US 6,181,934 B2 · System and method for providing efficient signaling for a positioning request and an indication of when a mobile station becomes available for location services

Abstract

A telecommunications system and method is disclosed for reducing the unnecessary signaling for positioning requests involving a Mobile Station (MS) when that MS does not respond to paging requests or is purged from the network, e.g., not registered with a Mobile Switching Center/Visitor Location Register. When a positioning request for a particular MS is received at a serving MSC and the MS does not respond to a paging request, the serving MSC sets a “Subscriber Not Responding to Location Services” (SNRLS) flag, which is used by the serving MSC to avoid unnecessarily sending a new paging request for the same MS. In addition, the serving MSC sends a rejection message to a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC) that sent the positioning request, which includes an unavailable notification indicating that the MS cannot be reached. The GMLC sets an “MS Subscriber Not Present” flag based upon this notification to avoid sending further positioning requests for that MS.

Claims24

Dependent claims

A telecommunications system for providing efficient signaling for a positioning request for a mobile station, comprising:

a gateway mobile location center for receiving said positioning request for said mobile station, said gateway mobile location center having an unavailable flag for indicating whether to send a routing request based upon said received positioning request;
and
a home location register for receiving a routing request from said gateway mobile location center, said home location register having a purge flag therein associated with said mobile station for indicating whether said mobile station is purged, said home location register sending subscriber data associated with said mobile station to said gateway mobile location center in response to said routing request when said purge flag is not set.

A method for providing efficient signaling for a positioning request for a mobile station, comprising the steps of:

receiving said positioning request for said mobile station at a gateway mobile location center;
sending a routing request to a home location register storing subscriber data associated with said mobile station;
determining whether a purge flag for said mobile station is set within said home location register, said purge flag indicating whether said mobile station has been purged;
storing, by said home location register, an address for said gateway mobile location center in said subscriber data when said subscriber data has a purge flag set;
sending an unavailable notification to said gateway mobile location center;
and
setting, by said gateway mobile location, an unavailable flag for said mobile station based upon said unavailable notification to avoid sending additional routing requests for said mobile station to said home location register as long as said purge flag is set.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for providing efficient signaling for a positioning request and an indication of when a mobile station becomes available for location services

Life of this patent

System and method for providing efficient signaling for a positioning request and an indication of when a mobile station becomes available for location services

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims24