JP6378218B2 - COMMUNICATION CONTROL DEVICE, COMMUNICATION CONTROL METHOD, AND PROGRAM - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication control apparatus, a communication control method, and a program for controlling the communication of a communication terminal.

  As a communication control device, a device that controls communication of a communication terminal based on a communication state is known.

  An example of such a communication control device is described in Patent Document 1. The communication control device described in Patent Document 1 selects a communication method according to the communication quality of communication method A and communication method B, and performs communication of desired application data.

  Further, the communication control device described in Patent Document 2 monitors the communication state in communication with the communication device, and when the communication amount in the communication exceeds a predetermined value, the communication of the communication type set in a predetermined order To control.

  Moreover, the communication control apparatus described in patent document 3 determines the communication system which can be utilized based on a positional information and an electromagnetic wave condition. Further, the communication control device determines whether or not it is necessary to switch the communication method, and performs a communication method switching process based on the determination result.

International Publication No. 2005/122414 JP 2006-020028 A JP 2012-023506 A

  However, the techniques described in Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 3 described above are techniques for selecting an optimal communication method in one communication control apparatus, and only monitor a single communication control apparatus. Therefore, if communication performance degradation occurs in the monitored communication control apparatus, the communication control apparatus determines whether the cause is communication performance degradation due to a constant change in communication environment or communication performance degradation due to handover. Cannot be detected immediately. Moreover, the technique described in Patent Document 2 is a technique for controlling communication based on a communication amount. For this reason, it is impossible to identify and deal with the cause when communication performance deteriorates. Therefore, these patent documents can recover the deteriorated communication performance when the communication environment in which a plurality of terminals communicate is temporarily deteriorated and a handover occurs in one communication terminal and the communication performance deteriorates. There is a problem that it is impossible.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a communication control device, a communication control method, and a program that can solve the above-described problems. Specifically, an example of an object of the present invention is that communication performance deteriorated when a communication environment in which a plurality of terminals communicates temporarily deteriorates and a handover occurs in one communication terminal and communication performance deteriorates. Is to provide a communication control device, a communication control method, and a program.

  A communication control device according to an aspect of the present invention receives a monitoring unit that constantly monitors the communication status of all communication terminals connected to the communication control device, and information on the communication status of all communication terminals from the monitoring unit. When a change to a communication method with lower communication performance than the communication method before the change is detected in the communication terminal, the communication status of the other communication terminal is confirmed, and the other communication terminal whose communication method matches the communication method before the change A control unit that controls to return the communication terminal whose communication method has been changed to the communication method before the change when there is a predetermined number or more for all communication terminals.

  The communication control method according to one aspect of the present invention constantly monitors the communication status of all communication terminals connected to the communication control device, and changes to a communication method with lower communication performance than the communication method before the change in one communication terminal. Is detected, the communication status of other communication terminals is confirmed, and if there are more than a predetermined number of other communication terminals that match the communication method before the change, the communication method Control to return the changed communication terminal to the communication method before the change.

  The program according to one aspect of the present invention constantly monitors the communication status of all communication terminals connected to the communication control device in a computer, and in one communication terminal, changes to a communication method with lower communication performance than the communication method before the change. If a change is detected, check the communication status of other communication terminals, and if there are more than a certain number of other communication terminals that match the communication method before the change, all communication terminals A process is executed to control the communication terminal that has been changed to return to the communication method before the change.

  Advantageous Effects of Invention According to the present invention, when a communication environment in which a plurality of terminals communicate is temporarily deteriorated and a handover occurs in one communication terminal and the communication performance deteriorates, it is possible to recover the deteriorated communication performance. The effect that there is.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the communication control apparatus 100 and the connection between the communication terminals 200 and 300 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of communication terminals 200 and 300 according to the present embodiment. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration example when the communication control apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention is realized by a computer apparatus. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an overview of the operation of monitoring the communication method between the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 in the communication control apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment.

  Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

[First Embodiment]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the communication control apparatus 100 and the connection between the communication terminals 200 and 300 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 1, the communication control apparatus 100 includes a monitoring unit 110 and a control unit 120. In addition, the communication control device 100 is connected in a state where communication with the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 is possible. In FIG. 1, two communication terminals are connected to the communication control apparatus 100, but the number is not limited to two and may be three or more. The connection means between the communication control apparatus 100 and the communication terminal 200 and communication terminal 300 may be any means as long as it can be connected in a communicable state such as bus connection, cable connection, and wireless communication connection.

  Next, the configuration of the communication control apparatus 100 in the first embodiment will be described.

