PROVIDING A LOCATION-BASED SERVICE USING REAL-TIME RADIO ACCESS NETWORK (RAN) MODELING

• US 20120252494A1
• Filed: 03/31/2011
• Published: 10/04/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: PARKER, Benjamin J., NEISINGER, Chris S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,577,391 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.3
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/22 Traffic simulation tools or models
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

A system is configured to receive information associated with a flow being transported via a cell within a radio access network (RAN) associated with a service provider network; identify a user device, associated with the flow, based on the information; identify a location of the device based on a location of the cell; generate a group of codes based on the location, the codes corresponding to a group of code lengths and representing one or more quantities of error associated with the location, where a particular code is associated with a code length that corresponds to a quantity of error; and transmit the codes to a content provider, where the codes enable the content provider to obtain the quantity of error that corresponds to a geographical boundary in which the user device is located, and target content, associated with an advertiser within the boundary, to the user device.

Claims

1. A method performed by a server associated with a service provider network, the method comprising:

receiving, by the server and from a radio access network (RAN), information associated with a flow being transported via a cell, of a plurality of cells associated with the RAN, to or from the service provider network;

identifying, by the server, a user device with which the flow is associated based on the information associated with the flow;

retrieving, by the server and from a memory associated with the server, information associated with one or more locations that correspond to one or more cells of the plurality of cells;

identifying, by the server, a location, of the one or more locations, associated with the cell, of the one or more cells, based on the information associated with the one or more locations;

encoding, by the server, information associated with the location, to create one or more location codes, where each of the one or more location codes, when decoded, represent a respective different geographical area in which the location or the user device are located; and

transmit, by the server and to a content provider, the one or more location codes, where the one or more location codes permit a geographical area that encompasses the user device or the location associated with the cell, to be identified, and advertising content to be targeted to the user device via the cell.

2. The method of claim 1, where the server is a RAN modeling server, the method further comprising:

monitoring traffic being transported via the plurality of cells associated with the RAN; and

obtaining the information, associated with the flow, as a result of monitoring the traffic being transported via the plurality of cells.

3. The method of claim 1, where identifying the user device with which the flow is associated further includes:

obtaining a network address from the information associated with the flow;

sending, to another server device, a query to obtain information associated with the user device, where the query includes the network address; and

identifying the user device, based on the information associated with the user device.

4. The method of claim 3, where other server device is a content optimization (CO) server associated with the service provider network, and

where sending the query to obtain information associated with the user device enables the CO server to:

obtain the information associated with the user device from information associated with network address translation (NAT) bindings based on the network address.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending a query to another server device, associated with the service provider network, to determine that a user, of the user device, has authorized information associated with the location to be used to track the location of the user device.

6. The method of claim 1, where encoding the information associated with the location to create the one or more location codes further includes:

obtaining a hash function and one or more keys from the memory;

generating, using the hash function and a key of the one or more keys, a location code, of the one or more location codes, based on the information associated with the location.

7. The method of claim 1, where encoding the information associated with the location to create the one or more location codes further includes:

retrieving, from the memory, one or more values associated with one or more code lengths;

generating a first location code, of the one or more location codes, that corresponds to a first code length, of the one or more code lengths,

where the first code length is associated with a value, of the one or more values, that specifies a quantity of bits associated with the first location code, and

where the first location code represents the location of the user device associated with a first quantity of error.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

generating a second location code, of the one or more location codes, that corresponds to a second code length, of the one or more code lengths, that is greater than the first code length,

where the second location code represents the location of the user device associated with a second quantity of error, and

where the second quantity of error associated with the location of the user device is less than the first quantity of error based on the second code length being greater than the first code length.

9. The method of claim 8, where the first quantity of error is associated with a first geographical area in which the user device is located,

where the second quantity of error is associated with a second geographical area in which the user device is located, and

where the second geographical area is smaller than the first geographical area.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium containing one or more instructions executable by one or more processors, the computer-readable medium comprising:

one or more instructions to receive information associated with a flow being transported via a cell within a radio access network associated with a service provider network;

one or more instructions to identify a user device with which the flow is associated based on the information associated with the flow;

one or more instructions to identify a location of the user device based on a geographic location that corresponds to the cell;

one or more instructions to generate one or more location codes based on the geographic location, the one or more location codes corresponding to one or more code lengths and representing one or more quantities of error associated with the geographic location, where a particular location code, of the one or more location codes, is associated with;

