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Wide area paging with roaming subscriber units

  • US 5,506,886 A
  • Filed: 07/17/1995
  • Issued: 04/09/1996
  • Est. Priority Date: 12/27/1993
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. In a paging system wherein subscriber units respond to coded radio transmissions by providing perceptible indications of page receipts, said paging system including a plurality of satellite nodes that move with respect to the surface of earth, each of said satellite nodes providing a plurality of antenna beams that serve a plurality of geographic areas and each of said antenna beams having a broadcast channel associated therewith, and wherein said subscriber units include a loudspeaker and are able to roam between said geographic areas, a wide-area paging method comprising the steps of:

  • receiving at a subscriber unit, a beam identifier within one of said broadcast channels of one of said antenna beams, said beam identifier uniquely identifying said one antenna beam from said plurality of antenna beams;

    saving said beam identifier and a receipt time of said beam identifier within said subscriber unit, said beam identifier and said receipt time forming current location data and defining a current location of said subscriber unit;

    placing a telephone call from a user of said subscriber unit to a destination controller of said paging system using a telephone instrument; and

    transferring said current location data to said destination controller during said telephone call by acoustically transmitting said current location data from said loudspeaker to said telephone instrument,wherein said paging system performs the steps of;

    determining, by said destination controller, a geographic location of said subscriber unit based on said transferred current location data and system configuration data of said paging system, said system configuration data of said paging system being stored in a database at the destination controller;

    identifying one of said satellite nodes which has an antenna beam presently serving said current location when a data message intended for said subscriber unit is received at said destination controller;

    sending said data message intended for said subscriber unit to said identified satellite node; and

    broadcasting said data message within said antenna beam presently serving said current location.

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