D E S C R I P T I O N
FLEXIBLE PAGING METHOD USING A HOME LOCATION REGISTER
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a flexible paging method using a home location register, more particularly, to a method of paging a called mobile terminal located in a service zone overlapped by individual coverages of at least two mobile exchangers.
2. Background Art
Fig. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a general mobile communication network. A mobile communication network of Fig. 1 includes base stations (BTSs) 120,220,... communicating in wireless with mobile stations (MSs) 100,200,..., namely, mobile terminals; base station controllers (BSCs) 120 , 220 , ... controlling several BTSs individually; mobile switching centers (MSCs) 130,230,..., connected with several BSCs individually, for processing calls and exchanging signals; and a home location register (HLR) 300, connected to the MSCs through a local network 400, for storing and managing location information of all subscribed MSs.
Every MSC 130, 230,... includes a visitor location register (VLR) for registering MSs located within its own service coverage. Location information registered in a VLR of an arbitrary MSC is communicated with the HLR 300 to concentrate all location information on the HLR 300.
For example, if the first MS MS #1' that was within a coverage of the first MSC ΛMSC/VLR #1' enters an overlapped zone that is also a coverage of the second MSC ΛMSC/VLR #2', as shown in Fig.
2, a registration/cancellation process is conducted according to the procedure depicted in Fig. 3.
When the first MS ΛMS #1' requests Registration' (S10) , the second MSC registers the first MS in its own VLR and the registered information is transmitted to the HLR 300 (Sll) . Then, the HLR 300
updates location information of the first MS ΛMS #1' from the first MSC to the second MSC (S12-1) and provides all registered service information of the first MS for the VLR of the second MSC.
Besides updating location information of the first MS ΛMS #1' , the HLR 300 sends the first MSC MSC/VLR #1' a message ΛREGCAN' requesting cancellation of registration of the first MS (S12-2) .
When an acknowledging message for the message ΛREGCAN' is received
(S13), the HLR 300 sends the second MSC λMSC/VLR #2' a message
Λregnot' to notify of registration (S14) to complete a registration updating process.
Afterwards, if another MS inside a coverage of the second MSC calls the first MS, the second MSC knows, from the registered location information of the first MS in its own VLR, that the called MS is within its coverage, so that ,it conducts a paging process to the first MS.
If another MS within a coverage of, e.g. , the first MSC calls the first MS, the first MSC asks the HLR 300 where the called MS is. Then, the HLR 300, with reference to location information for the first MS, sends a call-routing request signal to the second MSC. Therefore, the second MSC received the call-routing request signal starts to page the first MS ΛMS #1' .
However, if the first MS frequently changes its location to the first or to the second MSC while crossing the overlapped boundary zone between the respective coverages of the two MSCs, the aforementioned registration/cancellation processes are conducted among the HLR 300 and individual VLRs of related MSCs as frequently as the location changes. Such frequent processes cause undesirable burden to a communication network, as a result, resources of the network are used unnecessarily. Lately, for alleviating such loads, a location updateable time window is used in an HLR. Location of an MS registered in an HLR is never updated within the location updateable time window after registration of the MS.
However, if actual location of an MS is not registered immediately in an HLR as above, the actual location of the MS and
location information registered in the HLR may be different, which causes paging fails for calls to the MS. Especially, if a called MS is located in a boundary zone between two or more MSCs, paging hit rate, or call success rate for that MS drops remarkably. 3. Disclosure of Invention
It is an object of the present invention to provide a flexible paging method using an HLR that determines whether location of a called MS is settled around a boundary zone formed by a plurality of MSCs, and pages the MS through a single MSC, in which the MS is registered finally, or through all the plurality of MSCs, based on the determination result.
A method of registering location of a mobile terminal in accordance with a flexible paging method using an HLR of the present invention, when a request of location registration of a mobile terminal is received, stores a current location, for which location registration is requested, as a final-location of the mobile terminal while preserving previous location information thereof, and also stores the time when the request of location registration is received. A flexible paging method using an HLR in accordance with the present invention, when a signal asking current location of a mobile terminal is received, determines whether or not location of the mobile terminal is settled, if at least two pieces of location information have been stored for the mobile terminal, and requests a single mobile exchanger, in which the mobile terminal is registered finally, to page the mobile terminal or requests at least two mobile exchangers, associated with said at least pieces of location information respectively, to page the mobile terminal all together, based on the determination result. The flexible paging method characterized as above improves a paging success rate for an MS remarkably even though the MS roams about two or more service areas of a plurality of MSCs while frequently crossing their boundary zone. 4. Brief Description of Drawings Fig. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a general mobile
communication network;
Fig. 2 illustrates an overlapped boundary zone between two coverages by two mobile exchangers and movement of a mobile terminal across the boundary zone; Fig. 3 is a procedure to show location registering/canceling process when a mobile terminal changes a service area;
Fig. 4 shows a procedure to update location information of a mobile terminal in accordance with the present invention when the terminal moves into another service area; and Figs. 5a and 5b show respective procedures to conduct a single- and a multi-paging based on whether location of a called mobile terminal is determined settled or not.
