Operations of cellular communications systems based on mobility and teletraffic statistics collected by mobile units
First Claim
1. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said cellular communications system comprising a layered cellular mobile network having macrocells each of which overlies a plurality of microcells, said method comprising the steps of:
- controlling the connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units;
measuring microcell sojourn times at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics;
aggregating measured microcell sojourn times representative of mobile unit mobility at each of said plurality of mobile units; and
transmitting aggregated microcell sojourn times from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations.
6 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Each mobile unit in a cellular communications system accumulates at least one mobility or communications traffic (teletraffic) statistic representative of "typical" operation of the mobile unit within the cellular communications system. The mobile units process or collect the statistics and then transmit the aggregate statistics to a microcell or macrocell base station at time of origination of a call to or from the mobile, request for a handoff of a call by the mobile unit or the registration process. Included within the characteristics which can be monitored in accordance with the present invention are the following: cell sojourn time; area sojourn time; call holding times; call throughput; number of previous handoffs in an ongoing call; time periods between two consecutive failed handoffs for the mobile unit; and, the ratio of calls originating from a mobile unit to the number of calls terminating to a mobile unit. The accumulated data representative of these characteristics are utilized by the receiving base station to assign new and handoff calls to a microcell or a macrocell, to prioritize call handling within the cellular communications system and to assign customized customer service areas.
89 Citations
40 Claims
-
1. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said cellular communications system comprising a layered cellular mobile network having macrocells each of which overlies a plurality of microcells, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling the connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; measuring microcell sojourn times at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics; aggregating measured microcell sojourn times representative of mobile unit mobility at each of said plurality of mobile units; and transmitting aggregated microcell sojourn times from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
-
-
6. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said cellular communications system comprising a layered cellular mobile network having macrocells each of which overlies a plurality of microcells, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling the connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; measuring microcell sojourn times at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable statistics; aggregating microcell sojourn times representative of mobile unit mobility at each of said plurality of mobile units is performed by determining a mobility index ai by recursively computing ai =α
ai-1 +(1-α
)ti where ai is the mobility index, ai-1 is the preceding mobility index, α
is a weighting factor ranging between 0 and 1, and ti is the time the mobile unit spent in a microcell between microcell crossings i-1 and i; andtransmitting aggregated microcell sojourn times from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
-
-
15. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said cellular communications system comprising a layered cellular mobile network having macrocells each of which overlies a plurality of microcells, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling the connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; measuring microcell sojourn times at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable statistics; aggregating measured microcell sojourn times representative of mobile unit mobility at each of said plurality of mobile units; transmitting aggregated microcell sojourn times from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations; performing said steps of measuring microcell sojourn times, and aggregating microcell sojourn times at each of said plurality of mobile units whenever a mobile unit is powered-up; performing said step of transmitting aggregated microcell sojourn times of said mobile units from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations at times of call set-up; comparing aggregated microcell sojourn times to an origination threshold between a low threshold and a high threshold; routing originating calls through appropriate microcells if aggregated microcell sojourn times are greater than said origination threshold; and routing originating calls through appropriate macrocells if aggregated microcell sojourn times are less than said origination threshold. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17)
-
-
18. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said cellular communications system comprising a layered cellular mobile network having macrocells each of which overlies a plurality of microcells, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling the connections of established calls on said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; accumulating the number of previous handoffs for each call at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics; transmitting the number of previous handoffs with each request for a handoff; comparing the number of previous handoffs for each call to a defined threshold; and allocating a macrocell channel to calls in which the number of previous handoffs exceeds a defined handoff threshold. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22)
-
-
23. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling system resource allocation for each of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics representative of each of said plurality of mobile units; collecting measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics representative of each of said plurality of mobile units at each of said plurality of mobile units; transmitting said measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics representative of each of said plurality of mobile units from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations; and setting a customer service area based on said measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
-
-
34. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network and wherein said cellular communications system comprises a layered cellular mobile network comprising macrocells each of which overlies at least two microcells, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling system resource allocation and connections for each of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics representative of each of said plurality of mobile units; collecting mobility data representative of measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics representative of each of said plurality of mobile units at each of said plurality of mobile units transmitting said mobility data representative of measurable mobility and teletraffic communications statistics representative of each of said plurality of mobile units from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations; comparing said mobility data to a threshold; routing calls through an appropriate microcell if mobility data for mobile units is greater than said threshold; and routing calls through an appropriate macrocell if mobility data for mobile units is less than said threshold. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37)
-
-
38. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; accumulating microcell sojourn times at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics; taking a weighted average of microcell sojourn times representative of mobile unit mobility at each of said plurality of mobile units; transmitting weighted averages of microcell sojourn times representative of the mobilities of said mobile units from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations; and prioritizing the order of performing connections of said plurality of mobile units based on said weighted averages of microcell sojourn times.
-
-
39. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; accumulating time intervals between two consecutive calls at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics; taking a weighted average of accumulated time intervals between two consecutive calls at each of said plurality of mobile units; accumulating time intervals between two consecutive calls which fail at handoff at each of said plurality of mobile units; taking a weighted average of the time intervals between two consecutive calls which fail at handoff at each of said plurality of mobile units; transmitting the ratio of weighted averages of accumulated time intervals between two consecutive calls to weighted averages of time intervals between two consecutive calls which fail at handoff from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations; and prioritizing the order of performing connections of said plurality of mobile units based on the ratio of said weighted averages of accumulated time intervals between two consecutive calls to weighted averages of time intervals between two consecutive calls which fail at handoff.
-
-
40. A method of operating a cellular communications system wherein distributed base stations couple a plurality of mobile units to a fixed switching network, said method comprising the steps of:
-
controlling connections of said plurality of mobile units from said distributed base stations based on measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics of each of said plurality of mobile units; accumulating mobility data at each of said plurality of mobile units as one of said measurable mobility and teletraffic statistics; taking a weighted average of accumulated mobility data at each of said plurality of mobile units; transmitting the weighted averages of accumulated mobility data from said plurality of mobile units to said distributed base stations; and prioritizing the order of performing connections of said plurality of mobile units based on the weighted averages of accumulated mobility data.
-
Specification