JP2011119988A - Content distribution control system, and content distribution control server therefor and radio terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a content distribution control system which achieves high speed and secure content distribution by canceling loads which are liable to be concentrated on a content distribution control server, and to provide the content distribution control server therefor and a radio terminal. <P>SOLUTION: In the content distribution control server 4, a radio area monitoring section 401 monitors the situation of communication traffic in a radio area in which radio terminals 1, 2 are accommodated. An off-peak determining section 402 determines whether or not each of the radio areas is in an off-peak state. A distribution request receiving section 403 receives a content distribution request from a content receiving terminal 1. A distribution area selecting section 404 selects the radio area in the off-peak state in response to the content distribution request. A distribution request transfer section 405 transfers the content distribution request through multicast to a radio base station 3 which accommodates the selected radio area. The radio base station 3 distributes the transferred content distribution request by broadcasting to the accommodated terminals. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a content distribution control system that controls content distribution between wireless terminals, a content distribution control server, and a wireless terminal.

  In the peer-to-peer distribution of content, as disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, when the content receiver publicly announces his / her context information on the network, the content distributor displays the context information of the content receiver. The content recipient is selected as a content delivery destination with reference to the content, and the content is delivered by peer-to-peer.

  The context information is one of search parameters used for the content receiver to narrow down the content desired to be distributed or the content distributor to narrow down the distribution destination of the content. The context item and its context value are Including.

  The context item is, for example, metadata of content desired by the content receiver, installation location of the receiving node, desired reception time of the content, communication means to be used, gender, age, hobby preference, occupation type, family information, etc. The value is a specific value of the context item.

  In Patent Document 3, in content distribution between wireless terminals, if there is no content distribution terminal that can immediately distribute content at the timing of content distribution request, the distribution available time zone and content reception of the content distribution terminal A technique for determining a distribution time zone in which content can be distributed after the content distribution request timing based on the receivable time zone of the terminal is disclosed.

  In Patent Literature 4, the geographical location information of each user communication terminal, the operating status and geographical location information of each content delivery server are managed, and appropriate content delivery is performed when content delivery is requested. A technique for selecting a server is disclosed.

JP 2001-125823 A JP 2002-344529 A Japanese Patent Application No. 2009-158786 JP 2003-256308 A

  The above prior art has the following technical problems.

  (1) The content distribution control server can communicate with the content requested by each wireless terminal, the context information of the content that can be distributed, the address information of each wireless terminal, and each wireless terminal from all wireless terminals that distribute or receive content Therefore, it is necessary to provide a large-scale storage medium because it is necessary to collect and store a long time zone in advance.

  (2) Each time a content distribution control server receives a content distribution request from a wireless terminal, it must search a huge amount of context information and select a distribution-source wireless terminal. However, there was still a response delay for the time required for the search.

  An object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems of the prior art and to eliminate the load concentrated on the content distribution control server and to enable high-speed and reliable content distribution and the content distribution control server And providing a wireless terminal.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is characterized in that the following measures are taken in a content distribution control system including a content distribution control server that controls content distribution between wireless terminals.

  (1) The content distribution control server determines whether or not the traffic in the wireless area that accommodates each wireless terminal is in an off-peak state, and the content distribution request received from the wireless terminal that requests the content distribution is in an off-peak state. And a wireless terminal capable of delivering the requested content in the wireless area to which the content distribution request has been transferred in response to the content distribution request. It is characterized by delivering.

  (2) The content distribution request is multicast-transferred to each radio base station accommodating the off-peak radio area, and broadcasted from each radio base station to the accommodating terminal.

  (3) A wireless terminal that has distributed content includes means for transmitting a content distribution request of the terminal itself to a wireless terminal that is a content distribution destination.

  According to the present invention, the following effects are achieved.

  (1) Upon receiving a content distribution request from a wireless terminal, the content distribution control server stores the requested content distribution request in an off-peak wireless area without identifying the content of the requested content (context information). The wireless terminal that has received and received the response determines whether or not the content is owned and responds to the content distribution. Therefore, in the content distribution control server, it is not necessary to collect and store in advance the requested content and the context information of the content that can be distributed from each wireless terminal that distributes or receives the content. Each time a request is received, a process for searching for context information and selecting a content distribution terminal is not required.

  (2) The transfer of content distribution requests from the content distribution control server to each radio base station and the broadcast from each radio base station to each accommodating terminal Done by delivery. Accordingly, it is possible to minimize the occurrence of communication traffic related to the transfer of the content distribution request.

  (3) When each wireless terminal distributes content in response to a content distribution request, the content distribution side and the reception side are likely to have similar content preferences and trends, and the content distribution destination wireless terminal Is likely to have content that the content distribution source wireless terminal wants to acquire. Therefore, the content distribution source can easily acquire the desired content by transmitting the content distribution request of the terminal itself to the content distribution destination wireless terminal.

