Methods and apparatus for acknowledging a paging message via a cellular network control channel

Claims

We claim:

1. In or for a cellular mobile radiotelephone system (CMR) for communicating with cellular radiotelephones, a paging acknowledgment system for communicating paging messages and acknowledgments to confirm reception of said paging messages, said paging acknowledgment system comprising:

communication means, responsive to said paging messages, for preparing data messages corresponding to said paging messages and transmitting said data messages via a radiopaging communications path;

a plurality of remote communications devices for receiving said data messages via said radiopaging communications path, each of said data messages containing an address that uniquely identifies one of said remote communications devices, each of said remote communications device responsive to a selected one of said data messages containing its associated address for transmitting via a cellular network control channel of said CMR system an acknowledgment message that confirms reception of said selected data message, said acknowledgment message formatted as an identification signal transmitted by one of said cellular radiotelephones when said cellular radiotelephone identifies itself to said CMR system; and

at least one mobile switching center (MSC) for receiving said acknowledgment message via said cellular network control channel from each of said remote communications devices,

said communications means further operative to receive said acknowledgment message from said MSC via a first communications link and to process said acknowledgment message to determine whether said acknowledgment message corresponds to a particular one of said data messages.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said communications means, responsive to a determination that said acknowledgment message corresponds to said particular data message, outputs a confirmation message to a paging party who initiated one of said paging messages corresponding to said particular data message, said confirmation message supplying verification of reception of said selected data message by said remote communications device.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein said communications means, responsive to a decision that said acknowledgment message corresponds to said particular data message, outputs a confirmation message for storage by a memory storage device connected to said communications system, said stored confirmation message supplying verification of reception of said selected data message.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein said memory storage device is accessible by a paging party who initiated one of said paging messages corresponding to said particular data message to enable said paging party to read said stored confirmation message.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of said data messages corresponds to one of said paging messages and comprises said address that uniquely identifies a selected one of said remote communications devices, an acknowledgment code that uniquely identifies said corresponding paging message, and paging data supplied by a paging party who initiated said corresponding paging message and intended for communication to a user associated with said selected remote communications device.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein said acknowledgment message comprises said acknowledgment code.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said acknowledgment message further comprises operation data supplied by said user and intended for communication to said paging party.

8. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein said acknowledgment message comprises said acknowledgment code and operation data supplied by said user and intended for communication to said paging party.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said identification signal comprises data fields for a mobile telephone number and an electronic serial number (ESN), said acknowledgment code corresponding to at least a portion of said mobile telephone number and said operation data corresponding to at least a portion of said ESN.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein communications means is further operative to assign said acknowledgment code to each of said data messages and to output said acknowledgment code to a memory storage device for storage as a stored acknowledgment code.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein said communications means determines whether said acknowledgment message corresponds to said particular data message by comparing said acknowledgment code contained in said acknowledgment message to said stored acknowledgment code associated with said particular data message.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of said remote communications devices monitors said cellular network control channel to detect a stream of busy idle bits for a predetermined time period, each of said busy idle bits indicating whether a cellular source has initiated a cellular communication with said MSC via said cellular network control channel during a particular time interval, and determines the level of communications for said cellular network control channel based upon the status of said busy idle bits.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein each of said remote communications devices transmits said acknowledgment message to said MSC when said level for said communications is below a certain minimum threshold.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of said remote communications devices includes a clock that outputs a clock signal upon expiration of a time interval.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein said time interval is different for each of said remote communications devices.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein each of said remote communications devices is responsive to said clock signal to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein each of said remote communications devices is responsive to said clock signal to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC.

18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of said remote communications devices includes a clock that outputs a clock signal upon expiration of a time interval, said remote communications devices responsive to said clock signal to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC via said cellular network control channel.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein each of said remote communications devices monitors said cellular network control channel to detect a stream of busy idle bits for a predetermined time period, each of said busy idle bits indicating whether a cellular source has initiated a cellular communication with said MSC via said cellular network control channel during a particular time interval, and determines the level of communications for said cellular network control channel based upon the status of said busy idle bits.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein each of said remote communications devices, responsive to said clock signal, delays transmitting said acknowledgment message to said MSC until said level for said communications is below a certain minimum threshold.

21. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said acknowledgment message is formatted to represent an extended protocol message in accordance with EIA/FIA-553.

22. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein each of said remote communications devices monitors said cellular network control channel to detect a stream of busy idle bits for a predetermined time period, each of said busy idle bits indicating whether a cellular source has initiated a cellular communication with said MSC via said cellular network control channel during a particular time interval, and calculates a running average of said busy idle bits for said predetermined time period and an average of last "n" counts of said busy idle bits for said predetermined time period.

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein each of said remote communications devices transmits said acknowledgment message to said MSC when said average of last "n" counts of said busy idle bits is less than stored running average of said busy idle bits.

