Method and arrangement for finding information

• US 6,356,761 B1
• Filed: 08/24/1998
• Issued: 03/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 09/04/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Arkko, Jari, Huttunen, Ari
• Primary Examiner(s): Chang, Vivian
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, DUC M
• Application Number:
  US09/138,544
• Time in Patent Office: 1,296 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456, 455/466, 455/556, 455/557, 455/414, 455/457, 455/566, 455/412, 455/432, 455/517, 340/905
• US Class Current: 455/456.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/00 Network arrangements, protocols or services for addressing or naming
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/30 Managing network names, e.g. use of aliases or nicknames name-to-address mapping H04L61/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/00 Affiliation to network, e.g. registration; Terminating affiliation with the network, e.g. de-registration

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method and an arrangement for finding information in a communications system comprising a circuit switched network, a packet switched network and a link therebetween. A user related location information is obtained by the circuit switched network and the packet switched network is subsequently utilized using said location information for finding the desired information. The invention relates further to a mobile station to be used in accordance with the invention.

Claims

1. A method for finding and providing information for a mobile user terminal through a communications network, comprising:

establishing a connection between the mobile user terminal and a mobile network operationally connected to the communications network;

determining geographical location information of the mobile user terminal via a mobile network apparatus;

sending the geographical location information determined by the mobile network apparatus to the mobile user terminal;

combining automatically the received geographical location information with a request for retrieving local information in the mobile userterminal so as to result in a location-specific address or name;

sending the location-specific address or name for retrieving local information dependent on the geographical location information from the mobile user terminal to the communications network, and

retrieving desired local information dependent on the geographical location information as a response to said sending of the location-specific address or name.

2. A method according to claim 1, further including transferring the determined geographical location information to the mobile user terminal in a form of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) from the communications network.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the geographical location information is transmitted to the mobile user terminal in form of a Short Message Service (SMS) message.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the SMS messages are broadcasted as group SMS area messages in predefined time intervals.

5. A method for finding and providing information for a mobile user terminal through a communications network, comprising:

establishing a connection between the mobile user terminal and a mobile network operationally connected to the communications network;

determining geographical location information of the mobile user terminal via a mobile network apparatus;

sending a suitable protocol request for retrieving local information, based on a request to receive local information, from the mobile user terminal;

receiving the suitable protocol request into an access node;

converting the suitable protocol request to a location-specific address or name in the access node;

sending the location-specific address or name from the access node to the mobile user terminal;

sending the location-specific address or name from the mobile user terminal to the communications network; and

retrieving desired local information dependent on the geographical location information in view of the location-specific address or name sent by the mobile user terminal to the communications network.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein a special address or name is used in the suitable protocol request to indicate the need for local information.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the need for local information is detected from the received suitable protocol request in the access node.

8. A method according to claim 5, wherein a mobile station is used as the mobile user terminal and that the method comprises a step of using at least one of the base stations of the mobile network apparatus for determining the geographical location information of the mobile station.

9. A method according to claim 8, further comprising determining the geographical location information of the mobile station by means of a Visitor Location Register managing information of the mobile stations roaming within an area of a mobile switching centre controlling at least one base station, the mobile terminal being situated within an illumination area thereof.

10. A method according to claim 5, wherein the local information contains document or documents and/or files stored in at least one WWW server of a global Internet or operationally similar server operationally connected to the communications network.

11. A method according to claim 5, further comprising combining the geographical location information and a Domain Name Server (DNS) query to form an Internet address which points to a server or servers including documents containing local information.

12. A method according to claim 5, further including browsing local information documents, which are dependent on the geographical location information, by means of the mobile user terminal.

13. An arrangement for finding and providing information for a mobile user terminal through a communications network, comprising:

means for establishing a connection between the mobile user terminal and a mobile network apparatus;

a mobile network apparatus for determining geographical location information of the mobile user terminal;

means for combining automatically the geographical location information with a request for retrieving local information in the mobile user terminal resulting in a location-specific address or name; and

a mobile user terminal sending the location-specific address or name for retrieving local information dependent upon the geographical location information from the mobile user terminal to the communications network, and retrieving desired local information dependent on the geographical location information.

14. An arrangement according to claim 13, wherein the mobile network apparatus for determining the geographical location information comprises:

at least one base station;

control means for determining the geographical location on basis of information received from the at least one base station, and

means for transmitting the geographical location information to the mobile user terminal.

15. An arrangement according to claim 13, wherein the local information contains document or documents and/or files stored in at least one WWW server of a global Internet or operationally similar server operationally connected to the communications network.

16. An arrangement according to claim 13, further comprising means for browsing local information documents, which are dependent on the geographical location information.

17. An arrangement for finding and providing information for a mobile user terminal through a communications network, comprising:

means for establishing a connection between the mobile user terminal and a mobile network apparatus;

a mobile network apparatus for determining geographical location information of the mobile user terminal;

a mobile user terminal sending a suitable protocol request for retrieving local information from the mobile user terminal, sending a location-specific address or name to the communications network and retrieving desired local information dependent on the geographical location information, and

means for determining the location-specific address or name by combining the geographical location information with the request for retrieving location information dependent on the geographical location information and sending the location-specific address or name to the mobile user terminal so that the mobile user terminal can send the location-specific address or name to the communications network to retrieve the desired local information.

18. An arrangement according to claim 17, wherein the means for combining the geographical location information with the request for retrieving local information dependent on the geographical location information is arranged in the network apparatus, such as in an access node enabling the access into the communications network or into the mobile switching center.

19. An arrangement according to claim 17, wherein the mobile user terminal comprises a mobile station and a data processing device operationally connected to the mobile station.

20. An arrangement according to claim 19, wherein the mobile station and data processing device form an integrated unit.

21. A mobile user terminal arranged to communicate with a mobile network, the mobile network being arranged to determine the current geographic location information of the mobile user terminal, the mobile station comprising:

means for establishing a connection to a communications network through the mobile network;

means for combining the geographic location information determined by the mobile network with a suitable protocol request to result in a location-specific address or name for retrieving local information dependent on the geographical location information from the communications network;

wherein a mobile user terminal sends from the mobile user terminal the location-specific address or name for retrieving local information, and retrieves desired local information dependent on the geographic location information.

22. A mobile user terminal according to claim 21, wherein the means for combining comprise a data processing device operationally connected to the mobile user terminal.

23. A mobile user terminal according to claim 22, wherein the mobile station and data processing device form an integrated unit.