JPH11275633A - System and method for line-sharing maintenance - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a line-sharing maintenance system which can economically perform the maintenance of a radio base station from a remote place by circuit switching call connection. SOLUTION: A line-sharing maintenance system is constituted, in such a way that a plurality of maintenance control sections 111 share a plurality of communication control sections 120 with each other, and when an incoming call arrives from a radio base station 60, the circuit switching call connection between the calling radio base station 60 and the maintenance control section 111 of the individual maintenance system 10 which maintains the radio base station 60 is realized in such a way that each communication control section 120 informs all the maintenance control sections 111 of the identification information of the radio base station 60, and each maintenance control section 111 discriminates the validity/invalidity of the incoming call, on the basis of that whether or not the base station 60 is to be maintained by the section 111 itself, and when the incoming call is valid, responds to the incoming call.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a maintenance system for performing remote maintenance of a radio base station, and more particularly to a shared line type maintenance system capable of economically performing remote maintenance by circuit-switched call connection.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in order to perform remote maintenance of a radio base station, a plurality of maintenance systems are provided, and these maintenance systems respectively perform remote maintenance of a plurality of radio base stations defined as maintenance targets in advance. It has become. Here, remote maintenance refers to managing the wireless base station by monitoring the state of the wireless base station, monitoring the failure of the wireless base station, collecting traffic data, downloading program data, and the like.

As shown in FIG. 5, each of the maintenance systems includes a display / operation unit 110, a maintenance control unit 111, and a plurality of communication control units 120. Each of the communication control units 120 includes a terminal adapter. By means of the device (TA) 30, I
It is configured to be connected to the SDN line 40.

Although not shown, the maintenance control unit 11
Reference numeral 1 is connected to each of the wireless base stations 60 to be maintained on a one-to-one basis by a dedicated line different from the ISDN line 40 (a dedicated line for communication by packet switching with a constantly established data link).

[0005] The maintenance control unit 111 uses a dedicated line for a small amount of data, such as various commands for monitoring the status of the radio base station 60 and monitoring the failure of the radio base station 60, using a dedicated line. The communication control unit 120-TA30-ISDN exchanges a large amount of data such as traffic data and program data.
The communication is performed with the wireless base station 60 to be maintained by using a route of a line 40-switch 50-ISDN line 40 (a communication path by circuit-switched call connection). At this time, the maintenance control unit 111 transmits a command for requesting an incoming call to itself to the maintenance target wireless base station 60 using the dedicated line, and the wireless base station 60 makes a call to the maintenance control unit 111 via the exchange 50 to establish the above-mentioned communication path.

[0006] In the configuration shown in FIG.
Although it is necessary to provide a TA 30 for each, the above-described remote maintenance (collection of traffic data, download of program data, etc.) using the communication path is indispensable.
Since the frequency of use is low, there is a problem that economic efficiency is low.

[0007] Therefore, there has been an idea that the maintenance system attempts to share a line with the exchange 50 using a newly developed line sharing TA. The line shared TA is, for example, a device called a public line shared telephone modem described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-266254.

[0008] The line configuration when the line shared TA is used is as follows:
As shown in FIG. 6, in FIG. 6, reference numeral 31 denotes a line shared TA.

[0009]

However, when the line sharing is performed using the line sharing TA, the following problems occur.

(1) In each maintenance system, communication control units are required for the number of shared lines. That is, even if there is a maintenance system with a small number of wireless base stations to be maintained, all the maintenance systems need to include the same number of communication control units.

(2) Since the line shared TA is a device suitable for online processing using a host computer, if it is used in a maintenance system, it is limited to exclusive use for circuit-switched call connection by outgoing calls. Can not respond. That is, since the line sharing TA cannot determine which communication control unit should receive an incoming call from the wireless base station, the above-described communication path cannot be established.

An object of the present invention is to provide a shared line type maintenance system which enables economical remote maintenance of a radio base station by circuit switched call connection without using a shared line TA.

[0013]

In order to solve the above-mentioned object, according to the present invention, in each maintenance system, a system is separated between a maintenance control unit and a communication control unit, and a plurality of maintenance control units are provided. The communication control unit is configured to be shared, and when each communication control unit receives a call from the radio base station, the identification information of the call source radio base station is transmitted to all maintenance control units. Each maintenance control unit determines whether the incoming call is valid or invalid depending on whether or not the radio base station is the target of the maintenance, and if it is valid, performs the incoming call response. By doing so, it is possible to establish the above-mentioned communication path.

