KR100810335B1 - Apparatus and method for sending a short message to a plural mobile stations simultaneously in mobile communication system - Google Patents

Abstract

end. FIELD OF THE INVENTION

An apparatus and method for transmitting a short message in a mobile communication terminal.

I. The technical problem to be solved by the invention

Provided is a short message service multicasting apparatus and method for allowing a mobile communication terminal to simultaneously transmit a short message to a plurality of terminals.

All. Summary of Solution of the Invention

The present invention is provided with an input unit for distinguishing and inputting telephone numbers of various receiving terminals, and a controller for storing and transmitting the received telephone numbers as one signal.

la. Important uses of the invention

This can be useful when sending a short message using a mobile communication terminal.

Terminal, Short Message, Multicast

Description

Apparatus and method for sending a short message to multiple mobile communication terminals at the same time {APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SENDING A SHORT MESSAGE TO A PLURAL MOBILE STATIONS SIMULTANEOUSLY IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM}             

1 is a diagram illustrating a mobile communication system to which the present invention is applied.

2 is a block diagram showing the internal structure of the terminal shown in FIG.

3 is a diagram illustrating a signal flow between devices when a short message is transmitted.

The present invention relates to a short message service in a mobile communication system, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for transmitting a short message to a plurality of terminals by an arbitrary terminal at the same time.

Short Message Service (SMS) is a type of wireless data service provided by mobile communication and refers to a service that can exchange short messages between mobile communication subscribers. Using the short message service, it is possible to receive services such as simple text reception, voice mail notification, and text transmission. The short message service is one of mobile communication services that many users prefer because of its convenience.

In general, a short message service is provided by a transmitting terminal transmitting a short message to a receiving terminal. The short message is input by using a function such as writing a letter (it may be different depending on the terminal) in the transmitting terminal. On the other hand, the conventional short message service is inconvenient when the transmitting terminal wants to deliver the same short message to multiple receiving terminals at the same time. In the above case, in the related art, the transmitting terminal has to repeatedly perform a series of operations by the number of receiving terminals to which the short message is to be transmitted. The series of operations performed by the transmitting terminal is as follows. Enter a short message to be sent by using a letter writing function. The input short message is stored in a memory. Read the saved short message. Input the telephone number of the receiving terminal to which the read short message is to be sent. Enter a phone number to be contacted by the receiving terminal. Repetition of the same operation as above results in unnecessary hassle. In addition, due to the repetitive operation as described above, the terminal operation time is lengthened and the number of key operations is also increased, resulting in waste of power. In addition, the transmission channel is wasted by sending the same short message several times.

 Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for a short message service that enables an arbitrary terminal to simultaneously transmit the same short message to several terminals.

The present invention for achieving the above object; And an input unit for distinguishing and inputting telephone numbers of various receiving terminals, and a controller for storing and transmitting the received telephone numbers as one signal.

In addition, the present invention; The process includes receiving and inputting telephone numbers of various receiving terminals, storing the input process in one signal, and transmitting the signal.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. First of all, in adding reference numerals to the components of each drawing, it should be noted that the same components have the same reference numerals as much as possible even if displayed on different drawings. In the following description of the present invention, if it is determined that a detailed description of a related known function or configuration may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention, the detailed description thereof will be omitted.

1 is a diagram illustrating a mobile communication system to which the present invention is applied.

