Network control center for satellite communication system

• US 6,272,338 B1
• Filed: 08/13/1998
• Issued: 08/07/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: ATC Technology Corporation (FedEx Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Motient Services, Inc.
• Inventors: Tisdale, William R., Modzelesky, Edward J.
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, THANH C
• Application Number:
  US09/133,687
• Time in Patent Office: 1,090 Days
• Field of Search: 455/426, 455/427, 455/428, 455/430, 455/12.1, 455/13.1, 455/403, 455/410, 455/411, 455/414, 455/67.1, 455/423, 455/424, 370/316, 370/321, 370/327, 370/329, 370/330
• US Class Current: 455/430
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18539 Arrangements for managing radio, resources, i.e. for establishing or releasing a connection
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18567 Arrangements for providing additional services to the basic mobile satellite telephony service
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/18578 Satellite systems for providing broadband data service to individual earth stations for selecting H04W; provisions for broadband connection, H04Q11/0478
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/06 Authentication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/00 Local resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/06 Airborne or Satellite Networks space-based or airborne stations H04B7/185
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/02 Inter-networking arrangements

Abstract

A mobile satellite system including a satellite communication switching office and network system having a satellite antenna for receiving and transmitting a satellite message via a satellite to and from a mobile earth station including a mobile communication system, a satellite interface system, a central controller receiving and transmitting the satellite message from the mobile earth station to and from the satellite communication switching office via the satellite and the satellite interface system. The mobile communication system includes a user interface system providing a user interface through which a user has access to services supported by the mobile satellite system and an antenna system which provides an interface between the mobile communication system and the mobile satellite system via the satellite interface system. The antenna system receives a first satellite message from the satellite and transmits a second satellite message to the satellite. The mobile satellite system is responsively connected to the mobile communication system. The mobile satellite system comprises a network operations center (NOC) which manages and controls the resources of the satellite network system and conducts the administrative functions associated with the management of the satellite network system. The NOC communicates with the various internal and external entities via a control network. A network communications controller (NCC) manages the allocation of circuits between the mobile communication system and the satellite switching office for supporting communications. Available circuits are held in circuit pools managed by at least one Group Controller (GC) in the NCC, the NCC communicating with the NOC via said control network. The GC includes components which control call setup and monitoring, management of satellite resources during call setup and cleardown, database management, call record management, congestion control, generation of performance and traffic statistics, and periodic performance verification testing.

Claims

1. A mobile satellite system, comprising:

a network operations center (NOC) managing and controlling the resources of the satellite network system and carrying out the administrative functions associated with the management of the network system, the NOC communicating with at least one of internal and external entities;

a first network communications controller (NCC) managing the real time allocation of circuits between METs and FESs for the purposes of supporting communications, available circuits being managed by group controllers (GCs) within the NCC;

a FES supporting communications links between METs, the public switched telephone network (PSTN), private networks, and other METs, call completion and service feature management being accomplished over the communication channel, the FES including at least one of a gateway FES providing mobile telephone service (MTS) and mobile telephone cellular roaming service (MTCRS) services, and a base FES providing mobile radio service (MRS) and net radio (NR) services;

a customer management information system providing at least one of customers and service providers with assistance and information including at least one of problem resolution, service changes, and billing/usage data, customers including at least one of individual MET owners and fleet managers of larger corporate customers;

a network engineering system developing at least one of network plans and performing analysis in support of the system including at least one of analyzing the requirements of the network, reconciling expected traffic loads with the capability and availability of space and ground resources to produce frequency plans for the different beams within the system, and defining contingency plans for failure situations;

a system engineering system engineering at least one of the network subsystems, equipment and software which is needed to expand capacity to meet increases in traffic demands and to provide new features and services;

a remote monitor station (RMS) monitoring spectrum and transmission performance, said RMS being nominally located in each beam and interfacing with the NOC via either a satellite or terrestrial link;

a system test station (STS) providing at least one of network access capability to support FES commissioning tests and network service diagnostic tests, the STS being optionally collocated with and interfaced to the NOC;

a group controller subsystem (GCS) incorporating one or multiple group controllers (GC), each GC at least one of managing every call in progress within its control group, allocating and de-allocating circuits for calls, managing virtual network call processing, performing MET authentication, and providing call accounting, the GC optionally providing satellite bandwidth resources to the NOC for AMS(R)S resource provisioning, monitoring the performance of call processing and satellite circuit pool utilization, and performing MET management, commissioning and periodic performance verification testing and database management.