It is the figure which showed the structure of the content delivery network to which this invention is applied. It is the functional block which showed the structure of the principal part of a content delivery control server. It is the functional block which showed the structure of the principal part of a content delivery terminal. It is the flowchart which showed operation | movement of the content delivery control server. It is the flowchart which showed operation | movement of the content delivery terminal. It is the sequence flow which showed the procedure of content delivery.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a main part of a content distribution control system to which the present invention is applied, and accommodates a plurality of wireless terminals 1 and 2 that can distribute and receive content and each wireless terminal 1 and 2. The content distribution request is received from the wireless base station 3 that performs the content distribution and the wireless terminal that requests the content distribution, and in response thereto, the content distribution request is transferred by multicast to the wireless base station 3 that accommodates the wireless area in the off-peak state. And the content distribution control server 4 that performs the content distribution between the wireless terminals 1 and 2 by peer-to-peer communication.

  In this embodiment, each of the wireless terminals 1 and 2 can operate as both a content receiving terminal and a transmitting terminal. However, for convenience, one wireless terminal 1 is represented as a content receiving terminal and the other wireless terminal is represented as a content. Sometimes referred to as a distribution terminal.

  FIG. 2 is a functional block showing the configuration of the main part of the content distribution control server 4. The wireless area monitoring unit 401 communicates with the base station 3 in the wireless area that accommodates the wireless terminals 1 and 2 to monitor the status of communication traffic in each wireless area. The off-peak determination unit 402 determines whether or not each wireless area is in an off-peak state with a small amount of communication traffic based on the communication traffic monitoring result.

  The distribution request receiving unit 403 receives a content distribution request from the content receiving terminal 1. In this content distribution request, context information including meta information of content requesting distribution and address information of the terminal itself is described. The distribution area selection unit 404 selects a wireless area in an off-peak state in response to the content distribution request. The distribution request transfer unit 405 multicasts the content distribution request to the radio base station 3 that accommodates the selected off-peak radio area. If the retransmission request unit 406 receives a content distribution request from the content receiving terminal 1 and there is no off-peak wireless area, the retransmission request unit 406 requests the content receiving terminal 1 to retransmit the content distribution request.

  FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the wireless terminals 1 and 2. Here, the content distribution terminal 2 will be described as an example.

  In the content DB 200, the content storage unit 200a stores a large number of contents including content that can be distributed in response to a content distribution request. In the distribution list 200b, context information of contents that can be distributed is stored. The request list 200c stores content context information requested by the terminal as a content receiving terminal.

  The distribution request receiving unit 201 receives a content distribution request transmitted from the content receiving terminal 1 to the content distribution control server 4 and transferred from the content distribution control server 4. The content extraction unit 202 interprets the context information described in the received content distribution request, and if the content requested for distribution is already registered in the distribution list 200b, the corresponding content is read from the content storage unit 200a. Extract. The extracted content is distributed from the content distribution unit 203 to the content receiving terminal 1 by peer-to-peer communication.

  The content distribution request unit 204 transmits the content distribution request described in the request list 200c to the content distribution control server 4, and waits for completion of content distribution to the content receiving terminal 1 to the content receiving terminal 1. Send by unicast. The content receiving unit 205 receives content distributed in response to the content distribution request. The received content is stored in the content storage unit 200a.

  Next, the operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. 4 and 5 and the sequence flow of FIG. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the operation of the content distribution control server 4, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the content distribution terminal 2. Both are repeatedly executed at a predetermined cycle.

  In the content distribution control server 4, it is determined in step S1 of FIG. 4 whether or not it is a wireless area monitoring cycle. If it is a monitoring cycle, the process proceeds to step S2, and at time t0 in FIG. 6, the wireless area monitoring unit 401 communicates with the wireless base station 3 that accommodates the wireless terminals 1 and 2 to communicate the communication traffic in each wireless area. To figure out. In step S3, the off-peak determination unit 402 determines whether or not each wireless area is in an off-peak state based on the communication traffic status. In the present embodiment, if the amount of communication traffic per unit time is below a predetermined threshold, it is determined that it is an off-peak state.

  Thereafter, at time t1 in FIG. 6, a content distribution request is transmitted from the content distribution terminal 2a, and when this is received by the distribution request receiving unit 403 in step S4 of FIG. 4 in the content distribution control server 4, the process proceeds to step S5. . In step S5, the off-peak determination result is referred to. If it is determined that there is no off-peak wireless area, the process proceeds to step S7. In step S7, at time t2 in FIG. 6, the retransmission request unit 406 returns a retransmission request to the content distribution terminal 2a that has transmitted the traffic distribution request.

