Terminal and method for measuring data usage

• US 9,426,039 B2
• Filed: 10/03/2011
• Issued: 08/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pantech Corporation (Ideahub, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Pantech Corporation (Ideahub, Inc.)
• Inventors: YOO, Jung Im
• Primary Examiner(s): Gillis, Brian J
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ling, Amy
• Application Number:
  US13/251,416
• Publication Number:
  US 20120163232A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,786 Days
• Field of Search: 3702301-235, 709/224, 709/231, 709/234
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1417 Advice of charge with threshold, e.g. user indicating maximum cost
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1432 Metric aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1435 volume-based
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5025 by proactively reacting to service quality change, e.g. by reconfiguration after service quality degradation or upgrade
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72463 to restrict the functionality of the device
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/58 based on statistics of usage or network monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/0022 for transferring data sessions between adjacent core network technologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/00 Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

In a mobile terminal and method, the mobile terminal and method calculate a usage amount of data for each application executed in the mobile terminal. The mobile terminal includes: a communication unit to communicate to a server; a recognition unit to recognize an application sending a data communication connection request; a calculation unit to calculate a usage amount of data communicated by the application sending the data communication connection request; and a control unit to control the mobile terminal based on the calculation and of data usage for the application.

Claims

1. A mobile terminal, comprising:

a communication unit to communicate data to and from a server of a communication service provider, the communication unit comprising an antenna;

a recognition unit to recognize applications that communicate data via the communication unit;

an analyzing unit to analyze data of the applications, wherein the analyzing unit identifies features of data including synchronization data, necessary data and advertising data associated with the applications;

a calculation unit to calculate a usage amount of data communicated to and from the server for the respective applications; and

a control unit to control the mobile terminal by controlling data communicated through the antenna, based on usage amounts of data and the identified features,

wherein the control unit is configured to categorize that an application is an advertising application based on a ratio of a usage amount of extracted data for advertising data to a usage amount of total extracted data for the application being equal to or greater than a threshold value,

wherein the extracted data for advertising data are extracted from packets of the application,

wherein the advertising application is a background advertising application when the usage amount of total extracted data for the application is extracted from background use packets, and

wherein the advertising application is a foreground advertising application when the usage amount of total extracted data for the application is extracted from foreground use packets.

2. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, further comprising a display unit to display the usage amount of data for the advertising application.

3. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein control unit is configured to block communications to and from an executing application based on a determination that a usage amount of data for the executing application exceeds a threshold.

4. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to determine whether a current location of the mobile terminal is in range of a IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) if a usage amount of data of an executing application exceeding a threshold.

5. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to connect to a IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) based on a current location of the mobile terminal being in range of the WLAN.

6. The mobile terminal according to claim 1,

wherein the calculation unit calculates a usage amount of data according to the identified features, and

the control unit is configured to control the mobile terminal based on the usage amount of data according to the identified features.

7. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the analyzing unit identifies a packet of data as synchronization data, based on the packet being transmitted at specific time intervals or transmitted when an application is operating in a background state.

8. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the analyzing unit identifies a packet of data as necessary data based on the packet being transmitted when an application is operating in a foreground state.

9. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the analyzing unit filters URL information or file format information to identify a packet of data as advertising data.

10. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to block the application from data communication based on the application being categorized as the advertising application.

11. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to store a record of applications categorized as advertising applications in a database.

12. The mobile terminal according to claim 11, wherein the control unit is configured to display a warning message or a pop-up window on a display unit based on execution of at least one of the advertising application.

13. The mobile terminal according to claim 11, wherein, the control unit is configured to block the application from data communication based a load of the control unit exceeding a threshold and the application being categorized as an advertising application.

14. The mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the control unit is configured to control the calculation unit to not calculate the usage amount of data when the application is a free-of-charge application.

15. A method for controlling a mobile terminal, the method comprising:

sensing data communicated from the mobile terminal to a server of a communication service provider or from the server to the mobile terminal;

recognizing applications that communicate data to and from the server;

calculating a usage amount of the communicated data for the respective applications;

identifying features of the communicated data for the respective applications; and

controlling the mobile terminal based on usage amounts of data and the features, the controlling of the mobile terminal comprising;

categorizing that an application is an advertising application based on a ratio of a usage amount of extracted data for advertising data to a usage amount of total extracted data for the application being equal to or greater than a threshold value,

wherein the extracted data for advertising data are extracted from packets of the application,

wherein the advertising application is a background advertising application when the usage amount of total extracted data for the application is extracted from background use packets, and

wherein the advertising application is a foreground advertising application when the usage amount of total extracted data for the application is extracted from foreground use packets.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the calculating occurs for a period from a time when the application requesting a connection to the server to a time when the application requesting disconnection to the server.

17. The method according to claim 15, further comprising displaying the usage amount of data of the respective applications.

18. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

determining whether a usage amount of data of an executing application exceeds a threshold; and

blocking the executing application from data communication when the usage amount of data of the executing application exceeds the threshold.

19. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

determining whether a usage amount of data of an executing application exceeds a threshold; and

determining whether a current location of the mobile terminal is in range of a IEEE 802.11 wireless area network (WLAN) when the usage amount of data for the executing application exceeds the threshold; and

connecting to the WLAN when the current location of the mobile terminal is in range of the WLAN.

20. The method according to claim 15, wherein calculating the usage amount of the communicated data further comprises:

excluding usage amount of data for a free-of-charge application.

21. A method for controlling a mobile terminal, the method comprising:

recognizing applications that communicate data via a mobile communication network;

performing, in association with execution of the applications, wireless data communication with an external device;

analyzing, at the mobile terminal, communicated data associated with the applications;

determining features of the applications based on features of the communicated data, the features comprising foreground data, background data, and advertising data associated with the respective applications, and based on usage amounts of data;

controlling wireless communication of the mobile terminal, with respect to the respective applications, based on the determined features of the applications, the controlling of the wireless communication of the mobile terminal comprising;

categorizing that an application is an advertising application based on a ratio of a usage amount of extracted data for advertising data to a usage amount of total extracted data for the application being equal to or greater than a threshold value,

wherein the extracted data for advertising data are extracted from packets of the application,

wherein the advertising application is a background advertising application when the usage amount of total extracted data for the application is extracted from background use packets, and

wherein the advertising application is a foreground advertising application when the usage amount of total extracted data for the application is extracted from foreground use packets.