Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
  • G06F16/95—Retrieval from the web
  • G06F16/953—Querying, e.g. by the use of web search engines
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L69/00—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass
  • H04L69/40—Network arrangements, protocols or services independent of the application payload and not provided for in the other groups of this subclass for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W68/00—User notification, e.g. alerting and paging, for incoming communication, change of service or the like
  • H04W68/02—Arrangements for increasing efficiency of notification or paging channel
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/90—Details of database functions independent of the retrieved data types
  • G06F16/95—Retrieval from the web
  • G06F16/951—Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L43/00—Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
  • H04L43/08—Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
  • H04L43/0805—Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters by checking availability
  • H04L43/0817—Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters by checking availability by checking functioning
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/01—Protocols
  • H04L67/02—Protocols based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/2866—Architectures; Arrangements
  • H04L67/2895—Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data provider application, e.g. reverse proxies
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/50—Network services
  • H04L67/535—Tracking the activity of the user
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L67/00—Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications
  • H04L67/50—Network services
  • H04L67/56—Provisioning of proxy services
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W88/00—Devices specially adapted for wireless communication networks, e.g. terminals, base stations or access point devices
  • H04W88/16—Gateway arrangements

Definitions

• the invention relates to communication systems, and more specifically to information servers.
• the invention relates to mobile information servers implemented in mobile communication devices.
• the invention relates to monitoring and managing access to the information server.
• a communication system can be seen as a facility that enables communication sessions between two or more entities such as one or more communication devices and/or other nodes associated with the communication system.
• a communication system typically operates in accordance with a given standard or specification setting out what the various entities associated with the communication system are permitted to do and how that should be achieved.
• a standard or specification may define a specific set of rules, such as communication protocols and/or parameters, on which connections between the entities can be based.
• Wireless communication systems include various cellular or otherwise mobile communication systems using radio frequencies for sending voice or data between stations, for example between a communication device and a transceiver network element.
• wireless communication systems may comprise public land mobile network (PLMN), such as global system for mobile communication (GSM), the general packet radio service (GPRS) and the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS).
• PLMN public land mobile network
• GSM global system for mobile communication
• GPRS general packet radio service
• UMTS universal mobile telecommunications system
• wireless communication systems may comprise wireless local area network (WLAN), wireless packet switched data networks, such as a wireless Internet Protocol (IP) network and so on.
• WLAN wireless local area network
• IP Internet Protocol
• a mobile communication network may logically be divided into a radio access network (RAN) and a core network (CN).
• the core network entities typically include various control entities and gateways for enabling communication via a number of radio access networks and also for interfacing a single communication system with one or more communication systems, such as with other wireless systems and/or fixed line communication systems.
• Examples of radio access networks may comprise the UMTS terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) and the GSM/EDGE radio access network (GERAN).
• UTRAN UMTS terrestrial radio access network
• GERAN GSM/EDGE radio access network
• Subscribers, such as the users or end-users, to a communication system may be offered and provided numerous services, such as calls, data communication or multimedia services or simply an access to a network, such as the Internet.
• Servers may be used in provision of the services and may be operated by an operator of a network or by an external service provider.
• a mobile communication device may allow a user thereof to browse the Internet.
• the wireless application protocol WAP
• WAP provides mobile communication devices wireless services over the Internet from fixed information servers, such as Internet servers and Web servers.
• an information server such as a Web server
• a server implemented in a mobile terminal i.e. a mobile server
• a mobile server may be defined in other words as non-fixed or non-stationary server.
• a US Patent Application Serial No. 10/611647 filed on 1 st July 2003, in the name of Qu, describes a system, apparatus and method for providing a mobile information server providing information resources as a HTTP server.
• a method for monitoring access to an information server comprises receiving an attempt to access an information server.
• the method further comprises determining whether the information server is available.
• the method further comprises informing that the information server is not available, if the information server is not available.
• the method further comprises storing information relating to the attempt.
• a gateway for monitoring access to an information server in a communications system.
• the gateway is configured to receive an attempt to access an information server.
• the gateway is further configured to determine whether the information server is available.
• the gateway is further configured to inform that the information server is not available, if the information server is not available.
• the gateway is further configured to store information relating to the attempt.
• information relating to a party, from which the attempt was received may be stored.
