Method and system of providing data service according to a user's future location

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9775001-B2
Application number	US-201414777464-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 3, 2014
Priority date	Mar 15, 2013
Publication date	Sep 26, 2017
Grant date	Sep 26, 2017

Abstract

According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for controlling data service for a vehicle-based user of a telecommunication network. The method comprising: retrieving data associated with location behavior of the user within the network; predicting, based on said data and on a current user location within the network, a future user location within the network; performing a determination of network capability at the future user location; and modifying, in response to the determination, a configuration of the network and/or a service parameter associated with the user. A network element, system and computer program product are also provided.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for controlling data service for a vehicle-based gateway operating in a telecommunication network, wherein the vehicle-based gateway is configured to communicate with the telecommunication network using a first communication interface and to provide access to the telecommunication network to a plurality of user devices on-board a vehicle using a second communication interface, the method comprising:
retrieving data associated with location behavior of the vehicle-based gateway within the telecommunication network;
predicting, based on said data and on a current location for the vehicle-based gateway within the telecommunication network, a future location for the vehicle-based gateway within the telecommunication network;
performing a determination of network capability at the future location for the vehicle-based gateway to identify a degradation in a link quality of the first communication interface;
modifying, in response to the identification, a configuration of the network and/or a service parameter associated with the vehicle-based gateway; and
performing, in response to the step of modifying, one or more of:
a) prioritizing some services over others;
b) communicating data from the network to the vehicle-based gateway for storage in a storage system at the vehicle-based gateway and caching the communicated data for use during a time period when the vehicle-based gateway is in the future location within the network; and
c) maintaining any calls and web-browsing sessions provided by the telecommunications network at a pre-determined level.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the data associated with location behavior of the vehicle-based gateway within the network comprises scheduling information for the vehicle.

3. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of performing a determination of network capability at the future location comprises determining that an expected communication throughput between the telecommunication network and the vehicle-based gateway at the future location is no greater than a predetermined threshold.

4. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the modifying step is performed based on one or more of: a profile of the vehicle-based gateway; and a data service requested by the vehicle-based gateway.

5. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the modifying step further comprises one or more of: tilt adjustment of a base station of the telecommunication network; beam steering; configuration of handover parameters; expanding a cell range of the telecommunication network; increasing transmit power of a base station of the telecommunication network; adjusting resources scheduled to the vehicle-based gateway; traffic steering; adjusting a priority of the vehicle-based gateway; and identifying that the vehicle-based gateway is a priority user.

6. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising: establishing at the vehicle-based gateway that the configuration of the network and/or the service parameter associated with the vehicle-based gateway has been modified.

7. A method according to claim 6 , further comprising: using the stored data during a time period when the vehicle-based gateway is located at the future location within the network.

8. A method according to claim 7 , wherein the step of using the stored data comprises communicating the stored data and/or information relating to the stored data from the vehicle-based gateway to at least one of the plurality of user devices in communication with the vehicle-based gateway.

9. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of communicating data and caching the communicated data comprises one or more of:
updating all pages stored in a cache of the vehicle-based gateway; and
caching content which is usually accessed at this journey and time.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that when executed by one or more processors of a telecommunications network cause the telecommunications network to carry out the method of claim 1 .

11. A network element of a telecommunication network adapted to control data service for a user, the network element adapted to carry out the method of claim 1 .

Assignees

• Vodafone Ip Licensing Ltd

Inventors

• Dunkin Andrew
• Javaid Usman
• Lioulis Nikolaos
• Bender Sandra

Classifications

• H04W40/34

  Modification of an existing route · CPC title

• H04W4/046

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W24/02

  Arrangements for optimising operational condition · CPC title

• H04W4/028

  Electricity · mapped topic

• G01C21/3446

  Details of route searching algorithms, e.g. Dijkstra, A*, arc-flags or using precalculated routes · CPC title