As shown in FIG. 1, the present invention provides a base station 110, 150, an exchange station 120, a home location register (Visitor Location Register) 130, a short message Center (Short Message Service-Message Center: SMS-MC) 140, any transmitting terminal 100 and at least one receiving terminal 160 to receive the short message sent by the transmitting terminal 100. . The switching center 120 and the base station 110, 150 is generally a system having a function for providing a mobile communication service. In FIG. 1, base stations 110 and 150 are illustrated as base station 1 110 and base station 2 150. This is for convenience of description, base station 1 (110) is a base station including a transmitting terminal 100, base station 2 (150) is a base station including a receiving terminal 160. The two base stations, that is, base station 1 110 and base station 2 150 may be the same base station. The case where the base station 1 110 and the base station 2 150 become the same base station is when the transmitting terminal 100 and the receiving terminal 160 are located in the area of the same base station. In addition, if the receiving terminals 160 are located in different base station areas, the base station 2 160 may be two or more. The location register 130 is a memory device in which locations and states of the terminals 100 and 160 constituting the mobile communication system are stored. The short message center 140 stores the short message transmitted by the transmitting terminal 100 and transmits the stored short message to the receiving terminal 160 designated by the transmitting terminal 100. The short message center 140 may be implemented inside the switching center 120 or may be implemented outside the switching center 120 according to a system configuration method.

2 is a block diagram illustrating an internal configuration of the terminal 100 or 160 illustrated in FIG. 1.

The input unit 200 receives an input from a user. A representative example of the input unit 200 may be a keypad. The controller 210 is a part for controlling overall operations performed by the terminals 100 and 160. Call processing is also controlled by the controller 210. The memory 220 stores and reads various information including user information. The short message to be transmitted is also stored in the memory 220.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a signal flow when a short message service is performed in the mobile communication system illustrated in FIG. 1.

The operation of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. Specific keys mentioned in the following description are only specified in the present embodiment, and different keys may be used for each terminal or operator. Therefore, the present invention is not limited by the specific keys mentioned in the following examples.

First, in order to apply the present invention, a terminal enables a user to select whether to use a function of transmitting a short message to multiple receiving terminals at the same time, that is, a 'multicasting' function. This can be selected by adding a menu called "Message Multicasting" to the message management menu as with other general function selection methods. As described above, the distinction between the use of the general short message service and the time of multicasting is different because there is a difference between the two cases in recognizing the number of the receiving terminal 160. When the user selects the "message multicasting" function, the present invention is applied.

In step 300, the transmitting terminal 100 receives a short message to be transmitted. The input of the short message to be transmitted is the same as when using a general short message service. The user inputs a short message to be sent by using the letter writing function of the terminal. Of course, the short message input is made through the input unit 200 of the transmitting terminal 100. The short message input as described above is stored in the memory 220 (if the user selects save). In step 310, the transmitting terminal 100 transmits a data_burst_Msg including the received short message and various information to the base station 1110. The Data_Burst_Msg is transmitted through an Access Channel. An example of implementing a short message service using the data_burst_message is a short message service point-to-point message, a short message service broadcast message, a short message service. There are three cases of acknowledgment messages. The short message service point-to-point message is used to transmit a short message to a specific terminal. The short message service approval message is a signal for confirming whether the short message center 140 properly received the short message. Short Message Service A broadcast message sends a short message to all unspecified multiple terminals. The multicast proposed by the present invention is different from the short message service broadcast message in that a short message is transmitted to a specific number of terminals. The CHAR i field varies depending on which of the three cases is selected. The CHAR i field includes a user message, a phone number of the receiving terminal 160, a phone number to which the user wants to be contacted, along with various information for a short message service. The CHAR i field will be described later. Used in the present invention for multicasting is a short message service point-to-point message among the above three. The short message service point-to-point message includes several parameters. In the following description, only two parameters of a teleservice identifier and bearer data used in the present invention are mentioned among the parameters of the short message service point-to-point message.

The teleservice identifier is an identifier indicating which application service to execute. In order to implement the present invention, a message multicast teleservice item is added to the teleservice identifier. When the user selects the "Message Multicasting" menu from the menu, the above-mentioned teleservice identifier indicates the message multicast teleservice item. Bearer data includes a short message that the user actually wants to transmit. The bearer data also has several subfields. The subfields store information such as a short message to be transmitted, a telephone number of the receiving terminal 160, and a telephone number to be contacted by the user. The above-mentioned CHAR I field is also one of the subfields.