• said party may be enquired whether the party requests to be sent a notification when the information server becomes available.
• enquiring may comprise enquiring an address information relating to an address where said party requests to be informed.
• enquiring may comprise providing one of a form to be filled in and a selectable form.
• the form may be a hypertext markup language form.
• a response may be in response to the step of enquiring.
• availability information informing that the information server is available may be received.
• a notification may be sent to the party, from which the attempt was received, when the availability information is received.
• the notification may be sent by means of at least one of short message service, multimedia messaging service, electronic mail and instant messaging, for example using session initiation protocol.
• the information relating to the attempt may be provided to the information server.
• the information relating to the attempt to the information server may be provided to the information server owner.
• the information server may be a mobile information server.
• a method for managing an information server comprises receiving information relating to an attempt to access an information server, which attempt occurred during a period of unavailability of the information server. The method further comprises informing that the information server is available again.
• an information server for a communication system The information server is configured to receive information relating to an attempt to access an information server, which attempt occurred during a period of unavailability of the information server. The information server is further configured to inform that the information server is available again.
• a computer program comprising program code means for performing any of the steps according to embodiments of the invention when the program is run on a computing means.
• Figure 1 shows an example of an arrangement in which the embodiments of the invention may be implemented
• Figure 2 shows a further example of an arrangement in which the embodiments of the invention may be implemented;
• Figures 3a-3d show signaling charts of embodiments of the invention.
• Figure 4 shows a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of the invention. Detailed description of preferred embodiments
• a mobile communication network such as a GPRS or an UMTS network
• a mobile communication network is typically arranged to serve a plurality of mobile communication devices usually via a wireless interface between a mobile communication device and at least one transceiver network element of the communication network, such as a base transceiver station (BTS) or a Node B.
• a transceiver network element typically serves a geographical area or a plurality of geographical areas. Such a geographical area may also be referred to as a cell.
• One or more transceiver network elements may be controlled by a controller network element, such as a base station controller (BSC) or a radio network controller (RNC).
• BSC base station controller
• RNC radio network controller
• the mobile communication system may logically be divided between a radio access network (RAN) and a core network (CN).
• RAN radio access network
• CN core network
• a mobile communication device 12 is arranged to access a communication core network 10 via a radio access network comprising a transceiver network element 14 and a controller network element 16.
• the communication device 12 is arranged to transmit signals to and receive signals from the transceiver network element 14 via a wireless interface between the communication device and the transceiver network element.
• the transceiver network element is able to transmit signals to and receive signals from the communication device via the wireless interface.
• a communication device 22 is arranged to access the core network via a radio access network comprising a transceiver network element 24 and a controller network element 26.
• the core network (CN) entities typically include various switching and other control entities and gateways for enabling the communication via a number of radio access networks and also for interfacing a single communication system with one or more communication systems, such as with other cellular systems and/or fixed line communication systems.
• the radio access network controller is typically connected to an appropriate core network entity or entities such as, but not limited to, a serving general packet radio service support node (SGSN) 18, 28.
• SGSN serving general packet radio service support node
• the radio access network controller 16, 26 is in communication with the SGSN 18, 28 via an appropriate interface, for example on an Iu or Gb interface.
• the SGSN is responsible for delivery of data packets to and from the communication devices within a service area.
• the SGSN may perform packet routing and transfer, mobility management, logical link management, authentication, charging functions, and so on.
• the SGSN may store location information of a communication device, such as the current cell and a visiting location register (VLR) associated with the communication device.
• VLR visiting location register
• the SGSN may store information on user profiles, such as the International Mobile Subscriber Identity Number (IMSI) of all the communication devices registered with the SGSN.
• IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity Number
• a gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) 38 may act as a gateway between the core network 10 and other communication systems, such as an IP network 30.
• a gateway 40 such as a HTTP proxy or a WAP proxy, is also shown connected to the GGSN 38.
• the gateway may provide means for handling mobility, provide a firewall and addressing and so on.
• embodiments of the invention may be performed at least in part in the gateway 40.
• the operation of the exemplifying gateway 40 will become clear from the following description.
• the gateway 40 may be placed in an appropriate location in the communication system.
• the gateway 40 may be in the exemplifying IP network 30 as shown in Figure 1. In an alternative, the gateway 40 may locate in the core network. Other alternative architectures may be possible as well.
