COMMUNICATION SYSTEM AND COMMUNICATION APPARATUS

• US 20130203455A1
• Filed: 08/17/2011
• Published: 08/08/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/06/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Takano, Hiroaki
• Granted Patent: US 9,386,399 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/509
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/005 Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/28 Discontinuous transmission [DTX]; Discontinuous reception [DRX]

Abstract

Provided is a communication system including a base station, a communication apparatus, and a gateway apparatus including a first communication unit that communicates with the base station in a first communication method, a second communication unit that communicates with the communication apparatus in a second communication method, an identification information holding unit that holds a correspondence between first identification information in the first communication method and second identification information in the second communication method of the communication apparatus, and a category information holding unit to share category information showing a characteristic of the communication apparatus with the communication apparatus. The first communication unit performs communication of the communication apparatus in accordance with the category information with the base station by using the first identification information of the communication apparatus.

Claims

1. A communication system comprising:

a base station;

a communication apparatus; and

a gateway apparatus including

a first communication unit that communicates with the base station in a first communication method,

a second communication unit that communicates with the communication apparatus in a second communication method,

an identification information holding unit that holds a correspondence between first identification information in the first communication method and second identification information in the second communication method of the communication apparatus, and

a category information holding unit to share category information showing a characteristic of the communication apparatus with the communication apparatus,

wherein the first communication unit performs communication of the communication apparatus in accordance with the category information with the base station by using the first identification information of the communication apparatus.

2. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the second communication unit communicates with the communication apparatus by using the second identification information of the communication apparatus.

3. The communication system according to claim 2,

wherein the second communication unit transmits characteristic information to the communication apparatus and receives the category information of the communication apparatus changed based on the characteristic information from the communication apparatus,

wherein the first communication unit transmits the category information received by the second communication unit to the base station, and

wherein the category information holding unit holds the category information received by the second communication unit.

4. The communication system according to claim 3, wherein the gateway apparatus further includes a characteristic information selection unit that selects the characteristic information based on the category information received from the communication apparatus and before being changed.

5. The communication system according to claim 4, wherein the characteristic information shows a characteristic recommended to the communication apparatus.

6. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the gateway apparatus further includes an intermittent reception management unit that holds a reception period to intermittently receive paging from the base station for the communication apparatus and causes the second communication unit to notify the communication apparatus of a reception period having an offset for the reception period.

7. The communication system according to claim 1,

wherein, when data addressed to the communication apparatus is received by the first communication unit from the base station, the second communication unit transmits the data to the communication apparatus, and

wherein, if the data addressed to the communication apparatus is successfully received, the first communication unit transmits a reception confirmation signal to the base station before checking whether the data is successfully received by the communication apparatus.

8. The communication system according to claim 1,

wherein the gateway apparatus communicates with a plurality of communication apparatuses,

wherein the gateway apparatus further includes an adjustment unit that adjusts each reception period for the first communication unit to perform intermittent reception for each of the plurality of communication apparatuses, and

wherein the adjustment unit adjusts each of the reception periods in a manner that a reception period other than one reception period is an integral multiple of the one reception period.

9. The communication system according to claim 1,

wherein the gateway apparatus communicates with a plurality of communication apparatuses,

wherein the first communication unit intermittently receives in a short reception period or a long reception period for the communication apparatuses in an active state and intermittently receives in a sleep reception period for the communication apparatuses in a sleep state, and

wherein the long reception period and the sleep reception period are set as integral multiples of the short reception period and each reception period is set in a manner that phases thereof are uniform.

10. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the first communication unit acquires a timing advance value by performing a random access procedure to the base station and uses the common timing advance value for communication with a plurality of communication apparatuses.

11. The communication system according to claim 10, wherein the first communication unit transmits an acquisition request of the first identification information of each of the plurality of communication apparatuses to the base station to acquire the first identification information of each of the plurality of communication apparatuses from the base station.

12. The gateway apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first communication method is a mobile communication method and the second communication method is a wireless LAN communication method.

13. The communication system according to claim 1,

wherein the communication apparatus is implemented in the gateway apparatus, and

wherein the first communication method is a mobile communication method and the second communication method is a communication method using a dedicated interface in the gateway apparatus.

14. A communication apparatus configured to communicate with a gateway apparatus in a second communication method, the gateway apparatus communicating with a base station in a first communication method, communicating with the communication apparatus in the second communication method, holding a correspondence between first identification information in the first communication method and second identification information in the second communication method of the communication apparatus, and sharing category information showing a characteristic of the communication apparatus.