JPH11225376A - Communication connecting device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reduce the function of an arithmetic unit terminal, to make it small and to make low power consumption by providing a protocol converting means which performs conversion about the two-way or one-way between a 1st communication protocol that is used to connect an arithmetic unit terminal and a communication protocol that is used to connect a center device. SOLUTION: When an arithmetic unit terminal 7 is connected to a center device 1, a call is set up with a dial-up router 11 and associates a line with an IP after a PIAFS is established as a communication protocol. The router 11 changes an IP packet, i.e., converts a communication protocol from no- procedure into a TCP/IP, and sends data to a LAN 15. The router 11 also uses the terminal 7 after designating an IP in a PPP according to whether or not the TCP/IP is supported or operates so as to support it by the conversion. Thus, the arithmetic unit terminal is made light and inexpensive.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a communication connection device for connecting an arithmetic unit terminal and a center device using a communication line such as a PHS.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, PHS (Personal Ha) has been developed.
32 kbp using Ndyphone System)
PIAFS, a protocol standard used for communication of s
(PHS Internet Access Foru
Notebook PC or PDA (Personal D) that has a built-in PHS function that can communicate with m Standard, or is connected to a terminal that has a PHS function.
An arithmetic device terminal such as digital assistants is sent to an e-mail or WWW (World Wide W).
There is a system that connects to a center device having functions such as eb) and uses these electronic mails and WWW.

In such a system, first, an arithmetic unit terminal is connected to a dial-up router of a center unit, and then PPP (REC 1171; Point to Point) is connected.
IP (Internet Protocol) using Internet Protocol (tProtocol)
Protocol), and communications after the IP assignment are performed using this IP.

For example, referring to FIG. 4, when connection is made from the processing device terminal 7 to the center device 1, a call is set between the processing device terminal 7 and the dial-up router 111 (step S21). PIA as communication protocol
After the FS is established (step S23), the login name,
Authentication with a password (step S25) and IP assignment (step S27) are performed. Then T on PPP
CP / IP communication is established (step S29), and communication becomes possible. Conventionally, the communication protocol between the arithmetic unit terminal 7 and the dial-up router 111 and the communication protocol between the dial-up router 111 and the center device 1 are both TCP / IP.

[0005]

However, in the conventional system, when the computing device terminal is connected to the dial-up router of the center device having functions such as e-mail and WWW, the IP is connected using the PPP. In order to perform the assignment, the function of supporting the PPP as a function of the computing device terminal and the TCP / IP (Transmission)
Control Protocol / Internet
(Protocol). On the other hand, a computing device terminal such as a notebook personal computer or a PDA is presumed to be carried, so that further miniaturization and lower power consumption are required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and does not necessarily require support of a specific protocol such as TCP / IP, and is capable of providing a small and low power consumption arithmetic device terminal. It is intended to provide a connection device.

[0007]

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an arithmetic unit terminal having a communication function capable of communicating with a predetermined communication protocol. A communication connection device for connecting to a center device having functions such as e-mail and WWW, wherein a first communication protocol used for connection to the computing device terminal and a first communication protocol used for connection to the center device The gist of the present invention is to have a protocol conversion means for performing conversion in two directions or one direction with the two communication protocols.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, the communication connection device is, for example, a communication protocol for a connection line from a processing device terminal and a T of a LAN (Local Area Network) in a center connected to the communication connection device.
By providing a function for converting the CP / IP protocol to each other, a function for supporting the PPP which has been conventionally required as a function of the processing device terminal and a TCP / IP
Eliminates the need to support protocols.

Further, the invention according to claim 2 is characterized in that, in the structure of the invention according to claim 1, the protocol conversion means has an identification means for identifying a type of a communication protocol of input communication. I do.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, the first communication protocol includes at least one of TCP / IP, a modem protocol, and a non-procedure, and the second communication protocol includes at least TCP / IP. NetWare (NetWar), Novell's network OS
e), AppleTalk, a network operating system for Macintosh from Apple Computer, AppleTalk, and XN, a distributed network architecture from Xerox.
S (Xerox Network System), I
N, a basic network input / output system by BM
etBIOS (Network Basic Inpu
The gist of the present invention is to include any one of the t / Output System) protocol.

Further, the invention according to claim 4 is characterized in that the communication uses a PHS capable of communicating with PIAFS.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system in which a PHS function capable of communication by PIAFS is provided, or a center device having functions such as e-mail and WWW is connected by using a connected computing device terminal. , The dial-up router of the center device connected to the terminal realizes a function of mutually converting between a communication protocol on a connection line from the terminal and a TCP / IP protocol of a LAN in the center connected to the router, Communication from the terminal to the dial-up router is performed using PIAFS or the like, and is performed using TCP / IP in the center.

[0013]

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

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an entire system including a communication connection device according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the figure, the same components as those shown in FIG. 4 are denoted by the same symbols, and detailed description is omitted.

The center device 1 is a dial-up router 1
1, a router controller 13, a LAN 15 in the center, and a file server 17. Network 3 is any public line network. A base station 5 is connected to the network 3, and a computing device terminal 7 and a computing device terminal 9 are connected to the base station 5 via a wireless network.