• An end-user may access a communication network by means of any appropriate communication device, also called terminal.
• Examples may comprise user equipment (UE), a mobile station (MS), a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA) and a personal computer (PC).
• Further examples may comprise any other equipment operable according to a suitable network or transport protocol, such as a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), a Real-Time Transmission Protocol (RTP), a File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE), a wireless applications protocol (WAP) or a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP).
• SIP Session Initiation Protocol
• RTP Real-Time Transmission Protocol
• FLUTE File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport
• WAP wireless applications protocol
• HTTP hypertext transfer protocol
• a communication device may be provided with an antenna or other such transceiver and receiver means for wirelessly receiving and transmitting signals from and to a transceiver network element of a wireless communication system.
• a communication device may also be provided with a display and a speaker.
• the operation of a communication device may be controlled by means of a suitable user interface comprising control means, such as a keypad, voice commands, touch sensitive screen or pad, or combinations thereof, or the like.
• the user interface may display a user a menu, a list or the like and allow the user to select an option from the menu. The user may indicate the selection by using the control means.
• the user interface may detect user activity and communicate the selection to a communicating logic of the communication device.
• a communication device is typically provided with a processor and memory means as well as software and applications operating the device and enabling operation with other entities. Software, which is able to request services from other entities in a communication system, may be called a client.
• a communication system may support the session initiation protocol (SIP) as developed by the Internet engineering task force (IETF).
• SIP session initiation protocol
• IETF Internet engineering task force
• the SIP is an application layer control protocol for creating, modifying and terminating sessions with one or more participants, i.e. end-points.
• a user connected to a SIP base communication system may communicate with various entities of the communication system based on standardized SIP messages. Communication devices or users who run certain applications on the communication devices are registered with the SIP backbone so that an invitation to a particular session can be correctly delivered to these end points.
• Uniform Resource Identifiers URIs are used to identify different types of actors in a SIP-controlled network. Typically a URI points to a registered user identity of an individual user. A URI may identify also services or other types of resources.
• an information server 11 such as a Web server or Web services provider functionality, is implemented in the mobile communication device 12.
• the mobile communication device 12 hosting the information server 11 shall be called herein also a web server mobile terminal 12.
• the principles disclosed in the US Patent Application Serial No. 10/611647 (referred to as US 10/611647 herein) may be used.
• An exemplifying implementation based on the US 10/611647 is summarized in the following with reference to Figure 1. However, it shall be understood by a skilled person that other ways of implementing a web server in a mobile terminal may be used in embodiments of the invention.
• the web server mobile terminal 12 may provide information resources and act as an HTTP server.
• Other terminals operating as HTTP clients may comprise web services clients (WSC), such as a client in the mobile communication device 22, or Internet browsers 32 operating within the IP network 30.
• the HTTP clients may access information provided in the server 11 through the use of HTTP.
• a client requesting to access the information provided in the server 11 may also be called a requesting client relating to a requesting terminal herein.
• the web server mobile terminal 12 may, for example, be used for publishing an information resource, such as a home page in wireless markup language (WML), hypertext markup language (HTML) or extensible hypertext markup language (XHTML), or image or video content, or the like.
• a user of the web server mobile terminal 12 may further define access , controls to the information resource.
• FIG. 2 shows more in detail an embodiment for implementing the web server (HTTP server) 11 and/or a web services provider (WSP) process 111 in the web server mobile terminal 12.
• An HTTP request may be generated by a client, such as the WSC in the mobile communication device 22, and be delivered to the HTTP server 11 in the web server mobile terminal 12.
• the request may pass though the gateway 40 towards a processor means, such as a helper 110, in the web server mobile terminal 12.
• the helper 110 may forward the request to the web server 11 or to a web service provider (WSP) 111.
• WSP web service provider
• the helper 110 may be omitted and the request may pass directly to the to the HTTP server 11 or the WSP 111.
• One or more web services providers may be associated with the web server 11.
• An example of a service provided by an exemplifying WSP may comprise, but is not limited . to providing location information.
• Web services provider may respond with HTTP including a simple object access protocol (SOAP) or, more generally, extensible markup language (XML) body.
• SOAP simple object access protocol
• XML extensible markup language
• the HTTP request may comprise a request line defining a method to be applied to the resource, the URI of the resource and the protocol version used.