Further, according to the present invention, when a call is made from the maintenance control unit, the communication control unit detects whether or not the line is in use by another maintenance control unit and sends the call to the maintenance control unit of the caller. On the other hand, by notifying the availability of the line, contention due to sharing of the communication control unit is dealt with.

More specifically, as a first aspect, the present invention provides a plurality of maintenance control units for performing remote maintenance of a radio base station predetermined as a maintenance target, and the maintenance control units are shared by these maintenance control units. And a plurality of communication control units for controlling a circuit-switched call connection between the wireless base station and a maintenance control unit that is to maintain the wireless base station. When a call is received from the station via the exchange to the maintenance control unit that is maintaining the radio base station, all the maintenance control units are
A circuit-switched call connection notifying unit for notifying the identification information of the called wireless base station, wherein each of the maintenance control units stores the identification information of the wireless base station to be maintained by itself; When the identification information is notified from the wireless base station storage means and any of the communication control units, if the notified identification information is stored in the maintenance target wireless base station storage means, the communication control of the notification source is performed. And a circuit-switched call connection responding means for responding to the communication unit.

According to the first aspect, since a plurality of maintenance control units share a plurality of communication control units, the number of communication control units can be less than the number of maintenance control units, and the number of TAs can be reduced.
Also, it is sufficient to prepare as many as the number of communication control units. In addition, since the extension unit of the line shared maintenance system accompanying the extension of the radio base station can be considered separately for the maintenance control unit and the communication control unit, only the maintenance control unit is required according to the number of radio base stations. The number of communication control units may be increased according to the number of maintenance control units.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, in the first aspect, each of the communication control units is configured to transmit a signal from any one of the maintenance control units to a radio base station which is to be maintained by the maintenance control unit. A line use notification unit for notifying the maintenance control unit of the caller of whether or not the line to the exchange is in use when a call is made; We provide a shared maintenance system.

According to the second aspect, the maintenance control unit uses another communication control unit when the communication control unit to be used at the time of calling is used by another maintenance control unit. For example, a retry process can be performed, so that it is possible to cope with contention caused by sharing the communication control unit.

[0019]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a line shared maintenance system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The line shared maintenance system of the present embodiment is a network management system for performing remote maintenance of wireless base stations in a public PHS network system, and realizes efficient operation and management of the PHS network system. is there.

In FIG. 1, 10a is an individual maintenance system A, 10b is an individual maintenance system B, 20 is a shared maintenance system, and 30a to 30c are terminal adapter devices (T
A), 40a to 40f are ISDN lines, 50 is an exchange,
60a to 60c are wireless base stations.

The individual maintenance system A (10a) includes a display / operation unit 110a and a maintenance control unit 111a. Further, the maintenance control unit 111a
2a, a control unit 113a, and a transmission / reception control unit 114a, 1
15a, a database (DB) 116a, and the memory 11
7a. The DB 116a stores a wireless base station information table for managing the wireless base station 60 to be maintained by the individual maintenance system A (10a).

The individual maintenance system B (10b) is also provided with a display / operation unit 110b and a maintenance control unit 111b.
U112b, control unit 113b, transmission / reception control unit 114
b, 115b, a DB 116b, and a memory 117b. The DB 116b stores the radio base station 60 which is the maintenance target of the individual maintenance system B (10b).
Is stored in the base station information table.

The shared maintenance system 20 includes a communication control unit 12
0a to 120c and TAs 30a to 30c. These communication control units 120a to 120c
Is a control system mainly for converting a communication protocol of the ISDN line 40, is shared by the individual maintenance system A (10a) and the individual maintenance system B (10b), and each time remote maintenance is performed, the wireless base station 60 and the The maintenance control unit 111 of the individual maintenance system 10 for which the wireless base station 60 is to be maintained
To control circuit-switched call connections between

Although not shown, the maintenance control unit 11
Each of the wireless base stations 1a and 111b has a dedicated line different from the ISDN line 40 (a dedicated line for communication by packet switching in which a data link is always established) and has a one-to-one relationship with each of the wireless base stations 60 to be maintained. It is connected. Therefore, actually, a component for packet switching is required, but since it is not directly related to the present embodiment,
Omitted.

The line shared maintenance system of the present embodiment
In the conventional maintenance system, the system is separated between the maintenance control unit and the communication control unit, and as illustrated in FIG. 1, the configuration is such that the plurality of maintenance control units 111 share the plurality of communication control units 120. I have.

