Visualizing and analyzing spectrum assets

• US 9,516,526 B1
• Filed: 03/04/2014
• Issued: 12/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Broyles, Daniel Stewart, Machamer, Douglas L., Panella, Anthony A., Rowland, Nichole D., Iverson, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Singh, Gurkanwaljit
• Application Number:
  US14/196,724
• Time in Patent Office: 1,008 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/04 using two or more spaced independent antennas
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic

Abstract

A method and system are provided for visualizing and analyzing spectrum assets. License, channel, and lease data from a communications authority is collected and formatted into individual polygon maps. The maps could be drawn according to county or state boundaries, or by some other mapping standard. The maps are then divided and redrawn into several market service areas and several basic trading areas. The maps are also divided and redrawn according to the bandwidth spectrum of one or more channels. Since the maps are drawn with several different boundary conditions, the layout of all of the maps result in some maps being partially overlaid onto other maps for the same region. These regions containing partially overlaid maps are redefined as superblocks. Each superblock contains all of the data from each overlaid map portion for that particular region. These superblocks provide a means of displaying or representing a completely mapped region, such as the continental United States in a completely non-overlapping manner. Several methods analyze the newly formed non-overlapping data map for purposes of deriving current assets and forming future marketing strategies.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for identifying attributes for channels in a superblock, the computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying, by a computing system, desired attributes for a channel of a communication network; and

loading, by the computing system, a superblock associated with a collection of communication channels of the communication network, wherein loading the superblock further comprises;

(1) checking, by the computing system, each channel within the superblock for matches to the desired channel attributes,

(2) generating, by the computing system, a notification for each channel of the superblock that matches one or more desired channel attributes, and

(3) based on the matches to the one or more desired channel attributes, calculating, by the computing system, spectrum depth, wherein the spectrum depth provides the bandwidth available for each controlling entity in the superblock.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the desired attributes include channel name or frequency, control type, or controlling entity.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each channel of the superblock specifies a particular controlling entity or a particular control type within each of a plurality of territories.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the maximum contiguous coverage corresponds to a band of channels within each of said territories.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the superblock includes channels from metropolitan market service areas and basic trading areas.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the superblock includes spectrum assets related to a wireless communications industry.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the spectrum depth provides the bandwidth available for each controlling entity in the superblock.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising correlating population density and spectrum depth.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-usable instructions that perform a method for identifying attributes for channels in a superblock, the computer-implemented method comprising:

identifying, by a computing system, desired attributes for a channel of a communication network; and

loading, by the computing system, a superblock associated with a collection of communication channels of the communication network, wherein loading the superblock further comprises;

(1) checking, by the computing system, each channel within the superblock for matches to the desired channel attributes,

(2) generating, by the computing system, a notification for each channel of the superblock that matches the one or more desired channel attributes, and

(3) based on the matches to the one or more desired channel attributes, calculating, by the computing system, maximum contiguous coverage, wherein the maximum contiguous coverage corresponds to a band of channels within each of said territories.

10. The media of claim 9, wherein the desired attributes include channel name or frequency, control type, or controlling entity.

11. The media of claim 9, wherein each channel of the superblock specifies a particular controlling entity or a particular control type within each of a plurality of territories.

12. The media of claim 9, wherein the superblock includes channels from metropolitan market service areas and basic trading areas.

13. The media of claim 9, further comprising:

calculating spectrum depth of the spectrum assets, wherein the superblock includes spectrum assets related to a wireless communications industry.

14. The media of claim 13, wherein the spectrum depth provides the bandwidth available in the superblock.

15. The media of claim 13, wherein the spectrum depth provides the bandwidth available for each controlling entity in the superblock.

16. The media of claim 14, further comprising correlating population density and spectrum depth.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable media having computer-usable instructions that perform a method for calculating spectrum depth, the computer-implemented method comprising:

loading, by a computing system, a superblock associated with a collection of communication channels of the communication network, wherein loading the superblock further comprises;

identifying, by the computing system, each channel in the superblock;

calculating, by the computing system, a bandwidth for each of the channels in the superblock;

aggregating, by the computing system, the bandwidth for each of the channels to calculate a total bandwidth of the superblock.

18. The media of claim 17, further comprising determining the maximum contiguous coverage for the superblock.