  The monitoring unit 110 constantly monitors the communication status of all connected communication terminals, that is, the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300, and transmits information on the communication status to the control unit 120. The communication status information is information indicating which communication method is used for communication with the communication network to which the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 are connected. That is, the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 are information indicating which of the first communication units 210 and 310 and the second communication units 220 and 320, which will be described later, communicate with each other. As will be described later, the communication performance of the communication method in which the first communication units 210 and 310 of the communication terminals 200 and 300 respectively communicate is higher than the communication performance of the communication method in which the second communication units 220 and 320 communicate. And

  The control unit 120 receives information on the communication status of all communication terminals connected to the communication control apparatus 100 from the monitoring unit 110, that is, the communication terminals 200 and 300, and stores the information in a storage unit (not shown in FIG. 1). The information on the communication status of the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 before and after the second time stored in the storage unit (not shown in FIG. 1) may be discarded.

  Further, the control unit 120 collates the current communication status information with the stored previous communication status information. If any of all the communication terminals does not match the previous communication status information, the control unit 120 determines whether the communication mode of the current communication status information is lower than the communication mode of the previous communication status information. Confirm whether or not. When the communication method of the current communication status information is lower in communication performance than the communication method of the previous communication status information (when a handover occurs that degrades the communication method), the control unit 120 displays information on the current communication status. It is confirmed whether there are more than a predetermined number of communication terminals other than the communication terminal whose communication method matches the communication method of the previous communication status information of the communication terminal. The predetermined number may be half or more, or may be any number other than the communication terminal. The predetermined number may be arbitrarily set by the user.

  Further, the control unit 120 determines whether or not there are a predetermined number or more of communication terminals other than the communication terminal whose communication method for the current communication status information matches the communication method for the previous communication status information of the communication terminal. As a modification of the above, it may be confirmed whether or not there is a predetermined ratio or more. In this case, the user may arbitrarily set the predetermined ratio.

  If present, the control unit 120 transmits a request for returning the communication method of the communication terminal to the communication method of the information on the previous communication state to the communication terminal.

  As an example, the current communication status information of the communication terminal 200 is changed from the communication in the first communication unit 210 to the communication in the second communication unit 220, and the communication terminal 300 has the communication status information in the previous time and this time. The case where it is the 1st communication part 310 is assumed. When the control unit 120 detects that the current communication status information of the communication terminal 200 has been changed from communication in the first communication unit 210 to communication in the second communication unit 220, the control unit 120 It is confirmed whether the communication method of communication in the second communication unit 220 is lower than the communication method of communication in the first communication unit 210. Since the communication method of communication in the second communication unit 220 is lower in communication performance than the communication method of communication in the first communication unit 210, the control unit 120 is a communication method of information on the current communication status of the communication terminal 300. Confirms whether it matches the communication method of the information on the previous communication status of the communication terminal 200. Since the communication status of the communication terminal 300 is the first communication unit 310 both last time and this time, the control unit 120 requests to return the communication mode of the communication terminal 200 to the communication mode of the previous communication status information, that is, The communication terminal 200 transmits a request for returning from the communication at the second communication unit 220 to the communication at the first communication unit 210.

  Next, the configuration of communication terminals 200 and 300 in the first embodiment will be described.

  FIG. 2A is a block diagram showing an example of the configuration of communication terminal 200 according to the present embodiment. FIG.2 (b) is a block diagram which shows an example of a structure of the communication terminal 300 which concerns on this Embodiment. Since the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 have the same configuration, they will be described together. In addition, the display screen, input unit, and the like of the communication terminal are out of the scope of the description of the operation of the present embodiment, and are omitted.

  The first communication units 210 and 310 communicate with a communication network connected by the first communication method using the first communication method.

  The second communication units 220 and 320 communicate with a communication network connected by the second communication method using the second communication method. Here, as described above, it is assumed that the communication performance of the communication method in which the first communication units 210 and 310 communicate is higher than the communication performance of the communication method in which the second communication units 220 and 320 communicate. The respective communication networks to which the first communication units 210 and 310 and the second communication units 220 and 320 are connected may be different depending on the communication method. For example, when the first communication method is a wireless LAN (Local Area Network) and the second communication method is cellular phone communication, the first communication units 210 and 310 communicate with the wireless LAN communication network, The two communication units 220 and 320 communicate with the mobile phone communication network. When the first communication method is the LTE (Long Term Evolution) method and the second communication method is the W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) method, the first communication units 210 and 310 are connected to the LTE communication network. The second communication units 220 and 320 communicate with the W-CDMA communication network. The communication performance is a data communication speed.

  The control units 230 and 330 control either the first communication unit 210 or 310 or the second communication unit 220 or 320 to communicate with the communication network. When receiving a request for changing the communication method to the first communication method from the communication control apparatus 100, the control units 230 and 330 communicate with each other by connecting the first communication units 210 and 310 with the first communication method. Control to communicate with the network.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a hardware configuration example when the communication control apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention is realized by a computer apparatus. As illustrated in FIG. 3, the communication control device 100 includes a communication interface 10, a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11, a main storage device 14, and a secondary storage device 15.

