Location Based Services Quality Assessment

• US 20090111462A1
• Filed: 06/19/2008
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Nguyen, Linh, Sarkar, Falguni, Leonard, Leslie Paul, Krinsky, Jeffrey A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,509,761 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/423
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services

Abstract

A technique to gather and assess the quality of a location based services provided to a mobile wireless device via a wireless network includes providing location-based service information by referring to a target location of a requested item of interest within a proximity of the present location of the mobile wireless device. Subjective quality or accuracy information can be submitted to the wireless network from the from the wireless device. The subjective quality or accuracy information is correlated with event and condition information affecting the wireless network. Reports can be generated which indicate the quality and accuracy information of the target location information. The reports are useful for troubleshooting location-based service inaccuracy.

Claims

1. A method of assessing quality of a service provided via a wireless network, the service involving location information, the method comprising:

establishing a communication to a wireless device, the communication comprising target location data with respect to a present location of the wireless device;

accepting subjective quality information from the wireless device, the subjective information generated by a user of the wireless device;

correlating the subjective data with event and condition information affecting the wireless network;

reporting the quality of the service in association with a relevant subset of the event and condition information, the quality of the service related to an accuracy of the target location data.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of requesting, by the wireless device, information concerning the target location, before the establishing step.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing a communication to the wireless device comprises transmitting the target location data of a place of interest to the wireless device in response to a request for the target location issued from the wireless device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein accepting subjective quality information from the user device comprises:

receiving data from the wireless device indicative of a subjective quality rating input by a user of the wireless device, the quality rating input provided after the user evaluated the target location data.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the quality rating input is time-stamped by the wireless device.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising receiving multiple instances of subjective quality ratings by the user, each rating time-stamped by the wireless device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein correlating the subjective data with event and condition information affecting the wireless network comprises associating the subjective data with at least one of the group consisting of user call data records, road traffic records, weather records, location data, network performance data, and video server performance data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the present location of the wireless device comprises location information determined by one of the group consisting of global positioning system data, time differential of arrival data, and angle of arrival data, and user input data.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein reporting the quality of the service in association with a relevant subset of the event and condition information comprises reporting the quality of the service in association with data specifically related to network performance data during the time of the received subjective quality information.

10. A system for assessing quality of a service that provides target location information from a wireless telephone network, the system comprising:

a wireless device, connected to the wireless telephone network, that accepts a subjective user input rating related to the service that provides the target location information;

a data correlator receiving the subjective user input rating and associating the input rating with a call data record of the user and at least one network event, the association producing a target location information quality assessment record;

a report generator, the report generator providing a plurality of quality assessment records for examination, the records indicating the subjective user input rating providing an assessment of the quality of the target location information.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a network database connected to the data correlator, the network database providing network data link routing and switching element performance data for association with the input rating.

12. The system of claim 10, further comprising a target location information server connected to the data correlator, the server providing performance and capacity data for association with the input rating.

13. The system of claim 10, further comprising a road traffic and weather data source for association with the input rating.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the data correlator also associates time of the input rating and a present location of the wireless device with a time of the network event.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the time of the input rating is determined from a time stamp provided by the wireless device.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein the present location of the wireless device is determined by one of the group consisting of global positioning system data, time difference of arrival data, angle of arrival data, and a user input indicative of user location.

17. A computer readable medium comprising computer instructions which, when executed, perform a method to assesses a quality of received target location information issued from a wireless telephone network, the instructions causing execution of steps comprising:

establishing a communication to a wireless device, the communication comprising target location data with respect to a present location of the wireless device;

accepting subjective quality information from the wireless device, the subjective information generated by a user of the wireless device;

correlating the subjective data with event and condition information affecting the wireless telephone network;

reporting the quality of the service in association with a relevant subset of the event and condition information.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein correlating the subjective data with event and condition information affecting the wireless telephone network comprises correlating the subjective data with a time of the subjective data input, the present location of the wireless device, and network switching performance data.