2. A mobile satellite system according to claim 1 wherein said database management includes management of:

mobile earth station databases;

virtual network databases;

circuit pool databases;

network identification databases;

circuit counters and queue tables; and

call record tables.

3. A mobile satellite system according to claim 1 wherein said mobile satellite system includes a second NCC which maintains communication with said NOC and said first NCC and maintains database concurrence across the two NCCs, receives call processing information from said first NCC on a call-by-call basis, and maintains call records and frequency allocations dynamically such that said second NCC can substantially immediately assume control of an in-process call setups and old call releases.

4. A mobile satellite system according to claim 1 wherein the GC supports GC controller (GCC) processes and control group manager (CGM) processes, the CGM processes functioning independently and managing multiple control groups.

5. A mobile satellite system according to claim 1 wherein a GC performs the following processes:

configuration including processing control group reconfigurations, serving as a server in NOC initiated updates and as a requester in GC initiated database updates;

processing AMS(R)S provisioning requests from the NOC;

call processing; and

GC router configuration.

6. A mobile satellite system according to claim 1 wherein said mobile satellite system includes a second NCC which maintains communication with said NOC and said first NCC and maintains database concurrence across the two NCCs, receives call processing information from said first NCC on a call-by-call basis, and maintains call records and frequency allocations dynamically such that said second NCC may be substituted for said first NCC as a scheduled activity or upon failure of the online NCC.

7. A mobile satellite system according to claim 6 wherein the scheduled substitution of said second NCC includes the following steps:

alerting the online NCC to initiate processing phaseout and suspend active communication with its associated CGS internal element;

the online NCC alerting the off-line NCC that all processing has been suspended and all elements associated with the NCC are waiting for a communication restart;

the off-line NCC commanding the on-line NCC to go to passive standby under its own local operator control;

the new on-line NCC beginning a communication restart sequence with its associated CGS elements.

8. A mobile satellite system according to claim 6 wherein the failure substitution of said second NCC includes the following steps:

the on-line NOC commanding the on-line NCC to go to passive standby under local operator control;

the on-line NOC commanding the off-line NCC to go active;

the on-line NOC commanding all NCC associated elements to suspend communication with the old on-line NCC and await an NCC communications restart command;

the on-line NOC commanding the new on-line NCC to begin a communications restart with all of its associated elements;

the new on-line NCC beginning a communications restart sequence with all of its associated elements.

9. A mobile satellite system, comprising:

a network operations center (NOC) managing and controlling the resources of the satellite network system and conducting the administrative functions associated with the management of the mobile satellite system, the NOC communicating with at least one of internal and external entities;

a first network communications controller (NCC) managing the allocation of circuits for supporting communications, available circuits being managed by at least one Group Controller (GC) in said NCC, said NCC communicating with said NOC via said control network, said GC including components which control;

call setup and monitoring;

management of satellite resources during call setup and cleardown;

database management;

call record management;

congestion control;

generation of performance and traffic statistics; and

periodic performance verification testing.

10. A mobile satellite system according to claim 9 wherein said database management includes management of:

mobile earth station databases;

virtual network databases;

circuit pool databases;

network identification databases;

circuit counters and queue tables; and

call record tables.

11. A mobile satellite system according to claim 9 wherein said mobile satellite system includes a second NCC which maintains communication with said NOC and said first NCC and maintains database concurrence across the two NCCs, receives call processing information from said first NCC on a call-by-call basis, and maintains call records and frequency allocations dynamically such that said second NCC can substantially immediately assume control of an in-process call setups and old call releases.