  The communication interface 10 constitutes an input / output interface for communication with the processing device and peripheral terminals. The communication interface 10 also includes an interface for connection control with a network (not shown) connected to the communication control apparatus 100.

  The CPU 11 operates the operating system to control the entire communication control apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. Further, the CPU 11 reads a program or data from the secondary storage device 15 to the main storage device 14, for example. Specifically, the CPU 11 of the communication control apparatus 100 operates as the monitoring unit 110 and the control unit 120 in the first embodiment, and executes various processes based on program control. Further, the CPU 11 of the communication control apparatus 100 is not limited to one and may include two or more.

  The main storage device 14 is a working memory based on the control of the CPU 11.

  The secondary storage device 15 is, for example, an optical disk, a flexible disk, a magnetic optical disk, an external hard disk, a semiconductor memory, or the like, and records a computer program so that it can be read by a computer. The secondary storage device 15 temporarily stores or non-temporarily stores a computer program to be executed by the communication control device 100. Therefore, the CPU 11 may read the computer program recorded in the secondary storage device 15 and operate as the monitoring unit 110 and the control unit 120 according to the program.

  The computer program may be downloaded from an external computer (not shown) connected to the communication network.

  The block diagram (FIG. 1) used in the description of the first embodiment shows functional unit blocks. These functional blocks are not limited to the computer apparatus shown in FIG. 3, and each unit may be realized by a hardware circuit. However, the means for realizing each unit included in the communication control apparatus 100 is not particularly limited. That is, the communication control apparatus 100 may be realized by one physically coupled apparatus, or may be realized by connecting two or more physically separated apparatuses by wire or wirelessly and by these plural apparatuses. Also good.

  The operation of the communication control apparatus 100 configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an overview of the operation of monitoring the communication method between the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 in the communication control apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment. Note that the processing according to this flowchart may be executed based on the program control by the CPU 11 described above.

  As shown in FIG. 4, first, the control unit 120 receives information on the communication status of the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 from the monitoring unit 110, and stores a storage unit (for example, the main storage device 14 of FIG. 3) not shown in FIG. (Step S101).

  Next, the control unit 120 confirms whether or not the communication method for communication between the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300 matches all the information of the previous communication status stored (step S102). If they all match (YES in step S102), this operation ends.

  If the current communication status information of either the communication terminal 200 or the communication terminal 300 does not match the previous communication status information (YES in step S102), the control unit 120 communicates the current communication status information. Confirms whether the communication performance is lower than the communication method of the previous communication status information (step S103). If the communication method of the current communication status information of the communication terminals 200 and 300 is not lower than the communication method of the previous communication status information (NO in step S103), the operation ends.

  If the communication method of the current communication status information is lower than the communication method of the previous communication status information (YES in step S103), the control unit 120 then determines that the communication method of the current communication status information is It is confirmed whether or not there are a predetermined number or a predetermined ratio or more of communication terminals other than the communication terminal that match the communication method of the previous communication status information of the communication terminal (step S104). If it does not exist (NO in step S104), this operation ends.

  If it exists (YES in step S104), the control unit 120 then transmits a request to return the communication method of the communication terminal to the communication method of the previous communication status information to the communication terminal (step S105).

  Thus, the communication control apparatus 100 ends the operation of monitoring the communication method between the communication terminal 200 and the communication terminal 300. The communication control apparatus 100 periodically executes this operation at a predetermined cycle. The predetermined period may be appropriately determined by the user. In addition, after this operation, the communication terminal 200 or the communication terminal 300 that has received a request to return to the communication method of the previous communication status information connects the first communication units 210 and 310 by the first communication method. Control to communicate with the network.

  Next, effects of the first exemplary embodiment of the present invention will be described.

  The communication control apparatus 100 according to the present embodiment described above exhibits a deteriorated communication performance when a communication environment in which a plurality of terminals communicates temporarily deteriorates and a handover occurs in one communication terminal and the communication performance deteriorates. It is possible to recover.

