Methods and apparatus for supporting group communications
First Claim
1. A group communications method comprising:
- operating a group communications control unit to receive a communications resource request from a first mobile communications device belong to a group including said first mobile communications device and a plurality of additional communications devices;
operating said group communications control unit to broadcast a first IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group and a resource grant to said first communications device.
3 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Group communications methods and apparatus are described. In particular, methods for granting a mobile device access to a communications resource, e.g., the right to transmit data, associated with a group are described. User requests for the communications resource are suppressed by the corresponding mobile device, for periods during which the communications resource has been granted to another mobile device. A mobile device may store a suppressed user request so that a resource request signal may be transmitted after the communications resource has been released by the mobile device that was previously granted the resource. In this manner requests that cannot be granted are not transmitted, increasing communications efficiency as compared to systems where requests are not suppressed at the mobile devices. A priority scheme is used in some embodiments to determine whether or not a request should be suppressed while another device has been granted the communications resource.
45 Citations
9 Claims
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1. A group communications method comprising:
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operating a group communications control unit to receive a communications resource request from a first mobile communications device belong to a group including said first mobile communications device and a plurality of additional communications devices; operating said group communications control unit to broadcast a first IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group and a resource grant to said first communications device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
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7. A control unit for controlling resource grants in a group communications environment, the controller comprising:
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means for receiving a communications resource request from a first mobile communications device belong to a group including said first mobile communications device and a plurality of additional communications devices; means for generating a first IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group and a resource grant to said first communications device; and means for broadcasting a first IP message. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9)
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Specification