In the line shared maintenance system according to the present embodiment, each communication control unit 120
When there is an incoming call from 0, all the maintenance control units 111
, The identification information of the called wireless base station 60 is notified, and each maintenance control unit 111 determines whether the received wireless base station 60 is a maintenance target wireless base station 60. It is determined that the wireless base station is invalid, and if the wireless base station is valid, an incoming call response is made.
A circuit-switched call connection with the maintenance control unit 111 is realized.

The operation of the circuit sharing type maintenance system according to the present embodiment when a circuit switched call is connected will be described below.

This operation is actually realized by software incorporated in the maintenance control unit 111 and the communication control unit 112. That is, in the maintenance control unit 111 and the communication control unit 112, the memories 117 and 125 are respectively provided.
Software for realizing this operation is stored in
This operation is realized by the PUs 112 and 121 executing this software.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the logic of software installed in the maintenance control unit 111 and the communication control unit 120. FIG. 3 shows a sequence diagram of the operation described below.

For example, when it is desired to collect traffic data and download program data in the individual maintenance system A (10a), the maintenance person can use the display / operation unit 110a to perform maintenance on the wireless base station 60 (here, the maintenance target radio base station 60). , The radio base station 60a), and instructs to request an incoming call, the maintenance control unit 111a sends the designated radio base station 60a to itself using the above-described dedicated line. A command for requesting an incoming call is sent.

Upon receiving this command, the radio base station 60a makes a call to the maintenance control unit 111a via the exchange 50. The exchange 50 receives an incoming call from the radio base station 60a by using one of the ISDN lines 40 (here, ISD
It is assumed that the N line 40a is used. ) Via the communication control unit 120a
Notify.

As described above, when there is an incoming call from the wireless base station 60a to the maintenance control unit 111a via the exchange 50, that is, when the call setting signal 301 in FIG. As shown in FIG. 2, the communication control unit 120a determines that the event type is "incoming call" (step 210), and performs a call setting process (step 2).
15). In the call setting process of step 215, a communication path with the wireless base station 60a is established by transmitting the response signal 302 in FIG.

Subsequently, when a communication path with the radio base station 60a is established, the communication control unit 120a stores the fact that the line is in use in the memory 125a (step 216), and receives the call. An inquiry process is performed (step 217).
In step 216, since the communication path with the maintenance control unit 111 has not been established, the communication control unit 120a also stores and holds that the line user is undecided.

Here, the incoming call inquiry processing of step 217 is performed by exchanging the incoming call inquiry command signal 303 and the incoming call inquiry report signal 304 with the exchange 50 in FIG. This is a process of acquiring the identification information of the station 60a.

Subsequently, when the communication control unit 120a acquires the identification information of the called base station 60a, the communication control unit 120a sends a circuit switching call connection notification signal in FIG. 3 to each of the maintenance control units 111a and 111b. By transmitting 305, it is notified that there is an incoming call, and at the same time, the acquired identification information is notified (step 218).

Upon receiving the circuit-switched call connection notification signal 305 from the communication control unit 120a, the maintenance control units 111a and 111b determine that the connection type is "incoming" (step 201) and connect to the DBs 116a and 116b. By referring to the stored wireless base station information table, the wireless base station 60a indicated by the identification information notified at the same time is the wireless base station that is to be maintained by itself and uses the dedicated line described above. First, it is determined whether or not the wireless base station has transmitted the command for requesting the incoming call first (step 202).

The radio base station information table contains, for example, as shown in FIG.
The identification information of the wireless base station 60 (here, the wireless base station 6
This is a table storing telephone numbers of 0.

In the maintenance control unit 111a waiting for an incoming call from the radio base station 60a, step 20 is executed.
Since the determination result of step 2 is “true (YES)”, by transmitting the incoming call connection confirmation signal 306 in FIG. 3 to the communication control unit 120a that has transmitted the circuit switching call connection notification signal 305, Is performed (step 206). At this time, the maintenance control unit 111a stores in the memory 117a the fact that the communication control unit 120a is used for circuit-switched call connection (step 209).

When receiving the incoming call connection confirmation signal 306, the communication control unit 120a determines that the event type is "incoming call connection confirmation" (step 210). Since the line user can recognize that it is the maintenance control unit 111a, the contents stored and held in step 216 are not determined by the line user. It is rewritten so as to be present (step 219).