a code length, of the one or more code lengths, that identifies a quantity of bits associated with the particular location code, and

a quantity of error, of the one or more quantities of error, that corresponds to the code length;

one or more instructions to transmit, to a content provider, the one or more location codes, where transmitting the one or more location codes enables the content provider to;

decode the particular location code to obtain the quantity of error, the quantity of error corresponding to a geographical boundary in which the user device is located, and

transmit content, to the user device and via the cell, where the content is associated with one or more advertising entities located within the geographical boundary.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where the one or more instructions to generate the one or more location codes further include:

one or more instructions to retrieve the one or more code lengths, where the one or more code lengths correspond to the one or more quantities of error.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where the one or more instructions to generate the one or more location codes further include:

one or more instructions to retrieve one or more keys with which to generate the one or more location codes;

one or more instructions to select a key, of the one or more keys, based on a determination that the content provider is authorized to decode the particular location code; and

one or more instructions to transmit the selected key, of the one or more keys, to the content provider that enables the content provider to decode the particular location code.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where the one or more location codes are generated using a hash function or a cryptographic hash function.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, where a first location code, of the one or more location codes, is associated with a first code length, of the one or more code lengths,

where a second location code, of the one or more location codes, is associated with a second code length, of the one or more code lengths, and

where a first quantity of error, of the one or more quantities of error, associated with the first location code is greater than a second quantity of error, of the one or more quantities of error, when the first code length is smaller than the second code length.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, where a first geographical area corresponds to the first quantity of error,

where a second geographic area corresponds to the second quantity of error, and

where the first geographic area is larger than the second geographic area based on the first quantity of error being greater than the second quantity of error.

16. A computing device associated with a service provider network, the computing device comprising:

a memory to store information regarding a plurality of geographic coordinates associated with a plurality of cell sites within a radio access network (RAN); and

one or more processors to;

monitor traffic being transported via a cell associated with one of the plurality of cells sites,

obtain, as a result of the monitoring, information associated a flow,

identify a user device with which the flow is associated based on the information associated with the flow;

determine a location of the user device based on geographical coordinates, of the plurality of geographic coordinates, associated with the one of the plurality of cell sites;

generate one or more location codes based on the geographic coordinates, the one or more location codes corresponding to one or more code lengths and representing one or more quantities of error associated with the geographic coordinates, where a particular location code, of the one or more location codes, is associated with;

a code length, of the one or more code lengths, that indicates a quantity of bits associated with the particular location code, and

a quantity of error, of the one or more quantities of error, that corresponds to the code length and a geographical boundary that encompasses a geographical area in which the user device is located;

transmit, to a content provider, the particular location code that permits advertising content to be targeted to the user device based on advertising entities located with the geographic boundary that corresponds to the quantity of error.

17. The computing device of claim 16, where, when monitoring the traffic being transported via the cell, the one or more processors are to:

monitor one or more interfaces between the one of the plurality of cell sites and the service provider network, where the one or more interfaces include;

a first interface associated with one or more signal bearers that transport the flow via the service provider network, and

a second interface, associated with control signals, that control the one or more signal bearers to establish or execute a communication session that enables the user device to communicate with the service provider network.

18. The computing device of claim 16, where, when identifying the user device, the one or more processors are to:

obtain a network address from a packet associated with the flow;

generate a query that includes the network address; and

transmit, to a server device associated with the service provider network, the query to obtain information associated with the user device that corresponds to the network address.

19. The computing device of claim 16, where increasing the quantity of bits associated with the particular location code corresponds to a decreasing quantity of error, associated with the geographic coordinates.

20. The computing device of claim 16, where, when generating the one or more location codes, the one or more processors are further to:

obtain, from the memory, the one or more code lengths,

where a first code length, of the one or more code lengths, is associated with a first quantity of bits that are permitted within a first location code of the one or more location codes,

where a second code length, of the one or more code lengths, is associated with a second quantity of bits that are permitted within a second location code of the one or more location codes, and

where a first quantity of error, that is represented by the first location code, is greater than a second quantity of error that is represented by the second location code, when the first quantity of bits value is less than the second quantity of bits.

21. The computing device of claim 16, where the one or more processors are further to:

transmit a key, of one or more keys, to the content provider, where the one or more keys correspond to the one or more location codes, where the key corresponds to the particular location code, and where transmitting the key permits the content provider to;

decode the particular location code to obtain the quantity of error, and

generate the geographic boundary based on the quantity of error.