Location aware pre-caching and service delivery

• US 8,639,268 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2011
• Issued: 01/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Mihaly, Attila
• Primary Examiner(s): Patel, Mahendra
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hua, Quan M
• Application Number:
  US13/252,992
• Publication Number:
  US 20130084883A1
• Time in Patent Office: 847 Days
• Field of Search: 455/456.1, 455/414.1, 455/432.1, 455/466, 455/418, 455/426.2, 455/436, 455/446, 370328-338, 705/14.52, 705/14.57
• US Class Current: 455/456.3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5681 Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/18 Information format or content conversion, e.g. adaptation by the network of the transmitted or received information for the purpose of wireless delivery to users or terminals

Abstract

A mobile communication network includes a media controller (MC) for tracking popularity statistics of cells of the network, a location database (LDB) connected to the MC for storing the statistics, a position monitor (PM) connected to the MC for detecting a position of subscribers within the network and at least one local cache (LC) connected to the MC and for pre-storing content to be delivered to the subscribers wherein the MC further includes a communication means for receiving content and subscriber information and for communicating portions of the received information to the PM, to the LDB and to the LC.

Claims

1. A mobile communication network comprising:

a media controller (MC) for tracking popularity statistics of cells of the network;

a location database (LDB) connected to the MC for storing the statistics;

a position monitor (PM) connected to the MC for detecting a position of subscribers within the network; and

at least one local cache (LC) connected to the MC and for pre-storing content to be delivered to the subscribers, wherein the MC;

receives content and subscriber information and communicates portions of the received information to the PM, to the LDB and to the LC, wherein

the information received by the MC includes content identification, subscriber identification and environmental parameters characteristic to delivery of media corresponding to the identified content, said parameters including location parameters for restricting delivery of content to pre-determined cells and by a pre-determined time,

the MC transmits identification of subscribers and environmental parameters to the PM and the PM monitors the location of the identified subscribers,

the MC instructs the LDB to set a new record for the received content identification and related parameters,

the MC receives content identification and a delivery time for delivering the identified content to the subscribers, and

the MC requests information from the LDB for the identified content and the LDB provides a list of cells and subscriber and download popularity statistics for each of the cells to the MC based on historical information.

2. The network of claim 1, further comprising an application server (AS) for submitting the content and subscriber information to the MC.

3. The network of claim 1, wherein the MC selects a list of local caches based on the information received from the LDB.

4. The network of claim 3, wherein the list of local caches is submitted to an application server (AS) and the AS submits content for the content ID to the local caches in the list.

5. The network of claim 4, wherein the MC receives notification from the PM of a presence of the subscriber in a particular cell and the MC notifies the presence of the subscriber to a LC corresponding to the cell.

6. The network of claim 5, wherein the LC serves the content to the subscriber.

7. The network of claim 5, wherein the MC updates cell and download popularity statistics for the content to the LDB.

8. A method of delivering content to a subscriber in a mobile communication network comprising:

receiving content identification, subscriber identification and environmental parameters by a media controller (MC);

communicating the subscriber identification and related environmental parameters to a position monitor (PM) for monitoring a subscriber corresponding to the subscriber identification;

communicating content identification and related environmental parameters to a location database (LDB);

receiving identification and delivery time of content by the MC for delivery to the subscriber;

obtaining a list of cells and subscriber and download statistics for each of the cells for the identified content based on historical information from the LDB in response to a request from the MC to the LDB for the identified content;

identifying a list of local caches (LCs) corresponding to one or more of the cells in the list for receiving content;

receiving notification of presence of a subscriber in a cell corresponding to one of the LCs; and

informing the LC of the presence of the subscriber in a corresponding cell in order to deliver content to the subscriber.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the content identification, subscriber identification and environmental parameters are received from an application server (AS).

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the AS delivers content to the LCs.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the MC submits a list of subscribers that have been served with content to the AS.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the AS serves content to subscribers not on the list received from the MC.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the information is communicated to the LDB to set a record for the content identification.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the subscriber presence notification is received from the PM.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein the LC identifies an optimal time for delivering the content to the subscriber.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the MC updates the LCB with cell popularity statistics and download popularity statistics of the delivered content.

17. A media controller (MC) in a mobile communication network comprising:

a plurality of communication interfaces wherein

the media controller receives content identification, subscriber identification and environmental parameters including delivery time for delivering the identified content to a subscriber from an application server (AS) via one of the plurality of interfaces and communicates;

subscriber identification and related environmental parameters to a position monitor (PM) for monitoring a subscriber corresponding to the subscriber identification,

content identification and related environmental parameters to a location database (LDB), and to a local cache (LC) wherein

the MC tracks popularity statistics of cells of the network,

the PM detects position of subscribers within the network, and

the LC pre-stores content to be delivered to the subscribers at a predetermined time and

the LDB provides a list of cells and subscriber and download statistics for each of the cells to the MC based on historical information.