• the HTTP request may comprise further components, such as a general header having general applicability to request and response messages, a request header allowing a client to pass additional information about the request, an entity header defining meta-information about an entity body and a message body carrying the entity body associated with the request, and/or other further components.
• An exemplary HTTP request line using a "GET" tag indicating the method to be applied to the resource according to the prior art may be as follows:
• the exemplary request line includes the familiar URI pathname, http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/”.
• the file "TheProject.html” is to be retrieved as a result of the "GET" request from the URI.
• Mobile terminals typically do not have an IP address or a URI associated with them. Therefore, HTTP GET request-line as indicated above is not compatible with, for example, mobile terminal 12, when content is desired to be retrieved from mobile terminal 12.
• HTTP GET request from the mobile communication device 22 may take a form of "http://www.domain-name/identifier" or "http: identifier.domain- name”.
• the "identifier" portion of the URI pathname reflects the identity of the web server mobile terminal 12 and the "domain-name" portion of the URI pathname reflects the domain name of a gateway 40 in the network.
• the identifier can be user's name, nick name, MSISDN or any other identifier which identifies the communication device of the user.
• the gateway 40 may proxy the request to mobile terminal 12, for example via GPRS network as tunneled IP data or other communication means, e.g.
• the gateway 40 may additionally send the MSISDN of mobile terminal 22 to mobile terminal 12 for authentication and authorization of mobile terminal 22.
• Data access from the web server mobile terminal 12 may be performed in a number of different ways, for example, by tunneling the data between the mobile terminal 12 and the gateway 40 using IP techniques. In other words, normal HTTP traffic may be tunneled between the mobile terminal 12 and the gateway 40.
• the technology of delivering the data between mobile terminal and gateway can be anything if the terminal and the gateway have a common knowledge of it.) This is possible because the mobile terminal 12 needs to register or inform about itself to " the gateway 40 and set-up said tunneling in order to be available to external devices. In an embodiment, also the HTTP request may go directly to the server, if the gateway is not needed in the system. [0044] However, it may happen that the web server mobile terminal is off-line, no bearer can be implemented and other users cannot reach the server functionality. It has now been found that it might be desirable to provide means for informing other users when the server becomes available again.
• the server may become available again once a user of the web server mobile terminal activates the server in the terminal, when the terminal is switched on or when the terminal comes back to a service area from a shadow zone, and so on.
• a user of the web server mobile terminal activates the server in the terminal, when the terminal is switched on or when the terminal comes back to a service area from a shadow zone, and so on.
• the gateway 40 may act as a HTTP proxy, or a reverse HTTP proxy, over which HTTP traffic goes between the mobile server and the browsing user.
• the gateway 40 may be coupled with a database and enhanced with, the capability to perform searches on the collected data and make use of the collected data when desired or needed.
• the gateway 40 includes a functionality observing attempts to access the web server in the mobile terminal 12.
• the gateway 40 may inform the requesting terminal, in this case from the mobile communication device 22, that the web server in the mobile terminal 12 is not available. Said informing may comprise default information, such as a default message.
• a user of the mobile terminal 12, or an owner of the information server 11 may define temporary or permanent data for creating said information in the gateway 40.
• the gateway 40 may turn from a proxy to a content provider generating and/or providing content to the requesting terminal. The content may be generated and/or provided based on the temporary or permanent data defined or set by the owner of the information server.
• the term owner of the information server used in this specification is not limited to an entity strictly owning the server, but the term may cover herein a subscriber or user of the mobile terminal, an administrator of the information server, a mobile publisher or other such entity having a control of the information server.
• the gateway 40 may ask the requesting terminal 22 whether the requesting terminal 22 requests to be informed when the web server in the mobile terminal 12 becomes available again. Furthermore, the gateway 40 may send a selectable form or a form to be filled in, such as a HTML form, to the requesting terminal 22 for giving required information. A user of the requesting terminal 22 may be asked to input an address, such as an e-mail, SIP address or an MSISDN, where to send a notification about availability of the web server in the mobile terminal 12. [0050] Furthermore, the user of the requesting terminal 22 may be asked to input a note to be forwarded to the information server 11 when the server becomes available again.
• the gateway may send a SOAP or XML response to the web services client, which response may describe the unavailability of the web services provider.
