handled by the wireless device by examining in the handset at least some data packets received information that is relevant to the signal status; and

,

reporting the signal status to the transceiver.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the testing comprises determining at least one of a plurality of quality of service metrics pertaining to the status of the communication signal at more than one location.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the quality of service metrics include at least one of identification, configuration, time of terminal, date of terminal, timestamp, bandwidth, inter-packet delay, round trip delay, one way delay, packet loss, customer service agent test, user self test, connection type, bit error rate, block error rate, frame error rate, packet retransmission, battery strength, signal to interference ratio, received signal strength indicator, energy per bit to noise ratio, energy per chip noise ratio, dropped connections, connection time, terminal memory usage, terminal diagnostics, network transitions, MTU analysis, ATU analysis, and combinations thereof.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the signal status at the transceiver and mapping the signal status to a grid of at least part of a network.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein mapping the communication signal status to the grid comprises displaying the grid.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein displaying the grid comprises superimposing a display of the grid over a geographical map representing the at least part of the network.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising transmitting from the wireless device at least some protocols to the transceiver requesting at least some of the communication signal status therefrom.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein at least some of the protocols are selected from protocols defined within 3G and 2.5G network standards for a packet-based wireless network environment.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein reporting comprises using the wireless device for processing signal status in the handset in a manner relevant to determining a quality of service.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein processing comprises receiving in the handset at least some status data from the wireless network in communication therewith relating to the status of the network.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising wirelessly providing the processed data to the transceiver.

12. A wireless communications system, comprising:

at least one wireless device in communication with a remote transceiver in a packet-based wireless network wherein the wireless device comprises a mobile handset having an internal processor and program for processing quality of service data in the handset, wherein the processor in the handset is configured to process quality of service data in a manner relevant to determining quality of service at multiple locations; and

,

an output device in the wireless device and configured to provide the processed data to the transceiver, wherein the processor is programmed to include a test routine to monitor and measure the functionality of the mobile device to operate in the packet-based wireless network at multiple locations and is programmed to include at least one test routine to evaluate and report packet performance parameters when operating in the wireless network at multiple locations.

13. The wireless communications system of claim 12, wherein the mobile handset has a display and input means.

14. The wireless communications system of claim 12, further comprising a computer readable media and a set of instructions stored by the computer readable media that, when loaded into the handset, causes the processor in the handset to:

process the quality of service data; and

,

provide the processed data to the output device.

15. The wireless communications system of claim 14, wherein the quality of service data is derived from at least some data received from one of the transceiver, the wireless device, a user inputting data to the wireless device, and combinations thereof.

16. The wireless communications system of claim 14, wherein the computer instruction are compiled computer instructions stored as an executable program on the computer readable media.

17. The wireless communications system of claim 14, wherein the set of computer readable instructions is stored in an electronic signal.

18. A method of determining a quality of service relevant to a user of a wireless mobile handset wirelessly communicating with a fixed transceiver on a data packet-based communication network from multiple locations, the

establishing a digital communication link between the wireless mobile handset and the fixed transceiver;

determining the location of the mobile handset and at least one quality of service metric to measure with respect to the user of the wireless mobile handset;

generating, from the network, at least some data relevant to the at least one quality of service metric that is associated with a quality of service experienced by the user at a location where the digital communication link is established.

embedding the at least some data within at least some data packets associated with the link; and

,

processing the at least some data in the handset to determine the quality of service relevant to the user at the determined location.

19. The method of claim 55, wherein the at least some data comprises RSSI, SIR, EBNR, ECNR, mobile device identification, timestamp, data packet group information, network transitions, air interface parameters, pre-defined data sequences checksum, connection time, time duration with respect to downloading data, time duration with respect to uploading data, packet loss, a number of data downloads, a number of data uploads, file size, inter-packet delay, number of dropped connections, type of network communicating thereon, client IP address, data associated with the wireless mobile handset, data compression capability of the wireless mobile handset and combinations thereof.

20. A method of monitoring quality of service in a user'"'"'s wireless device in communication with a service center transceiver in a packet-based wireless network in response to a user request for identity data, wherein the wireless device comprises a mobile handset having an internal processor and a program for processing quality of service data in the handset wherein the program includes a user interface that enables a user to perceive data that are processed by the internal processor, comprising:

receiving the user request at the service center transceiver;

establishing a packet-based communication signal between the wireless device and the service center transceiver; and

,

instructing the transceiver to provide the wireless device with data associated with the data request;

transmitting identity data relating to the user request to the wireless device;

determining if a form of the transmitted data is returned to the service transceiver;

alerting the service transceiver if a form of the transmitted data is not returned to the service transceiver within a threshold period of time; and

,

reporting a failure to return a form of the transmitted data to the service transceiver within the threshold period of time.