In the present invention, multicasting is possible by separately storing several telephone numbers in the CHAR i field. That is, the phone numbers of the receiver terminal 160 that the user inputs through the input unit 200 are stored in the CHAR i field. The telephone numbers of the receiving terminal 160 are inputted separately by a specific key designated by each terminal or operator.

On the other hand, the base station 1 (110) receiving the data_Burst_Msg transmits a short message_send (SMS_Send) signal to the switching center 120 in step 320. In response to receiving the short message_send (SMS_Send) signal, the switching center 120 transmits a submit_message (Submit_Msg) to the short message center 140 in step 330. The data_burst_message, short message_send (SMS_Send), and submit_message (Submit_Msg) all include a short message input by a user and a telephone number of the receiving terminal 160 in common. The short message center 140 detects the short message input by the user and the telephone number of the receiving terminal 160 in the received Sub_Msg. Of course, when the user selects "message multicasting", the short message center 140 detects the telephone numbers of all the receiving terminals 160 stored in the CHAR i field. The short message center 140 stores the detected short message and the telephone number of the receiving terminal 160 in step 340. The short message center 140 retrieves the location information of the terminal stored in the location register 130 and recognizes the locations of the receiving terminals 160. The location of the receiving terminal 160 recognized by the short message center 140 corresponds to which of the switching center 120 and the base station 2 150 that control the receiving terminal 160. The short message center 140 receives a short message input by the user, a phone number of the receiving terminal 160, a delivery_message (Deliver_Msg) including the recognized location of the receiving terminal 160, and the receiving terminal ( 160 to the switching center 120 having jurisdiction. Of course, the exchange station 120 that controls the receiving terminal 160 may be different from the exchange station 120 that manages the transmitting terminal 100. In step 350, the short message center 140 transmits a delivery_message (Deliver_Msg) to the switching center 120 having jurisdiction over the receiving terminal. The delivery_message (Deliver_Msg) includes the short message detected by the short message center 140 and the telephone number and location of the receiving terminal 160. The delivery_message (Deliver_Msg) exists as a message for the receiving terminal 160, unlike the above-described data_burst_message (Data_Burst_Msg), short message_transmission (SMS_Send), and submit_message (Submit_Msg). That is, the same number of delivery_messages Del_Msg as the number of receiving terminals 160 are delivered to the switching center 120. By operating as described above, the short message that has been transmitted through one data_burst_Msg in the transmitting terminal 100 may be delivered to all terminals designated by the user. The switching center 120 detects the information included in the received delivery_message (Deliver_Msg) and recognizes the base station 2 150 where the receiving terminal 160 is located. The switching center 120 transmits a short_receive signal to the recognized base station 2 150. Base station 2 150 detects the short message and the telephone number of the receiving terminal 160 from the SMS_Receive signal, and loads the detected short message to the data_burst_Msg in step 370. It transmits to the receiving terminal 160 having the detected telephone number.

By implementing the present invention, multicasting can be easily used when using a short message service. Multicasting can be done with a simple operation, which reduces the power consumption of the terminal. Since the transmitting terminal can implement multicasting with only one transmission, the channel required for transmission can be saved.

Claims (6)

In the short message transmission apparatus that supports the short message service multicasting function for transmitting the same short message to multiple receiving terminals at the same time, When the message multicasting menu is selected, the input unit receives a distinction between the phone number of the receiving terminal,  And a control unit for transmitting a short message including a telephone service identifier indicating a message multicast teleservice and the inputted telephone numbers. In the short message service multicasting method of transmitting the same short message to multiple receiving terminals at the same time, When the message multicasting menu is selected, the process of receiving and inputting the phone numbers of various receiving terminals; And transmitting a short message including a telephone service identifier indicating a message multicast teleservice and the inputted telephone numbers. delete delete The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the inputted telephone numbers are stored separately in the CHAR i field of the short message. The method of claim 2, wherein the inputted telephone numbers are stored separately in the CHAR i field of the short message.

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