  This is because the following configuration is included. That is, first, if any of all communication terminals does not match the previous communication status information, the control unit 120 determines that the communication method of the current communication status information is the previous communication status information. Check if the communication performance is lower than the information communication method. As a result, it can be confirmed that handover has occurred in one communication terminal and communication performance has deteriorated. Second, when the communication method of the current communication status information is lower in communication performance than the communication method of the previous communication status information, the control unit 120 determines that the communication method of the current communication status information is the previous communication terminal's communication method. It is confirmed whether or not there are a predetermined number or a predetermined ratio of communication terminals other than the communication terminal matching the communication method of the communication status information. Thirdly, when there is a predetermined number or a predetermined ratio or more, the control unit 120 transmits a request for returning the communication method of the communication terminal to the communication method of the information on the previous communication status to the communication terminal. If the communication environment continues to deteriorate, other communication terminals will also change to a communication method with low communication performance, so the communication method of the current communication status information is the communication method of the previous communication status information of the communication terminal. There are no more than a predetermined number of terminals or a predetermined ratio. As a result, the communication control apparatus 100 can detect a case where the communication environment temporarily deteriorates and a handover occurs in one communication terminal, and can recover the deteriorated communication performance. It is done.

  Although the present invention has been described with reference to each embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. Various changes that can be understood by those skilled in the art can be made to the configuration and details of the present invention within the scope of the present invention.

  For example, each component described in each of the above embodiments does not necessarily have to be individually independent. For example, for each component, a plurality of components may be realized as one module, or one component may be realized as a plurality of modules. Each component is configured such that a component is a part of another component, or a part of a component overlaps a part of another component. Also good.

  Further, in each of the embodiments described above, a plurality of operations are described in order in the form of a flowchart, but the described order does not limit the order in which the plurality of operations are executed. For this reason, when each embodiment is implemented, the order of the plurality of operations can be changed within a range that does not hinder the contents.

  Furthermore, in each embodiment described above, a plurality of operations are not limited to being executed at different timings. For example, another operation may occur during the execution of a certain operation, or the execution timing of a certain operation and another operation may partially or entirely overlap.

  Furthermore, in each of the embodiments described above, a certain operation is described as a trigger for another operation, but the description does not limit all relationships between the certain operation and the other operations. For this reason, when each embodiment is implemented, the relationship between the plurality of operations can be changed within a range that does not hinder the contents. The specific description of each operation of each component does not limit each operation of each component. For this reason, each specific operation | movement of each component may be changed in the range which does not cause trouble with respect to a functional, performance, and other characteristic in implementing each embodiment.

10 Communication interface 11 CPU
14 main storage device 15 secondary storage device 100 communication control device 110 monitoring unit 120, 230, 330 control unit 200, 300 communication terminal 210, 220, 310, 320 communication unit

Claims (6)

A monitoring unit that constantly monitors the communication status of all communication terminals in the same communication environment connected to the communication control device in a communicable state ;
The information on the communication status of all the communication terminals is received from the monitoring unit , and if any of the communication terminals does not match the information on the previous communication status, and the communication performance of the communication method before the change If a change to a communication method with lower communication performance is detected, the communication status of the other communication terminal is confirmed, and the other communication terminal whose communication method matches the communication method before the change is When a predetermined number or more exists for the communication terminal, a control unit that controls the communication terminal that has changed the communication method to return to the communication method before the change, and
Including a communication control device.   The control unit receives information on the communication status of all the communication terminals from the monitoring unit, and detects a change to a communication method with lower communication performance than the communication method before the change in one communication terminal. Confirming the communication status of the other communication terminals, and when the other communication terminals having the same communication method as the communication method before the change are present in a predetermined ratio or more with respect to all the communication terminals, The communication control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein control is performed so that the communication terminal whose communication method has been changed is returned to the communication method before the change. Always monitor the communication status of all communication terminals in the same communication environment connected to the communication control device in a communicable state ,
If any of the communication terminals does not match the previous communication status information, and if a change to a communication method with a communication performance lower than the communication performance of the communication method before the change is detected, the other communication Check the communication status of the terminal,
When there are a predetermined number or more of the other communication terminals that match the communication method before the change with respect to all the communication terminals, the communication terminal that has changed the communication method is changed to the communication before the change. Communication control method to control to return to the system.   When the other communication terminal whose communication method matches the communication method before the change is present in a predetermined ratio or more with respect to all the communication terminals, the communication terminal after the change of the communication method is changed to the communication before the change. The communication control method according to claim 3, wherein control is performed to return to the system. Always monitor the communication status of all communication terminals in the same communication environment connected to the communication control device in a communicable state ,
If any of the communication terminals does not match the previous communication status information, and if a change to a communication method with a communication performance lower than the communication performance of the communication method before the change is detected, the other communication Check the communication status of the terminal,
When there are a predetermined number or more of the other communication terminals that match the communication method before the change with respect to all the communication terminals, the communication terminal that has changed the communication method is changed to the communication before the change. A program that causes a computer to execute the process of controlling to return to the system.
  When the other communication terminal whose communication method matches the communication method before the change is present in a predetermined ratio or more with respect to all the communication terminals, the communication terminal after the change of the communication method is changed to the communication before the change. 6. The program according to claim 5, which causes a computer to execute a process of controlling to return to the system.

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