Method of performing network personalization on mobile devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9363362-B2
Application number	US-201414489494-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 18, 2014
Priority date	Oct 9, 2013
Publication date	Jun 7, 2016
Grant date	Jun 7, 2016

Abstract

A mobile device is network-personalized according to an MCC, an MNC and an SPN of a smartcard issued by a specific service provider. During the booting process, the mobile device may directly access an IMSI elementary file and an SPN elementary file of a currently inserted smartcard and thus determine whether the currently inserted smartcard is issued by the specific service provider. Therefore, even if the smartcards issued by two different service providers have the same MCC and MNC in its IMSI elementary file due to cooperation, the present method of performing network personalization is able to determine whether these smartcards can be used to provide full function on the mobile device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of performing network personalization on a mobile device, comprising:
acquiring a mobile country code (MCC) and a mobile network code (MNC) indicated in an international mobile subscriber identity elementary file (EF IMSI ) of a specific smartcard;
acquiring a service provider name (SPN) indicated in a service provider name elementary file (EF SPN ) of the specific smartcard;
determining whether a pre-personalization check is successful by:
verifying that the mobile device has not been network personalized before performing the booting process; and
verifying that the MCC, the MNC and the SPN acquired from the specific smartcard is a subset of an existing personalization code of the specific smartcard;

storing the MCC, the MNC and the SPN acquired from the specific smartcard in the mobile device as feature data after determining that the pre-personalization check is successful;
accessing an international mobile subscriber identity elementary file and a service provider name elementary file of a currently inserted smartcard of the mobile device during a booting process; and
the mobile device entering a normal mode when determining that the accessed international mobile subscriber identity elementary file and the accessed service provider name elementary file of the currently inserted smartcard matches the feature data.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
the mobile device entering a restricted mode when determining that the accessed international mobile subscriber identity elementary file and the accessed service provider name elementary file of the currently inserted smartcard does not match the feature data.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the mobile device is configured to perform more functions in the normal mode than in the restricted mode.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
storing a network control key (NCK) in the mobile device.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
setting a network personalization indicator to an active state.

Assignees

• Acer Inc

Inventors

• Chuang Chia-Yun

Classifications

• H04M1/72463

  to restrict the functionality of the device · CPC title

• H04M1/72577 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W8/183 Primary

  Processing at user equipment or user record carrier · CPC title