The arithmetic unit terminal 7 has a built-in PHS function capable of performing PIAFS communication. The arithmetic unit terminal 9 is P
PHS with PHS function that can communicate with IAFS
It is connected to the communication terminal 9a via a cable. At this time, the computing device terminals 7 and 9 are not limited to the PHS, and a mobile phone can be used. The communication protocol does not support the TCP / IP protocol but supports a non-procedural communication protocol such as a modem or PIAFS. That is, in this case, the arithmetic unit terminals 7, 9 are dial-up without mounting TCP / IP, so that the number of components can be reduced, and the terminal body can be reduced in size, weight, and power consumption. Can be measured.

A dial-up router 11 as a communication connection device is a router for connecting the center device 1 and the network 3, and as shown in FIG. 2, a protocol identification means for identifying a type of a communication protocol of an input communication. And a protocol conversion unit 11b as a protocol conversion unit that performs bidirectional conversion of a communication protocol.

The protocol identification section 11a identifies a communication protocol by measuring a repetition pattern of the same information. That is, except for the non-procedure, communication is performed using a packet of a predetermined cycle in any protocol, and destination information is added to the header of the packet. Thereby, a matching protocol can be identified. At this time, the packet pattern of the protocol to be supported is registered in advance. At this time, if there is no matching protocol, the procedure is set to no procedure.

The protocol conversion unit 11b inputs the communication protocol identified by the protocol identification unit 11a, and receives a predetermined communication protocol specified in advance, for example, T
Convert to CP / IP and output. Specifically, since the protocol consists of connection / disconnection and data transmission / reception, the conversion of the protocol is performed by having a conversion table in which the connection / disconnection signal on the input side corresponds to the signal on the output side. Do. For data, conversion is performed by converting header information and data length and reconstructing data (for example, re-editing input data to a designated data length). In the case of no procedure, connection / disconnection is performed by the dial-up router 11, and data is changed by the dial-up router 11 to a required form.

The router control device 13 is a control device for controlling the dial-up router 11 in the center device 1.
The intra-center LAN 15 supports the TCP / IP protocol.

In the present embodiment, the dial-up router 11 identifies the communication protocol on the connection line from the computing device terminals 7 and 9 by the protocol identification unit 11a constituting the dial-up router 11, and the protocol conversion unit 11b TCP / I supported by the intra-center LAN connected to the dial-up router 14
It will be explained as converting to P protocol mutually,
These functions may be provided in the router control device 13 which is installed outside the dial-up router 14 and controls the dial-up router 11. The file server 17 is, specifically, a mail server for storing mail and a proxy server for smoothly performing WWW connection, and is connected to the LAN 15 in the center.

Next, the operation of this embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. Here, the communication protocol PA between the processing device terminal 7 and the dial-up router 11 is PIAFS, and the communication protocol PB between the dial-up router 11 and the center device 1 is TCP / IP.

First, when a connection is made from the computing device terminal 7 to the center device 1, a call is set up between the computing device terminal 7 and the dial-up router 11 (step S11).
PIAFS is established as a communication protocol (step S
13) After that, the line is associated with the IP (step S15). The transfer of the IP packet (step S17), that is, the conversion of the communication protocol from non-procedure to TCP / IP is performed, and the data is transmitted to the center apparatus 1. At this time, if the computing device terminal 7 also supports TCP / IP, the IP of the computing device terminal 7 is specified in PPP, and subsequent communication is performed using this IP.
When the IP is specified at the time of connection, the correspondence between the number of the connected line and the specified IP is stored in the dial-up router 11 as a table, for example.

By the above conversion, even when the communication protocol from the arithmetic unit terminal 7 does not support the TCP / IP protocol, it can operate as if it supports the TCP / IP protocol.

As described above, since the present embodiment is provided with a protocol conversion function, the function of supporting PPP, which has been required as a function of the conventional terminal, and the TCP / I
Since the function or the like that supports the P protocol can be made unnecessary, it is possible to obtain effects such as reduction in size, weight, power consumption, and price of the operation device terminal.

[0026]

As described above, the communication connection device of the present invention has a protocol conversion function, so that
Since there is no need to support a predetermined protocol such as the CP / IP protocol, the size of the computing device terminal can be reduced,
This has the effect of achieving weight reduction, low power consumption, low cost, and the like.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an entire system including a dial-up router according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram for explaining a configuration of a dial-up router shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of the dial-up router shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a sequence diagram for explaining the operation of a conventional dial-up router.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 center device 3 network 5 base station 7 processing device terminal 9 processing device terminal 9a PHS communication terminal 11 dial-up router 11a protocol identification unit 11b protocol conversion unit 13 router control device 15 LAN 17 file server

Claims (4)

[Claims] An arithmetic device terminal having a communication function capable of performing communication according to a predetermined communication protocol, an electronic mail and a WW
A communication connection device for connecting to a center device having a function such as W, a first communication protocol used for connection with the arithmetic device terminal, and a second communication protocol used for connection with the center device A communication connection device comprising a protocol conversion means for performing conversion in two directions or one direction with the communication device. 2. The communication connection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said protocol conversion means includes a protocol identification means for identifying a type of a communication protocol of the input communication. 3. The communication protocol according to claim 1, wherein the first communication protocol includes at least one of TCP / IP, a modem protocol, and a non-procedure.
CP / IP, NetWare, AppleTalk, N
The communication connection device according to claim 1, wherein the communication connection device includes any one of an etBIOS protocol. 4. The communication system according to claim 1, wherein the communication uses a PHS capable of performing PIAFS communication.
The communication connection device according to claim 3.