LOCATION BASED IDLE MOBILE FREQUENCY SELECTION

• US 20120142343A1
• Filed: 12/02/2010
• Published: 06/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: WOHLD, Adam Harold
• Granted Patent: US 8,738,071 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/432.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/02 Selection of wireless resources by user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/02 Terminal devices

Abstract

A mobile network sector is served via at least an antenna and a mobile network base station transceiver to provide communications with a mobile station. The mobile station includes a mobile station antenna and a location determination device for identifying a geographic location of the mobile station. A transceiver in the mobile station is configured to transmit and receive signals to and from the mobile network base stations, via the mobile station antenna. A microprocessor controls the transmission and reception of the mobile communication signals and communicates with the location determination device. A spatial database identifies geographic positions related to sectors of mobile network base stations. The microprocessor compares the geographical location of the mobile station with the geographic positions of the mobile sectors to determine a preferred mobile network sector and redirect the transceiver to tune to a particular channel supported by the preferred mobile network sector.

Claims

1. A mobile station for communication through a mobile network system divided into mobile network sectors, the mobile station comprising:

a location determination device identifying a geographic location of the mobile station;

at least one mobile station antenna electrically linked to the location determination device;

a mobile transceiver electrically linked to the at least one antenna, the mobile transceiver configured to transmit and receive mobile communication signals to and from the mobile network system via the at least one antenna;

a microprocessor electronically linked to the mobile transceiver to control the transmission and reception of the mobile communication signals and communicating with the location determination device; and

a spatial database electronically linked to the microprocessor, and storing data identifying at least one or more geographic positions and geographic regions related to one or more of the mobile network sectors,

wherein the microprocessor is configured to compare the geographical location of the mobile station identified by the location determination device with the one or more geographic positions in the spatial database to determine a preferred channel of one of the mobile network sectors.

2. The mobile station of claim 1, wherein the mobile transceiver is configured to be tuned to a RF signal based on the preferred channel.

3. The mobile station of claim 1, wherein the location determination device includes a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver.

4. The mobile station of claim 1, wherein:

the location determination device is configured to identify the geographic location by latitude and longitude.

5. The mobile station of claim 1, wherein each entry in the spatial database identifying one of the plurality of geographic positions of a respective one of the mobile network sectors includes a series of geographical coordinates defining a boundary of the respective mobile network sector.

6. The mobile network of claim 1, wherein the mobile station does not connect to the mobile network system to determine the preferred channel.

7. The mobile network of claim 1, wherein a geographic coordinate for each position of a mobile network sector identifies a coordinate for the center of the sector area.

8. A method for location based roaming of a mobile station in a mobile network system divided into mobile network sectors,

wherein the mobile station stores a spatial database containing data identifying a plurality of geographic positions associated with a plurality of the mobile network sectors,

the method comprising the steps of:

identifying a geographic location of the mobile station using a location determination device in the mobile station;

retrieving, from the spatial database, data identifying a subset of the plurality of geographic positions of the mobile network sectors;

comparing, with a microprocessor located in the mobile station, the identified geographic location of the mobile station to data identifying the subset of the plurality of geographic positions of the mobile network sectors;

determining a preferred mobile network sector, from the plurality of mobile network sectors, based on the comparison step; and

redirecting a mobile station transceiver to a channel supported by the preferred mobile network sector.

9. The method for location based roaming in a mobile network of claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

upon a failure to acquire the geographic location, scanning, using the mobile station transceiver, a plurality of mobile network channels until an appropriate identifier is found;

tuning the mobile station transceiver to the mobile network channel having the appropriate identifier; and

continually attempting the acquiring step until the geographic location is acquired.

10. The method for location based roaming in a mobile network of claim 8, wherein the identifying, retrieving, comparing, and determining steps are all performed on the mobile station without communicating with the mobile network system.

11. An article of manufacture, comprising:

instructions for causing a programmable mobile station to implement the steps of the method of claim 8; and

a machine readable storage medium bearing the instructions.