PROVIDING CELLULAR DATA TO A VEHICLE OVER DIFFERENT DATA CHANNELS

• US 20150223273A1
• Filed: 02/04/2014
• Published: 08/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Macdonald, Andrew J., Gerlach, Jonathan L., Pal, Dipankar, George, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,576,474 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 2201/42 Transmitting or receiving remote control signals via a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/48 for in-vehicle communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/11 Allocation or use of connection identifiers

Abstract

A method and a system for providing vehicle services to at least one communication device located at a vehicle via a vehicle telematics unit. The method carried out by the system includes the steps of: receiving a request at the vehicle telematics unit for first vehicle services from a first communication device located at a vehicle; associating a first identifier with the first communication device; and providing the first vehicle services to the first communication device, wherein the vehicle services are provided according to at least one services parameter associated with the first identifier.

Claims

1. A method of providing vehicle data services to at least one communication device located at a vehicle via a vehicle telematics unit, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving a request at the vehicle telematics unit for first vehicle data services from a first communication device located at a vehicle;

(b) associating a first identifier with the first communication device; and

(c) providing the first vehicle services to the first communication device, wherein the first vehicle data services are provided according to at least one service parameter associated with the first identifier.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first communication device is a multi-tainment device (MTD).

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

(d) receiving a request at the vehicle telematics unit for second vehicle data services from a second communication device located at a vehicle;

(e) associating a second identifier with the second communication device; and

(f) providing the second vehicle data services to the second communication device, wherein the second vehicle data services are provided according to at least one service parameter associated with the second identifier.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the second communication device is a mobile device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least one service parameter associated with the first or second identifier includes:

billing-related information and one or more quality of service (QoS) parameters.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the first identifier is a MAC_Address associated with the first communication device and the second identifier is a MAC_Address associated with the second communication device.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein step (b) is performed by one of the telematics unit or a call center in communication with the telematics unit, and wherein step (e) is performed by one of the telematics unit or the call center in communication with the telematics unit.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein a call center provides the first and second vehicle data services to the telematics unit prior to step (c).

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the first vehicle data services are provided to the telematics unit over a first data channel, and the second vehicle data services are provided over a second data channel.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the first vehicle data services associated with the first identifier have a higher priority than the second vehicle services associated with the second identifier.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the first and second vehicle data services are provided using a packet data network.

12. A method of providing vehicle data services to at least one communication device located at a vehicle via a vehicle telematics unit, comprising the steps of:

(a) receiving at the vehicle telematics unit one or more requests from each of one or more communication devices, wherein each of the received requests are for vehicle data services;

(b) receiving a unique identifier from each of the communication devices;

(c) based on the received unique identifier, prioritizing vehicle data services to each of the requesting communication devices based on at least one vehicle service parameter; and

(d) providing vehicle data services to at least one of the communication devices according to the prioritization.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the vehicle data services are provided according to a short range wireless communication (SRWC).

14. The method of claim 13, wherein one of the communication devices is a multi-tainment device (MTD) in the vehicle, and wherein another of the communication devices is a mobile device.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the MTD receives the highest quality of service (QoS) of any other communication devices at the vehicle.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the highest QoS includes priority over other communication devices.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

(e) wirelessly receiving the vehicle data services at the telematics unit from a call center, wherein vehicle data services to be provided to a first communications device are received by the telematics unit over a first packet data channel, and vehicle data services to be provided to a second communications device are received by the telematics unit over a second packet data channel.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the call center associates the first packet data channel with first billing-related parameters and a first set of quality of service (QoS) parameters and the call center associates the second packet data channel with second billing-related parameters and a second set of QoS parameters.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the telematics unit, based on the unique identifiers, selectively determines at least two data channels and thereafter transmits the vehicle data services to the communication devices via the two data channels, wherein a first data channel is associated with different billing-related parameters and different quality of service (QoS) parameters than a second data channel.

20. A computer program product, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable medium for a call center computer or a vehicle telematics unit for selectively determining one or more data channels for transmitting vehicle data services, configured to perform the following steps;

(a) receiving a first identifier associated with a vehicle communication device and a second identifier associated with a mobile communication device;

(b) receiving a first data services request from the vehicle communication device and a second data services request from the mobile communications device;

(c) based on the first and second identifiers and the first and second requests, determining a first data channel for the first data services and a second data channel for the second data services, wherein the first data channel has a higher quality of service (QoS) than the second data channel; and

(d) storing billing parameters associated with both the first and second data services.