As a result, a communication path between the maintenance control unit 111a and the communication control unit 120a is established, so that a communication path between the radio base station 60a and the maintenance control unit 111a is established. 111a is the wireless base station 60a
Transitions to a state where remote maintenance can be performed.

The maintenance control unit 111a determines that the radio base station 60 indicated by the identification information notified at the same time as the circuit switching call connection notification signal 305 is the radio base station 60b, for example.
If the wireless base station itself is not a wireless base station that has previously transmitted a command to request an incoming call using the dedicated line described above, the process proceeds to step 20.
Since the determination result of step 2 is “false (NO)”, subsequently, if the wireless base station itself is the maintenance target (step 203), a disconnection request is made to the communication control unit 120a.

On the other hand, in the maintenance control unit 111b that is not waiting for an incoming call from the radio base station 60a, step 2
02 is “false (NO)” and the determination result of step 203 is “false (NO)”, so that the received circuit-switched call connection signal 305 is invalidated (step 20).
4).

As described above, according to the line sharing type maintenance system of the present embodiment, the plurality of maintenance control units 111 are configured to share the plurality of communication control units 120. The number may be less than the number of the maintenance control units 111, and the TA 30
It is sufficient to prepare as many as zero. Also, the wireless base station 60
Can be considered separately for the maintenance control unit 111 and the communication control unit 120, so only the maintenance control unit 111 is added in accordance with the number of wireless base stations 60. Then, the communication control unit 120 may be added in accordance with the number of the maintenance control units 111.

In the line shared maintenance system of the present embodiment, it is possible to make a call from the maintenance control unit 111 to the radio base station 60. At this time, it is necessary to pay attention to the communication. The common point of sharing the control unit 120 is that contention of the communication control unit 120 occurs. Therefore, in the line shared maintenance system of the present embodiment, when a call is made from the maintenance control unit 111, the communication control unit 120 detects whether the line is in use by another maintenance control unit 111, Caller maintenance control unit 1
By notifying the line 11 of the availability of the line, the contention due to sharing of the communication control unit 120 is dealt with.

The operation at the time of calling from the maintenance control unit 111 will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. 2 and the sequence diagram of FIG.

For example, as described above, the maintenance control unit 11
1a and the wireless base station 60a
The following describes a case where the maintenance control unit 111b attempts to make a call using the communication control unit 120a when a circuit-switched call connection is established by using the communication control unit 120a.

At this time, in the individual maintenance system B (10b), the maintenance person specifies the maintenance target wireless base station 60 (here, the wireless base station 60c) from the display / operation unit 110b. When instructing to make a call, the maintenance control unit 111b uses an arbitrary communication control unit 120 that is not used by itself (here, the communication control unit 120a) to transmit to the designated wireless base station 60c. Make a call.

As described above, when a call is issued from the maintenance control unit 111b while being used for the circuit switching call connection between the maintenance control unit 111a and the radio base station 60a, that is, in FIG. When the circuit switching call request signal 307 is received from the maintenance control unit 111b, the communication control unit 120
“a” indicates that the event type is “connection request” as shown in FIG.
Is determined (step 210), and a check process is performed to determine whether or not the line is free (step 211). In the check process of step 211, whether the line is in use is stored in the memory 125a or not.
It is determined whether or not the line is free.

In this example, the fact that the line is being used is stored and held in the memory 125a by the maintenance control unit 111a.
By transmitting the circuit-switched call connection notification signal 308 in FIG. 3 to the terminal 11b, it is notified that the line is busy (busy) (step 212).

The maintenance control unit 111b includes a communication control unit 120
When the circuit switching call connection notification signal 308 is received from "a", it is determined that the connection type is "call request" (step 201), and it is determined that the line connection is not possible (step 207). Do (Step 20
8). In the retry process of step 208, the maintenance control unit 111b uses an arbitrary communication control unit 120 that is not used by itself (here, the communication control unit 120b) other than the communication control unit 120a, and uses the wireless base station. Place a call to the station 60c.

Now, assuming that the communication control unit 120b is not used for a circuit-switched call connection,
Determines that the event type is “connection request” when there is a call from the maintenance control unit 111b (step 21).
0), it is determined that the line is free (step 21).
1) By performing the call setting process (step 213), a communication path with the call destination wireless base station 60c is established.

