Two-way information transmission system and two-way information transmission method

• US 5,790,170 A
• Filed: 04/14/1997
• Issued: 08/04/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 04/19/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Suzuki, Mitsuhiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Grant, Chris
• Assistant Examiner(s): VINCENT, RICHARD
• Application Number:
  US08/843,247
• Time in Patent Office: 477 Days
• Field of Search: 348/4.2, 348/7, 348/12, 348/13, 348/1, 348/2, 348/3, 455/6.2, 455/6.3, 455/4.2, 455/5.1, 455/10, 455/2
• US Class Current: 725/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/33 by plural channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/69 Optical systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/76 Wired systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/79 using downlink of the CATV systems, e.g. audio broadcast via CATV network
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/97 using uplink of the CATV systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A subscriber terminal ms sends the demand including at least information for identifying the demand subscriber terminal, information for identifying the requested information, and information relating to the urgency of the requested information to the information distribution transmission center HE through the going-up line. The information distribution transmission center HE plans a transmits information requested according to the transmission schedule of the information based on this demand, and transmits the transmission schedule information included in the going-down control data to the subscriber terminal which sent the demand prior to the actual transmission, and transmits the requested information according to the above-mentioned transmission schedule. The subscriber terminal ms receives and analyzes the going-down control data from the information distribution transmission center HE and is informed of the transmission schedule, and acquires the information to be transmitted based on the obtained transmission plan, stored it in a large scale memory, and reads the information from the memory. A video on-demand system can be realized with a relatively small investment, and the centralization of traffic is mitigated, the network resource is used efficiently, and rational charging is enabled.

Claims

1. A two-way information transmission system comprising:

an information distribution transmission center and a plurality of subscriber terminals connected to said information distribution transmission center through going-up lines and going-down lines, in which at least one of said plurality of subscriber terminals requests information from said information distribution transmission center through said going-up lines by an information distribution transmission request, and said information distribution transmission center transmits the information requested in response to said information distribution transmission request;

each one of said plurality of subscriber terminals including;

distribution transmission request sending means for sending said information distribution transmission request including at least information for identifying a demand subscriber terminal, information for identifying said requested information, and information relating to an urgency of said requested information,

memory means,

transmission plan receiving analysis means for being informed of a transmission plan based on going-down control data transmitted along said going-down lines from said information distribution transmission center,

information acquisition means for acquiring the information transmitted from said information distribution transmission center based on said transmission plan and storing it in said memory means, which said information was acquired by said transmission plan receiving analysis means,

reading means for reading the information from said memory means, and

said information distribution transmission center including;

transmission planning means for planning said transmission plan to transmit the information based on said information distribution transmission request from said at least one of said plurality of subscriber terminals,

transmission implementation means for implementing the transmission of said requested information based on the transmission plan planned by said transmission planning means,

going-down control data sending means for sending said going-down control data including information involving the transmission implementation plan planned by said transmission implementation means to said at least one of said plurality of subscriber terminals which sent said information distribution transmission request before said transmission implementation means implements the transmission, and

charging means for charging for a distribution transmission based on the information relating to the urgency of a distribution transmission of said requested information included in said information distribution transmission request from said at least one of said plurality of subscriber terminals.

2. The two-way information transmission system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the information relating to the urgency of said requested information included in said information distribution transmission request specifies any one of a plurality of urgency classes which are different in allowable delay time from the information distribution transmission request to the implementation of the distribution transmission dependently on the urgency of information use, and

said transmission planning means determines a transmission time based on the information for specifying one of said urgency classes included in said information distribution transmission request, and the longer the allowable delay time is, the lower said charging means specifies a rate for said distribution transmission.

3. The two-way information transmission system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the transmission implementation means of said information distribution transmission center transmits in real time in response to said information on the urgency of said distribution transmission indicating an immediate transmission, and transmits in a free channel available time zone at higher speed than that of said real-time transmission in response to information on the urgency of the distribution transmission which allows the delay of transmission, and

said charging means charges a high rate for real-time transmission.

4. The two-way information transmission system as claimed in claim 1, wherein information on the urgency of the transmission of said information included in said information distribution transmission request from said at least one of said plurality of subscriber terminals indicates information transmission request time, and said charging means charges a high rate for the transmission whose request time is within a time zone of heavy use.

5. The two-way information transmission system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said transmission implementation means transmits the information after data compression and changes a data compression method corresponding to a type of information to be transmitted,

specification information of said data compression method is included in said information distribution transmission request from said information transmission request from said at least one of said plurality of subscriber terminals, and

said charging means performs charging according to the data compression rate.

6. A method of two-way information transmission comprising the steps of:

sending an information distribution transmission request from a subscriber terminal including at least information for identifying said subscriber terminal, information for identifying requested information, and information relating to an urgency of said requested information to the information distribution transmission center through a going-up line,

planning a transmission schedule of the information to be transmitted based on said information distribution transmission request from said subscriber terminal by said information distribution transmission center,

transmitting the information to the subscriber terminal which requested said information distribution transmission request including the transmission schedule information in a going-down control data prior to the transmission of main information,

implementing transmission of said requested information through a going-down line according to said transmission schedule,

performing charging for the transmission based on the information on the urgency of said information transmission,

informing said subscriber terminal of said transmission plan by receiving and analyzing said going-down control data from said information distribution transmission center,

acquiring the information transmitted from said information distribution transmission center based on the acquired transmission plan,

storing the information transmitted from said information distribution transmission center in a memory means having a large capacity, and

providing an information read from said memory means.

7. The method of two-way information transmission as claimed in claim 6, further comprising the steps of:

transmitting in real time in response to the urgency relating information, which requests immediate transmission, of said requested information included in the information distribution transmission request from said subscriber terminal, transmitting in a free channel available time zone at higher speed than that of said real-time transmission in response to information on the urgency of said information transmission which allows the delay of transmission, and

charging a high rate for the real-time transmission.

8. The method of two-way information transmission as claimed in claim 6, further comprising the steps of:

specifying any one of a plurality of classes different in allowable delay time from a distribution transmission request to an implementation of transmission depending on the urgency of information use,

determining transmission time based on information specifying said class included in said information distribution transmission request by said information distribution transmission center, and

performing charging by said information distribution transmission center so that the longer the allowable delay time is, the lower the rate for said distribution transmission is specified.

9. The method of two-way information transmission as claimed in claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

allocating and assigning separately a communication capacity of said going-down line for each class of said plurality of classes.

10. The method of two-way information transmission as claimed in claim 9, wherein said step of allocating and assigning assigns a communication capacity to each class which is variable dependently on the time zone and day of the week.