• the response may contain information how to get notified when the web services provider comes back to online. This may require the web services client to perform a further web services call to subscribe to the event of the availability status (in other words, online/offline) of the web services provider.
• the response may contain information on how to leave a note or message to an owner or user of the web services provider.
• the user may give the required information and send the required information to the gateway 40.
• the gateway 40 may store information received from one or more requesting terminals. Furthermore, the gateway 40 may record all the attempts to access the web server the gateway observes. In an embodiment, the gateway 40 only records the attempts associated with requesting terminals, which have requested to be informed when the web server in the mobile terminal 12 becomes available again and/or which have selected to leave a note.
• the web server in the mobile terminal 12 becomes available, for example is activated by the owner of the terminal, the web server performs registration of the web server to the gateway 40 for setting up tunneling from the gateway 40 to the mobile terminal 12. In connection with the registration, the gateway 40 obtains information that the web server has become available again. [0057] In an embodiment, the gateway 40 may thus send a notification to the one or more requesting terminals, such as the requesting terminal 22, which have requested to be informed when the web server in the mobile terminal 12 becomes available again. A notification may be send to the requesting terminal 22, for example, by means of SMS, multimedia messaging service (MMS), electronic mail (e-mail) or SIP.
• MMS multimedia messaging service
• e-mail electronic mail
• the user may fetch information of when the web server in the mobile terminal 12 has become or is becoming available again from the gateway 40, for example, by browsing to get the information.
• An exemplifying form of the notification may be: "The mobile server is currently down. If you want to be notified, please send a notification address in return.” When the information server becomes available, the notification may be of an exemplifying form: "The mobile server is now available.” It shall be appreciated that a skilled person may formulate various different types and contents for the notification. The above example is given only for illustrative purposes and is not intended to limit different possibilities to provide the notification, but any other appropriate forms of notifications may be used in embodiments of the invention.
• the information sent to the one or more requesting terminals such as the requesting terminal 22, may comprise a notification or other content defined by aii owner of the information server, such as the mobile server 11.
• a mobile publisher may define or set permanent and/or temporary data in the gateway or in an associated database.
• the data may be defined or set using any appropriate means. Examples of appropriate means and data may comprise, but are not limited to, typing a character spring such as a text message, taking a photo using camera means of the terminal, introducing another photo or an image, recoding a moving image, such as a video, or recording an audible message. Further examples may comprise defining for a message a background color or picture, a particular font or text color, and so on.
• the mobile publisher may log into a portal of the reverse proxy, such as the gateway 40, and manage properties concerning what should be shown to browsers when the web server 11 is offline.
• the reverse proxy may host a web service to which anyone can connect. After authentication, one can manage properties via a user interface of the web service.
• the user interface for managing may be a part of a mobile server application package, running on the mobile terminal.
• being online requires a protocol between the mobile terminal and the reverse proxy. In an embodiment, said protocol may be provided with a capability to manage said data defined or set by the mobile publisher. Also in this embodiment, a user interface may be a part of the mobile server application package.
• Permanent properties may be require that a user edit the data as long as the user needs and wants and that the data remains defined until changed.
• Using the web service or providing said protocol with capability to manage said data may provide adequate solutions for managing temporary properties.
• Temporary property or data may be defined as a property that can be quickly defined and has implicitly defined duration, after which that temporary data is not used any more. For example, when the mobile publisher wishes to go offline, a simple dialog may pop up asking "Do you want to make a personal leave note?". Upon selecting yes, the mobile publisher may have a quick and easy way to enter a small sentence, take picture or record an audio or video to be sent as information to a requesting terminal.
• the mobile server may send the temporary data to the reverse proxy, such as the gateway 40, or the database associated with the reverse proxy.
• the gateway 40 may provide information about the attempts to access the web server the gateway observed and/or about the information recorded by the gateway relating to requesting terminals, which requested to be informed when the web server in the mobile terminal 12 becomes available again.
• the web server mobile terminal 12 may then send a notification about availability of the web server directly to the requesting terminal 22.
• a notification may be sent to the requesting terminal 22, for example, by means of SMS, MMS, e-mail or SIP.
• the requesting terminal 22 may be allowed to leave a note to be forwarded to the web server 11 when the web server becomes available again.
• the web-server 11 in the mobile phone 12 may be accessible as a HTTP server, such as http://john.domain.xyz. In the system this may be handled such that all domain name lookups of the form *.domain.xyz cause the IP address of the gateway 40 computer to be returned.
• the browser 22, 32 contacts the gateway 40, which acts as an HTTP server, or as a so-called reverse proxy, the HTTP request will still in its Host field contain the URL http://iohn.domain.xyz. Hence, the gateway is able to deduce that the request is intended for the phone known as "John".
• the gateway 40 can return unavailability information, such as a page with some default offline note, or a custom note if the phone owner has specified such.
• This unavailability information may be augmented with a possibility to leave a note.
• the mechanism for leaving a note may be an HTML form or the like.
• the mechanism may further comprise various elements for personalizing or making more informative the unavailability information, for example in accordance with the above embodiments.
• the note is received and stored, for example, in a database associated with the gateway 40.
• the note may be indexed with the identifier of the mobile terminal 12 for which the note is intended.
• the notes intended for the mobile terminal 12 may be transferred as a part of a connection initiation to the mobile terminal 12.
• the notes might be shown to a user of the mobile terminal 12, for example, by a custom application or they might appear in a regular inbox receiving messages, such as SMS or MMS messages.
• FIGS 3a-3c show exemplifying signaling flows according to an embodiment of the invention.
• a request to access the web server is transmitted from the requesting terminal, such as the browser 32 or the WSC 22, and received in the gateway 40.
• the request is forwarded from the gateway 40 towards the web server mobile terminal 12.
• the gateway 40 may further enquire whether the requesting terminal 22, 32 requests to be notified when the web server becomes available.
• the requesting terminal 22, 32 may send a response in signal 306.
• Signals 305 and 306 may together comprise a dialog of one or more enquiries and responses.
• the gateway may further ask an address to which the requesting terminal wants to receive the response.
• the address may be the identification of the requesting terminal or another address, such as a mobile number of a user using a browser for requesting the access.
• the web server mobile terminal 12 may inform the gateway 40 of becoming available again.
• the signal 305 may or may not comprise an option of leaving a note.
• the signal 306 may or may not comprise the note, respectively.
• the gateway 40 stores information relating to attempts to access the web server during a period of unavailability of the web server.
• the gateway 40 may store information on all the attempts.
• the gateway 40 may store information on only the attempts, which are associated with an enquiry and a response from the requesting terminal.
• the gateway 40 may notify, in signal 308, the requesting terminal 22, 32, which had responded and wanted to be notified when the web server becomes available again.
• signal 309 may be optional.
• the gateway may transmit information relating to attempts stored by the gateway during the period of unavailability to the web server mobile terminal 12. If the requesting terminal has left a note, also the note may be transmitted to the web server mobile terminal 12 in signal 309, or separately in another signal.
• signal 308 is omitted.
• the gateway 40 does not notify the requesting terminals 22, 32, but transmits information relating to attempts stored by the gateway during the period of unavailability to the web server mobile terminal 12 in signal 309 after having been informed about the availability in signal 307.
• the web server mobile terminal 12 may then notify the requesting terminals 22, 32 about the availability of the web server.
• the gateway 40 may notify, in signal 308, the requesting terminal 22, 32, which had responded and wanted to be notified when the web server becomes available again.
• the gateway may transmit information relating to attempts stored by the gateway during the period of unavailability to the web server mobile terminal 12.
• the web server mobile terminal 12 may also contact the requesting terminals 22, 32.
• the gateway 40 may know or determine that the web server 11 is not available, for example not online, without forwarding the request to the web server mobile terminal 12.
• Signal 302 of Figures 3a-3c may be omitted in this embodiment.
• FIG. 4 shows a method 400 according to an embodiment of the invention. Steps of the method 400 may be performed in the gateway 40 or in another appropriate network element, which is adapted to be available continuously.
• step 402 an attempt to access an information server is received.
• step 404 it is verified whether the information server is available. If the information server is not available, it is informed, in step 406, that the information server is not available.
• step 408 information relating to the attempt is stored.
• Embodiments of the invention may be performed, at least in part, by means of a computer program comprising program code means for performing any of the steps according to embodiments when the program is run on a computing means.

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• 2005
  • 2005-11-22 EP EP05816129A patent/EP1839196A1/de not_active Withdrawn
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