5. Modes or Carrying out the Invention
In order that the invention may be fully understood, a preferred embodiment thereof will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings .
Fig. 4 shows a procedure to update location information of an MS in accordance with the present invention when the MS moves into another service area. If the first MS ΛMS #1' enters a service area of the second
MSC MSC/VLR #2' under condition that the first MS MS #1' has been registered in the first MSC ΛMSC/VLR #1', it requests registration to the second MSC ΛMSC/VLR #2' (S20) .
Then, the second MSC λMSC/VLR #2' registers the first MS in its VLR and sends the HLR 300 a message to notify of local registration and to request central registration (S21) . The HLR
300 updates final-location information of the first MS ΛMS #1' from the first to the second MSC and downloads various service information registered for the first MS to the second MSC. At this time, the HLR 300 does not delete information of previous-location, namely, the first MSC to preserve previous-location information.
Thus, two pieces of location information are present temporarily in the HLR 300. In addition, the HLR 300 does not send the first
MSC a message ΛREGCAN' requesting cancellation of registration of the first MS. Instead, it memorizes the time Λt_reg' when the
registration is requested from the second MSC (S22) . Afterwards, the HLR 300 sends the second MSC an acknowledging message Λregnot' for acknowledging registration request to notify of successful registration of the first MS (S23) . Thus, registration updating procedure ends .
Figs. 5a and 5b show a paging procedure under condition that both of previous- and final-location information and the registration-requested time of a called MS have been stored as above . If an arbitrary MS ΛMS #k' within a coverage of an MSC ΛMSC/VLR #n' calls an MS, e.g., the first MS ΛMS #1' of which previous- and final-location information have been stored (S30), the originating MSC λMSC/VLR #n' sends the HLR 300 a message λLOCREQ' asking where the first MS ΛMS #1' is (S31) . Then, the HLR 300 memorizes for the first MS λMS #1' the time Λt_loc' when the message ΛL0CREQ' for location identification is received, subtracts the time Λt_loc' from the previously-memorized time Λt_reg' , and compares the difference Λt_dif' (=' t_loc' - Λt_reg' ) with a predetermined registration-restriction time window T_set' (S32) . If the difference Λt_dif is greater than the threshold time ΛT_set' , the HLR 300 regards that the called MS ΛMS #1' has a weak movability in a boundary zone, namely, that the location of the first MS MS #1' is somewhat settled within a coverage of the second MSC ΛMSC/VLR #2', so that it deletes the previous-location information (S33) of the two pieces of location information.
For example, on the assumption that the restriction-restriction time window ΛT_set' is 5 minutes, if the message λLOCREQ' is received at 13:15 and the registration is requested at 13:05, the time difference (10 minutes) is greater than the threshold ΛT_set' . Therefore, the HLR 300 considers that the finally-registered location is settled because movability of the first MS becomes weak, so that it deletes previous-location information, the first MSC, of the two pieces of location information.
Next, the HLR 300 sends a call-routing request message ΛROUREQ' to the second MSC ΛMSC/VLR #2' (S34) that requested registration of the first MS finally and also sends a registration-canceling request message REGCAN/' to the first MSC ΛMSC/VLR #1' (S35) that was previous location of the first MS. The first MSC λMSC/VLR#l' deletes all registered information about the first MS from its VLR and then sends an ACK' message Aegean' to the HLR 300 (S36). The second MSC ΛMSC/VLR#2' received the message ΛROUREQ' transmits a paging signal for the first MS through its controlling BTSs (S37) .
If the first MS ΛMS #1' responds to the paging signal, a communication path between the originating MSC ΛMSC/VLR #n' and the terminating MSC 'MSC/VLR #2' is established to connect the caller λMS #k' and the called MS λMS #1' . However, if the time difference λt_dif is smaller than the threshold ΛT_set' , the HLR 300 considers that the concerned MS still has high probability to move around or across a boundary zone, namely, that the location of the MS is not settled (S43) .
In this case, the HLR 300 sends a call-routing request message ΛROUREQ' to the first MSC ΛMSC/VLR #1', which is previous location of the first MS, as well as the second MSC ΛMSC/VLR #2' which is final location (S44) . Thus, both MSCs ΛMSC/VLR #1 and #2' page the first MS λMS #1' simultaneously (S46) . The first MS within either zone of both MSCs receives the paging signal and responds to the paging signal of either MSC. As a result, a communication path between the called MS #1' and the caller MS λMS #k' is established. During the simultaneous paging operation, if the HLR 300 receives a paging completion signal from either MSC, it stops unnecessary paging operation of the other MSC. In addition, the HLR 300 settles final-location information to the MSC that completed paging, thus it deletes the other previous-location information or preserves two pieces of location information because the concerned MS may have high movability in a boundary zone. In latter case, the HLR 300 memorizes the paging-completed time as the registration-requested time λt_reg' . It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that
various modifications and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.