Local channels anywhere

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9686032-B2
Application number	US-201414292533-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 30, 2014
Priority date	May 30, 2014
Publication date	Jun 20, 2017
Grant date	Jun 20, 2017

Abstract

A mobile viewing method includes accessing location information indicative of a current location of a mobile device associated with a home market. A current market corresponding to the current location of the mobile device is identified. If the current market differs from the home market, the mobile device is granted access to a retransmission of at least one local channel of the current market. The location information may include GPS information indicative of GPS coordinates of the mobile device. The mobile device may include a mobile viewing application that displays a channel guide indicating local channels available in the current market and national channels. The mobile viewing application may include a summary of the current market and the summary may include weather, news headline, and local advertisement information.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A mobile content viewing method, comprising:
generating a plurality of subscriber feeds, each subscriber feed associated with a local headend and each subscriber feed including:
local content wirelessly acquired by the local headend from a local broadcast transmitter; and
national content acquired from a super headend office via a backbone network;

providing, via a wireline access network, a first subscriber feed, comprising the national content and first local content acquired by a first headend from a first local broadcast transmitter, to customer premises equipment licensed to a subscriber; and
responsive to receiving a channel guide request from a mobile viewing application of a mobile device associated with the subscriber, accessing location information indicative of a current location of the mobile device;
providing channel guide information corresponding to a second content feed, comprising the national content and second local content, to the mobile device, the channel guide information including local channel information corresponding to the second local content and national channel information corresponding to the national content, wherein the second local content comprises local content acquired by a second headend from a second local broadcast transmitter and wherein the second local headend comprises a headend closest to the current location of the mobile device; and
responsive to user selection of a local channel from a channel guide display indicative of at least some of the local channel information, providing, via a mobile telephone network, the second content feed to the mobile device, the second content feed including content distributed over the local channel.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising identifying the mobile device as a mobile device associated with a subscriber account for a multimedia delivery service provided by the service provider.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the mobile device comprises a device selected from: a smart phone and a tablet device.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the location information comprises information selected from:
GPS information indicative of GPS coordinates of the mobile device; and
cellular network information indicative of a location of a cellular base station in proximity to the mobile device.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein providing the second content feed to the mobile device comprises:
streaming the streaming the second content feed from a streaming server.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first content feed and the second content feed include the same content when the headend closest to the current location of the mobile device is also the headend closest to the premises equipment.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first content feed and the second content feed are the same when the headend closest to the mobile device is also the headend closest to the premises equipment.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing the mobile viewing application with channel information, including locality information indicative of whether a channel is a locally broadcast channel; and
providing the mobile viewing application with market summary information, wherein the market summary information includes:
a weather summary indicative of a weather forecast for the current city market;
a headline summary indicative of a news story associated with the current city market; and
a local advertisement advertising a business or service provided in the current city market.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
providing a local content summary indicative of differences between local content of the home city market and local content of the current city market.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium, including program instructions, executable by a processor, the instructions, when executed by the processor, causing the processor to perform operations comprising:
generating a plurality of subscriber feeds, each subscriber feed associated with a local headend and each subscriber feed including:
local content wirelessly acquired by the local headend from a local broadcast transmitter; and
national content acquired from a super headend office via a backbone network;

providing, via a wireline access network, a first subscriber feed, comprising the national content and first local content acquired by a first headend from a first local broadcast transmitter, to customer premises equipment licensed to a subscriber; and
responsive to receiving a channel guide request from a mobile viewing application of a mobile device associated with the subscriber, accessing location information indicative of a current location of the mobile device;
providing channel guide information corresponding to a second content feed, comprising the national content and second local content, to the mobile device, the channel guide information including local channel information corresponding to the second local content and national channel information corresponding to the national content, wherein the second local content comprises local content acquired by a second headend from a second local broadcast transmitter and wherein the second local headend comprises a headend closest to the current location of the mobile device; and
responsive to user selection of a local channel from a channel guide display indicative of at least some of the local channel information, providing, via a mobile telephone network, the second content feed to the mobile device, the second content feed including content distributed over the local channel.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the operations include:
identifying the mobile device as a mobile device associated with a subscriber account for a multimedia delivery service provided by the service provider.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the mobile device comprises a device selected from: a smart phone and a tablet device.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the location information comprises information selected from:
GPS information indicative of GPS coordinates of the mobile device; and
cellular network information indicative of a location of a cellular base station in proximity to the mobile device.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 10 , wherein providing the second content feed to the mobile device comprises:
streaming the streaming the second content feed from a streaming server.

15. A mobile viewing server in a multimedia delivery platform, the server comprising: a processor; and
a computer readable medium, including program instructions, executable by a processor, the instructions, when executed by the processor, causing the processor to perform operations comprising:
generating a plurality of subscriber feeds, each subscriber feed associated with a local headend and each subscriber feed including:
local content wirelessly acquired by the local headend from a local broadcast transmitter; and
national content acquired from a super headend office via a backbone network;

providing, via a wireline access network, a first subscriber feed, comprising the national content and first local content acquired by a first headend from a first local broadcast transmitter, to customer premises equipment licensed to a subscriber; and
responsive to receiving a channel guide request from a mobile viewing application of a mobile device associated with the subscriber, accessing location information indicative of a current location of the mobile device;
providing channel guide information corre

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Thomas Michael S
• Costner Wes G
• Ferman Adam

Classifications

• H04H60/85 Primary

  which are mobile communication networks · CPC title

• H04H60/91

  Mobile communication networks (for accessing the Internet H04H60/85) · CPC title

• H04H60/15

  on receiving information · CPC title

• H04W4/02

  Services making use of location information · CPC title

• H04H60/92 Primary

  for local area · CPC title