Mobile communications terminal, service area calculation apparatus and method of calculating service area

• US 7,120,417 B2
• Filed: 12/18/2003
• Issued: 10/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba (Toshiba Corporation)
• Inventors: Seto, Ichiro, Yoshida, Hiroshi, Ito, Kuniaki, Sekine, Shuichi, Shoki, Hiroki, Toyoda, Takehiko, Ono, Naoko
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Congvan
• Application Number:
  US10/737,762
• Publication Number:
  US 20040176101A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,027 Days
• Field of Search: 455/556.1, 455/456.6, 455/426, 455/435, 455/458, 455/556.6, 342/357.1, 342/386, 342/465
• US Class Current: 455/403
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/00 Network planning, e.g. coverage or traffic planning tools; Network deployment, e.g. resource partitioning or cells structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

A mobile communications terminal includes positional information generator configured to generate positional information indicating a current position of the terminal, receiver which receives identification information sent from the base station of the second mobile communication network, notification information generator configured to generate notification information including the identification information and the positional information generated at the time of receiving the identification information, and transmitter which transmits the notification information to the service area calculation apparatus via the first mobile communication network to derive the information concerning the service area.

Claims

1. A mobile communications terminal adapted to communicate with a service area calculation apparatus via a first mobile communication network, the service area calculation apparatus collecting and transmitting information concerning a service area provided by the first mobile communication network and a second mobile communication network including a base station, the mobile communications terminal comprising:

a positional information generator configured to generate positional information indicating a current position of the mobile communication terminal;

a receiver which receives identification information sent from the base station of the second mobile communication network, via the second mobile communication network;

a notification information generator configured to generate notification information including the identification information and the positional information generated at the time of receiving the identification information;

a transmitter which transmits the notification information to the service area calculation apparatus via the first mobile communication network to derive the information concerning the service area; and

a time information generator configured to generate time information indicating a current time,

wherein the notification information generator generates notification information further including time information generated at the time of receiving the identification information.

2. A service area calculations apparatus that communicates with a mobile communications terminal, the mobile communications terminal being adapted to communicate with the service area calculation apparatus via a first mobile communication network, the service area calculation apparatus collecting and transmitting information concerning a service area provided by the first mobile communication network and a second mobile communication network including a base station, the mobile communications terminal including:

a positional information generator configured to generate positional information indicating a current position of the mobile communication terminal, a receiver which receives identification information sent from the base station of the second mobile communication network, via the second mobile communication network, a notification information generator configured to generate notification information including the identification information and the positional information generated at the time of receiving the identification information, and a transmitter which transmits the notification information to the service area calculation apparatus via the first mobile communication network to derive the information concerning the service area, the service area calculations apparatus comprising;

a receiver which receives the notification information transmitted from the mobile communications terminal via the first mobile communication network;

a storage device which stores a table indicating the positional information and the identification information associated with each other; and

a calculation device configured to calculate a service area of the base station indicated by the identification information based on a distribution of a position indicated by the positional information in correspondence with the identification information referring to the table.

3. The service area calculation apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the storage device stores the table indicating the positional information, the identification information and time information associated with the positional information and the identification information, when the notification information includes the time information;

and

the calculation device calculates the service area of the base station indicated by the identification information in a given period, based on the distribution of the position indicated by the positional information for each piece of the identification information in correspondence with the time information indicating a time within the period referring to the table.

4. The service area calculation apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising:

a service area information generator configured to generate service area information indicating a range of service area calculated,

a second receiver which receives requirement information sent from the mobile communications terminal, to generate a reception result; and

a transmitter which transmits the service area information to the mobile communications terminal which has sent the requirement information via the mobile communication network, in accordance with the reception result.

5. The service area calculation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the transmitter transmits only the service area information on the service area satisfying a preset condition to a position indicated by the positional information, when the requirement information includes the positional information.

6. The service area calculation apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising:

a memory device configured to store service information indicating service contents provided by the base station of the mobile communications network, and corresponding to the identification information;

wherein the generator reads the service information corresponding to the identification information of the calculated service area from the memory device, and generates the service area information including the service information.

7. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the calculation device calculates the service area of the base station indicated by the identification information included by notification information which is newly received.