Subsequently, the communication control section 120b notifies the maintenance control section 111b of the call origin that the line is unused (empty) by transmitting a circuit-switched call connection notification signal (step 214). ). Then, the fact that the line is being used is stored and held in the memory 125b by the maintenance control unit 111b (step 219).

The maintenance control unit 111b includes a communication control unit 120
b, the connection type is determined to be "call request" (step 20).
1) Since it is determined that line connection is possible (step 2)
07), the fact that the communication control unit 120b is used for circuit-switched call connection is stored in the memory 117b (step 209).

As a result, a communication path between the maintenance control unit 111b and the communication control unit 120b is established, so that a communication path between the radio base station 60c and the maintenance control unit 111b is established. 111b is the wireless base station 60c
Transitions to a state where remote maintenance can be performed.

[0057]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide a shared line type maintenance system capable of economically performing remote maintenance of a radio base station by circuit switched call connection. .

More specifically, by employing a configuration in which a plurality of maintenance control units share a plurality of communication control units, not only the number of lines and TAs but also the number of communication control units can be reduced. In addition to providing a more economical configuration, it is possible to perform high-performance remote maintenance corresponding to circuit-switched call connection by making and receiving calls.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a line shared maintenance system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating software logic incorporated in a maintenance control unit and a communication control unit according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an operation sequence diagram of the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram of a wireless base station information table according to the embodiment;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of a conventional maintenance system.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an example of a system configuration in a case where a line shared terminal adapter device is used.

[Explanation of symbols]

10a: Individual maintenance system A, 10b: Individual maintenance system B, 20: Shared maintenance system, 30, 30a-30c
... Terminal adapter device (TA), 31 ... Line shared terminal adapter device (TA), 40, 40a-40f
... ISDN line, 50 ... exchange, 60, 60a-60c
... radio base stations, 110, 110a, 110b ... display / operation units, 111, 111a, 111b ... maintenance control units, 11
2a, 112b CPU, 113a, 113b control unit, 114a, 114b, 115a, 115b transmission / reception control unit, 116a, 116b database (DB), 1
17a, 117b... Memory, 120, 120a to 120
c: Communication control unit.

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing from the front page (72) Inventor Yuichi Fujioka 6-81 Onoe-cho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture In-house Hitachi Software Engineering Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Yuko Yonekura 216 Totsuka-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture In-house Hitachi, Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] A plurality of maintenance control units for performing remote maintenance of a radio base station predetermined as a maintenance target, shared by these maintenance control units, and any one of the radio base stations and the radio base station as a maintenance target. A plurality of communication control units for controlling a circuit-switched call connection with a maintenance control unit, wherein the communication control units each connect the radio base station from any one of the radio base stations via an exchange. A circuit-switched call connection notifying unit for notifying all maintenance control units of the identification information of the called base station when there is an incoming call to the maintenance control unit to be maintained; Each of the control units is notified when the identification information is notified from any of the communication control units, and a maintenance target wireless base station storage unit that stores the identification information of the wireless base station that is the target of the maintenance. ID information If target radio base station storage means stores, line sharing type maintenance system and having a circuit-switched call connection response unit for responding to notification source of the communication control unit. 2. The line shared maintenance system according to claim 1, wherein each of said communication control units transmits a call from one of the maintenance control units to a radio base station to be maintained by said maintenance control unit. And a line availability notification unit for notifying the maintenance control unit of the caller of whether or not the line to the exchange is in use, Maintenance system. 3. A plurality of maintenance control units for performing remote maintenance of a radio base station predetermined as a maintenance target, and a line between any one of the radio base stations and the maintenance control unit for which the radio base station is to be maintained. In a maintenance system including a plurality of communication control units that control a switched call connection, the plurality of maintenance control units include:
A line sharing type maintenance method for sharing the communication control unit, wherein the communication control unit, from any one of the radio base stations,
Via an exchange, when there is an incoming call to the maintenance control unit that is to maintain the radio base station, all maintenance control units are notified of the identification information of the called radio base station, The maintenance control unit, when the identification information is notified from any of the communication control units, if the wireless base station indicated by the notified identification information is to be maintained, the communication control unit of the notification source. A line shared maintenance method characterized by realizing a circuit-switched call connection with a called wireless base station using the communication control unit by responding. 4. The maintenance method according to claim 3, wherein each of said communication control units comprises:
When a call is made to the wireless base station that is to be maintained by the maintenance control unit, the maintenance control unit of the caller is notified of whether or not it is being used by another maintenance control unit. Characteristic shared line type maintenance method.