12. A mobile satellite system according to claim 9 wherein said mobile satellite system includes a second NCC which maintains communication with the NOC and the NCC and maintains database concurrence across the two NCCs, receives call processing information from said first NCC on a call-by-call basis, and maintains call records and frequency allocations dynamically such that said second NCC may be substituted for said first NCC as a scheduled activity or upon failure of the online NCC.

13. A mobile satellite system according to claim 12 wherein the scheduled substitution of said second NCC includes the following steps:

alerting the online NCC to initiate processing phaseout and suspend active communication with its associated CGS internal element;

the online NCC alerting the off-line NCC that all processing has been suspended and all elements associated with the NCC are awaiting a communication restart;

the off-line NCC commanding the on-line NCC to go to passive standby under its own local operator control;

the new on-line NCC beginning a communication restart sequence with its associated CGS elements.

14. A mobile satellite system according to claim 9 wherein the fail over substitution of said second NCC includes the following steps:

the on-line NOC commanding the on-line NCC to go to passive standby under local operator control;

the on-line NOC commanding the off-line NCC to go active;

the on-line NOC commanding all NCC associated elements to suspend communication with the old on-line NCC awaiting an NCC communications restart command;

the on-line NOC commanding the new on-line NCC to begin a communications restart with all of its associated elements;

the new on-line NCC beginning a communications restart sequence with all of its associated elements.

15. A mobile satellite system according to claim 9 wherein the GC supports GC controller (GCC) processes and control group manager (CGM) processes, the CGM processes functioning independently and managing multiple control groups.

16. A mobile satellite system according to claim 9 wherein a GC performs the following processes:

configuration including processing control group reconfigurations, serving as a server in NOC initiated updates and as a requester in GC initiated database updates;

processing AMS(R)S provisioning requests from the NOC;

call processing; and

GC router configuration.

17. In a mobile satellite system, including a network operations center (NOC) managing and controlling the resources of the satellite network system and conducting the administrative fuctions associated with the management of the mobile satellite system, the NOC communicating with at least one of internal and external entities;

and a first network communications controller (NCC) managing the allocation of circuits for supporting communications, available circuits being managed by at least one Group Controller (GC) in said NCC, said NCC communicating with said NOC via said control network, a method performed by said GC comprising the sequence independent steps of;

(a) call setup and monitoring;

(b) management of satellite resources during call setup and cleardown;

(c) database management;

(d) call record management;

(e) congestion control;

(f) generation of performance and traffic statistics; and

(g) periodic performance verification testing.

18. A mobile satellite system, comprising:

a network operations center (NOC) managing and controlling the resources of the satellite network system and carrying out the administrative functions associated with the management of the network system, the NOC communicating with at least one of internal and external entities;

a first network communications controller (NCC) managing the real time allocation of circuits between METs and FESs for the purposes of supporting communications, available circuits being managed by group controllers (GCs) within the NCC;

a FES supporting communications links between METs, the public switched telephone network (PSTN), private networks, and other METs, call completion and service feature management being accomplished over the communication channel, the FES including at least one of a gateway FES providing mobile telephone service (MTS) and mobile telephone cellular roaming service (MTCRS) services, and a base FES providing mobile radio service (MRS) and net radio (NR) services;

a customer management information system providing at least one of customers and service providers with assistance and information including at least one of problem resolution, service changes, and billing/usage data, customers including at least one of individual MET owners and fleet managers of larger corporate customers;

a network engineering system developing at least one of network plans and performing analysis in support of the system including at least one of analyzing the requirements of the network, reconciling expected traffic loads with the capability and availability of space and ground resources to produce frequency plans for the different beams within the system, and defining contingency plans for failure situations;

a system engineering system engineering at least one of the network subsystems, equipment and software which is needed to expand capacity to meet increases in traffic demands and to provide new features and services;

a group controller subsystem (GCS) incorporating one or multiple group controllers (GC), each GC at least one of managing every call in progress within its control group, allocating and de-allocating circuits for calls, managing virtual network call processing, performing MET authentication, and providing call accounting, the GC optionally providing satellite bandwidth resources to the NOC for AMS(R)S resource provisioning, monitoring the performance of call processing and satellite circuit pool utilization, and performing MET management, commissioning and periodic performance verification testing and database management.