Closed Communication System

• US 20140248887A1
• Filed: 03/04/2014
• Published: 09/04/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/04/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Bouthemy, Jean-Luc Rene, Alkabra, Ahmad O., Asandului, Cristian
• Granted Patent: US 9,615,201 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/445
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/724631 by limiting the access to the user interface, e.g. locking a touch-screen or a keypad
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• 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 described herein that includes mobile communication devices and a cellular base station to communicate with a telecommunication network. The mobile communication devices access telephony service through the cellular base station when inside a geofence. The mobile communication devices determine whether they are inside the geofence based on distances from proximity beacons. When outside of the geofence, the mobile communication devices are prevented from accessing telephony service through the cellular base station. When inside the geofence, the mobile communication devices may access telephony service through the cellular base station. The mobile communication devices may only make and receive calls from mobile communication devices of a specific other system. When a call is received at the system, the mobile communication devices of the system are rung. To enable this, a serving call session control function of the telecommunication network forks a call directed to the system.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a casing;

a cellular base station coupled to the casing and configured to communicate with a telecommunication network;

charging components coupled to the casing; and

a plurality of mobile communication devices designed to be plugged into the charging components for charging and to access telephony service through the cellular base station when within a geofence associated with a specific pre-defined location area.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is located in one of a dugout or a bullpen of a baseball park and allows calls only with the other of the bullpen or the dugout of the baseball park.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the mobile communication devices and cellular base station communicate through directional antennas placed in the one of the dugout or the bullpen.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile communication devices within the geofence ring substantially simultaneously for an incoming call.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile communication devices provide at least one of statistics, instant replays, messaging capabilities, or video calling capabilities.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication with the telecommunication network is circuit-switched, is Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) using a High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network, or is VoIP using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein

the mobile communication devices are unable to access telephony service through the cellular base station when outside of the geofence, and

other mobile communication devices are unable to access telephony service through the cellular base station regardless of whether they are inside or outside of the geofence.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the cellular base station is a picocell base station or a femtocell base station.

9. A mobile communication device comprising:

a processor; and

one or more modules configured to be operated by the processor to perform operations including;

determining distances of the mobile communication device from a plurality of proximity beacons,

determining, based at least in part on the distances, whether the mobile communication device is within a geofence, the geofence being associated with a specific pre-defined location area that is associated with a cellular base station,

when the mobile communications device is determined to be within the geofence, enabling access to telephony service through the cellular base station, and

when the mobile communications device is determined to be outside of the geofence, preventing access to telephony service through the cellular base station.

10. The mobile communication device of claim 9, wherein determining whether the mobile communication device is within the geofence comprises determining that the mobile communication device is within the geofence when the mobile communication device is within a threshold distance of at least one of the proximity beacons or when an average distance of the mobile communication device from the proximity beacons is less than a threshold distance.

11. The mobile communication device of claim 9, wherein the preventing includes informing a user of the mobile communication device that the mobile communication device is locked.

12. The mobile communication device of claim 11, wherein the operations further include initiating a wipeout of the mobile communication device if the mobile communication device is locked more than threshold period of time.

13. The mobile communication device of claim 9, wherein the mobile communication device can make calls to and receive calls from a preconfigured other party when enabled to access telephony service.

14. A method comprising,

receiving, by a serving call session control function (S-CSCF) of an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) of a telecommunication network, registrations of a plurality of mobile communication devices, the mobile communication devices sharing a public identifier and each having a private identifier;

authenticating, by the S-CSCF, the public identifier and the private identifiers;

receiving, by the S-CSCF, a call from another mobile communication device directed to the public identifier; and

forking, by the S-CSCF, the call to the plurality of mobile communication devices based on associations of their private identifiers with the public identifier.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of mobile communication devices are one of bullpen devices or the dugout devices and the other mobile communication devices is one of the other of the bullpen devices or the dugout devices.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the plurality of mobile communication devices ring substantially simultaneously when receiving the forked call.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein, when one of the plurality of mobile communication devices answers, other forks of the call to others of the plurality of mobile communication devices are terminated.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein a geofence is associated with a specific pre-defined location area associated with a communication tower of the plurality of mobile communication devices, and the plurality of mobile communication devices are prevented from communicating when outside of the geofence.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the public identifier is an IP Multimedia Public Identifier (IMPU) and the private identifiers are IP Multimedia Private Identifiers (IMPI).

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the authenticating comprises comparing the public identifier and the private identifiers to a public identifier and private identifiers stored in a home subscriber server.