ALLOCATION OF INTERNET PROTOCOL (IP) ADDRESSES AND USAGE DURING SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE (SMS) TRANSMISSION

• US 20120110145A1
• Filed: 05/02/2011
• Published: 05/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DRNC Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Inventors: Pinheiro, Ana Lucia, Gauvreau, Jean-Louis, Aghili, Behrouz, Murray, Joseph M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,572,021 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/106 across networks, e.g. mapping telephone numbers to data network addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network 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 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support

Abstract

Disclosed herein are method embodiments and apparatus embodiments for allocating IP addresses for MTC devices, transmitting and receiving SMS using the allocated IP addresses. In an embodiment, the MTC device may be allocated with an IP address without activating a packet data protocol (PDP) context. In addition, after the IP address has been allocated, SMS messages may be transmitted from and to MTC devices using the IP address.

Claims

1. A method for network address allocation, the method comprising:

at user equipment (UE);

communicating an attach request to a network node;

receiving an Internet protocol (IP) address in response to the request; and

advertising the received IP address to a network server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the UE is a machine type communications (MTC) device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein advertising the received network address comprises communicating the IP address to a machine type communications (MTC) server.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising advertising a subscriber identifier to the network server for association with the IP address.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the UE is a machine type communication (MTC) device,

wherein the network server is an MTC server, and

wherein the subscriber identifier is an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) address of the MTC device.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising establishing a packet data protocol (PDP) context with a network subsequent to communicating the attach request to the network node.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein establishing a PDP context comprises sending to the network a PDP context request including the IP address.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the network address is dynamically assigned.

9. A method for transferring a short message service (SMS) message, the method comprising:

receiving a short message service (SMS) message including an Internet protocol (IP) address;

looking up a subscriber identifier associated with the IP address; and

routing the SMS message based on the subscriber identifier.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the network address is an IP address.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the subscriber identifier is an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) address.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the IP address is associated with a machine type communication (MTC) device.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the SMS message includes an indicator to indicate that the IP address is to be used for routing in place of a mobile station integrated services digital network number (MSISDN).

14. The method of claim 9, wherein looking up the subscriber identifier comprises using the IP address to query a home location register (HLR) to obtain information for routing the message.

15. The method of claim 14, comprising receiving from the HLR an international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) address for routing the message.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein the IP address is located in a destination address of the SMS message.

17. The method of claim 9, wherein the IP address is located in a body of the SMS message, and

wherein a header of the SMS message indicates that the IP address is located in the body of the SMS message.

18. A method for transferring a message, the method comprising:

receiving a short message service (SMS) message including an Internet protocol (IP) address of a recipient device; and

inserting an indicator in the SMS message to instruct a network entity to route the message using the IP address.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the indicator includes a subscriber identifier.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the recipient device is a machine type communication (MTC) device.