Advanced subscriber outage notification methods

An advanced subscriber outage notification method for notifying a user of a subscriber unit of its call being dropped by a satellite, the method comprising the step of:

• a) a satellite predicting that there are no available cells to which the call can be handed-off resulting in an outage, the prediction being based on the satellite determining that it does not have enough call capacity resources to keep the call active due to frequency replanning;
• b) determining how much time there is before the outage;
• c) the satellite notifying the subscriber unit of the outage;
• d) the subscriber unit determining an amount of time before the outage will occur;
• e) the subscriber unit notifying the user of the outage;
• and
• f) the subscriber unit and satellite terminating the call if the user wants to end the call or the amount of time expires.

An advanced subscriber outage notification method executed by a subscriber unit for notifying a user of the subscriber unit of its call being dropped, the method comprising the step of:

• a) the subscriber unit predicting that there are no available cells to which the call can be handed-off resulting in an outage, the prediction being based on a satellite determining that it does not have enough call capacity resources to keep the call active due to frequency replanning;
• b) the subscriber unit determining an amount of time before the outage will occur;
• c) the subscriber unit notifying the user of the outage;
• and
• d) the subscriber unit terminating the call if the user wants to end the call or the amount of time expires.

An advanced subscriber outage notification method for notifying a user of the subscriber unit of its call being dropped, the method comprising the step of:

• a) the subscriber unit predicting that there are no available cells to which the call can be handed-off resulting in an outage and an amount of time there is before the outage, the prediction being based on a satellite determining that it does not have enough call capacity resources to keep the call active due to frequency replanning;
• b) determining how much time there is before the outage;
• c) the subscriber unit notifying the user of the outage and the amount of time remaining before the outage;
• d) the subscriber unit terminating the call if the user wants to end the call;
• and
• e) the satellite dropping the call once the amount of time expires.