  Thereafter, at time t3 in FIG. 6, a content distribution request is transmitted from the content receiving terminal 1 this time, and when this is received by the content distribution control server 4 in step S4 in FIG. 4, the process proceeds to step S5. In step S5, the off-peak determination result is referred to, and if it is determined that there is an off-peak wireless area, the process proceeds to step S6. In step S6, at time t4, the content distribution request is transferred by multicast to each radio base station 3 that accommodates the off-peak radio area. Each radio base station 3 broadcasts the transferred content delivery request to the accommodating terminal.

  When the content distribution request is received in step S21 of FIG. 5, the content distribution terminal 2a proceeds to step S22. In step S22, the context information described in the content distribution request is interpreted, and the meta information of the content requested for distribution and the address information of the content receiving terminal 1 are acquired. In step S23, the distribution list 200b is referred to based on the extracted meta information, and it is determined whether or not the content requested for distribution is owned. If the distribution request content is registered in the distribution list 200b, the process proceeds to step S24, and the corresponding content is extracted from the content storage unit 200a and distributed to the content receiving terminal 1 at time t5.

  By the way, when content distribution is performed between wireless terminals as described above, there is a high possibility that the content distribution side and the reception side have similar content preferences and trends, and the content distribution destination wireless terminal 1 There is a high possibility that content desired to be acquired by the wireless terminal 2 as the content distribution source is accumulated. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the wireless terminal 2 that has distributed the content transmits the content distribution request of the terminal itself to the wireless terminal 1 that is the content distribution destination, so that the content distribution source can easily acquire the desired content.

  In the present embodiment, the content distribution is completed at time t6. When this is detected in step S25, the process proceeds to step S26, and the request list 200c is referred to determine whether or not the content distribution request is registered. If an unprocessed content distribution request is registered, the process proceeds to step S27, and the content distribution request is transmitted to the content receiving terminal 1 at time t7.

  At time t8, content is distributed from the content receiving terminal 1 in response to the content distribution request. When this is detected in step S28, the process proceeds to step S29, where the content is received and stored in the content storage unit 200a. .

  In the above embodiment, the content distribution terminal 2 transmits a content distribution request to the content distribution control server 4 at a timing prior to content distribution, but there is no off-peak wireless area. It has been described that retransmission is requested and this unprocessed distribution request is transmitted to the distribution destination of the content after the content distribution is completed. However, the present invention is not limited to this. In the content distribution terminal 2, for example, a content distribution request is reserved for a timer, and content is distributed in response to the content distribution request before the reservation time. The reserved content distribution request may be transmitted to the content distribution destination.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Content receiving terminal, 2 ... Content delivery terminal, 3 ... Wireless base station, 4 ... Content delivery control server

Claims (9)

In a content distribution control system including a content distribution control server that controls content distribution between wireless terminals,
The content delivery control server is
Means for determining whether or not traffic in a wireless area accommodating each wireless terminal is in an off-peak state;
Means for transferring a content distribution request received from a wireless terminal requesting content distribution to a wireless terminal accommodated in an off-peak wireless area;
A content distribution control system, wherein a wireless terminal capable of distributing the requested content distributes the content in response to the content distribution request in the wireless area to which the content distribution request is transferred.   2. The content delivery control system according to claim 1, wherein the content delivery request is transferred by multicast to each radio base station that accommodates the off-peak radio area.   The content delivery control system according to claim 2, wherein the content delivery request is broadcasted from the wireless base station to each wireless terminal.   The content distribution control system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the wireless terminal that has distributed the content includes means for transmitting a content distribution request of the terminal itself to a wireless terminal that is a content distribution destination.   The content distribution control system according to claim 4, wherein the wireless terminal that distributes the content transmits the content distribution request after the content distribution is completed. In a content distribution control server that controls content distribution between wireless terminals,
Means for determining whether or not traffic in a wireless area accommodating each wireless terminal is in an off-peak state;
A content distribution control server comprising: means for transferring a content distribution request received from a wireless terminal requesting content distribution to a wireless terminal accommodated in a wireless area in an off-peak state.   The content distribution control server according to claim 6, wherein the content distribution request is transferred by multicast to each wireless base station that accommodates a wireless area in an off-peak state. In wireless terminals that deliver and receive content,
Means for receiving a content delivery request;
Means for delivering content in response to the content delivery request;
Means for transmitting a content distribution request of its own terminal to a wireless terminal to which the content is distributed;
A wireless terminal comprising: means for receiving content distributed from a wireless terminal to which the content is distributed.   The wireless terminal according to claim 8, wherein the wireless terminal that distributes the content transmits the content distribution request after the content distribution is completed.

Images