Remote telematics unit band control with dynamic memory

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9705992-B2
Application number	US-201414534823-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 6, 2014
Priority date	Nov 6, 2014
Publication date	Jul 11, 2017
Grant date	Jul 11, 2017

Abstract

A system and method of remotely changing use of a cellular protocol at a vehicle includes: storing, in a network access device (NAD) at the vehicle, identities of one or more cellular bands that provide cellular service according to an up-to-date cellular protocol; wirelessly receiving at the vehicle a computer-readable instruction that deactivates the up-to-date cellular protocol; and in response to the computer-readable instruction, the vehicle: obtains the identities of the cellular bands stored in the NAD; stores the obtained identities in a non-volatile memory device located apart from the NAD; and erases in the NAD the identities of the cellular bands that provide cellular service according to an up-to-date cellular protocol.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of remotely changing use of a cellular protocol at a vehicle, comprising the steps of:
(a) storing, in a network access device (NAD) at the vehicle, identities of one or more cellular bands that provide cellular service according to an up-to-date cellular protocol and a less sophisticated cellular protocol;
(b) wirelessly receiving at the vehicle a computer-readable instruction that deactivates the up-to-date cellular protocol; and
(c) in response to the computer-readable instruction, the vehicle:
(c1) obtains the identities of the cellular bands stored in the NAD;
(c2) stores the obtained identities in a non-volatile memory device located apart from the NAD; and
(c3) erases in the NAD the identities of the cellular bands that provide cellular service according to an up-to-date cellular protocol;

(d) wirelessly communicating via the NAD using the less sophisticated cellular protocol.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cellular bands represent radio frequencies used by 4G long term evolution (LTE) cellular protocols.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the less sophisticated cellular protocol further comprises a 3G universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) cellular protocol.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of accessing the identities of the cellular bands from data files in a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) or subscriber identity module (SIM) card in the NAD.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of determining that the up-to-date cellular protocol is not used by the cellular telephony provider or that performance standards defined by the up-to-date cellular protocol are not consistently met by the cellular telephony provider.

6. A method of remotely changing use of a cellular protocol at a vehicle, comprising the steps of:
(a) accessing from a network access device (NAD) located at the vehicle identities of one or more cellular bands that provide cellular service according to an up-to-date cellular protocol or a less sophisticated cellular protocol;
(b) storing the identities of one or more cellular bands that provide cellular service according to the up-to-date cellular protocol and the less sophisticated protocol at the vehicle in a non-volatile memory device located apart from the NAD;
(c) deleting from the NAD the identities of the cellular bands that provide cellular service according to the up-to-date cellular protocol;
(d) wirelessly communicating via the NAD using the less sophisticated cellular protocol;
(e) wirelessly receiving at the vehicle a computer-readable instruction that activates use of the up-to-date cellular protocol;
(f) obtaining the identities of the cellular bands used to provide cellular service according to the up-to-date cellular protocol from the non-volatile memory device; and
(g) storing the obtained identities of the cellular bands used to provide cellular service according to the up-to-date cellular protocol in the NAD.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the cellular bands represent radio frequencies used by 4G long term evolution (LTE) cellular protocols.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the less sophisticated cellular protocol further comprises a 3G universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) cellular protocol.

9. The method of claim 6 , further comprising the step of accessing the identities of the cellular bands that provide cellular service according to an up-to-date cellular protocol from data files in a universal integrated circuit card (UICC) or subscriber identity module (SIM) card in the NAD.

10. The method of claim 6 , further comprising the step determining that the up-to-date cellular protocol is not used by the cellular telephony provider or performance standards defined by the up-to-date cellular protocol are not consistently met by the cellular telephony provider.

Assignees

• Gen Motors Llc

Inventors

• Droste Scott T
• George David
• Emani Sitaram

Classifications

• H04W4/029

  Location-based management or tracking services · CPC title

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title

• H04W4/40

  for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P] · CPC title

• H04W48/18

  Selecting a network or a communication service · CPC title

• H04L67/125 Primary

  involving control of end-device applications over a network · CPC title