24. In or for a cellular mobile radiotelephone system (CMR) for communicating with cellular radiotelephones, a paging acknowledgment system for communicating paging messages and acknowledgments to confirm reception of said paging messages, said paging acknowledgment system comprising:

at least one paging terminal, responsive to said paging messages, for preparing data messages corresponding to said paging messages and transmitting said data messages via a radiopaging communications path;

a plurality of remote communications devices for receiving said data messages via said radiopaging communications path, each of said data messages containing an address that uniquely identifies one of said remote communications devices, each of said remote communications device responsive to a selected one of said data messages containing its associated address for transmitting via a cellular network control channel of said CMR system an acknowledgment message that confirms reception of said selected data message, said acknowledgment message formatted as an identification signal transmitted by one of said cellular radiotelephones when said cellular radiotelephone identifies itself to said CMR system;

at least one mobile switching center (MSC) for receiving said acknowledgment message via said cellular network control channel from each of said remote communications devices; and

a data collection system for receiving said acknowledgment message from said MSC via a first communications link, said data collection operative to forward said acknowledgment message to said paging terminal,

wherein said paging terminal is further operative to process said acknowledgment message and to determine whether said acknowledgment message corresponds to a particular one of said data messages.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein said paging terminal, responsive to a determination that said acknowledgment message corresponds to said particular data message, outputs a confirmation message to a paging party who initiated one of said paging messages corresponding to said particular data message, said confirmation message supplying verification of reception of said selected data message by said remote communications device.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein said paging terminal, responsive to a decision that said acknowledgment message corresponds to said particular data message, outputs a confirmation message for storage by a memory storage device connected to said paging terminal, said stored confirmation message supplying verification of reception of said selected data message.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein said memory storage device is accessible by a paging party who initiated one of said paging messages corresponding to said particular data message to enable said paging party to read said stored confirmation message.

28. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each of said data messages corresponds to one of said paging messages and comprises said address that uniquely identifies a selected one of said remote communications devices, an acknowledgment code that uniquely identifies said corresponding paging message, and paging data supplied by a paging party who initiated said corresponding paging message and intended for communication to a user associated with said selected remote communications device.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein said acknowledgment message comprises said acknowledgment code.

30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein said acknowledgment message further comprises operation data supplied by said user and intended for communication to said paging party.

31. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein said acknowledgment message comprises said acknowledgment code and operation data supplied by said user and intended for communication to said paging party.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein said identification signal comprises data fields for a mobile telephone number and an electronic serial number (ESN), said acknowledgment code corresponding to at least a portion of said mobile telephone number and said operation data corresponding to at least a portion of said ESN.

33. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein said paging terminal is further operative to assign said acknowledgment code to each of said data messages and to output said acknowledgment code to a memory storage device for storage as a stored acknowledgment code.

34. The apparatus of claim 33, wherein said paging terminal determines whether said acknowledgment message corresponds to said particular data message by comparing said acknowledgment code contained in said acknowledgment message to said stored acknowledgment code associated with said particular data message.

35. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each of said remote communications devices monitors said cellular network control channel to detect a stream of busy idle bits for a predetermined time period, each of said busy idle bits indicating whether a cellular source has initiated a cellular communication with said MSC via said cellular network control channel during a particular time interval, and determines the level of communications for said cellular network control channel based upon the status of said busy idle bits.

36. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein each of said remote communications devices transmits said acknowledgment message to said MSC when said level for said communications is below a certain minimum threshold.

37. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each of said remote communications devices includes a clock that outputs a clock signal upon expiration of a time interval.

38. The apparatus of claim 37, wherein said time interval is different for each of said remote communications devices.

39. The apparatus of claim 38, wherein each of said remote communications devices is responsive to said clock signal to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC.

40. The apparatus of claim 37, wherein each of said remote communications devices is responsive to said clock signal to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC.

41. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each of said remote communications devices includes a clock that outputs a clock signal upon expiration of a time interval, said remote communications devices responsive to said clock signal to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC via said cellular network control channel.

42. The apparatus of claim 41, wherein each of said remote communications devices monitors said cellular network control channel to detect a stream of busy idle bits for a predetermined time period, each of said busy idle bits indicating whether a cellular source has initiated a cellular communication with said MSC via said cellular network control channel during a particular time interval, and determines the level of communications for said cellular network control channel based upon the status of said busy idle bits.

43. The apparatus of claim 42, wherein each of said remote communications devices, responsive to said clock signal, delays transmitting said acknowledgment message to said MSC until said level for said communications is below a certain minimum threshold.

44. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein said acknowledgment message is formatted to represent an extended protocol message in accordance with EIA/TIA-553.

45. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein each of said remote communications devices monitors said cellular network control channel to detect a stream of busy idle bits for a predetermined time period, each of said busy idle bits indicating whether a cellular source has initiated a cellular communication with said MSC via said cellular network control channel during a particular time interval, and calculates and stores a running average of said busy idle bits for said predetermined time period and an average of last "n" counts of busy idle bits for said predetermined time period,

each of said remote communications devices operative to transmit said acknowledgment message to said MSC when said stored average of last "n" counts of said busy idle bits is less than said stored running average of said busy idle bits.

46. In or for a cellular mobile radiotelephone system (CMR) for communicating with cellular radiotelephones, a paging acknowledgment system for communicating paging messages and acknowledgments to confirm reception of said paging messages, said paging acknowledgment system comprising:

a data collection system, responsive to said paging messages, for preparing and transmitting data messages corresponding to said paging messages;

at least one radiopaging terminal, responsive to said data messages, for transmitting said data messages via a radiopaging communications path;

a plurality of remote communications devices for receiving said data messages via said radiopaging communications path, each of said data messages containing an address that uniquely identifies one of said remote communications devices, each of said remote communications device responsive to a selected one of said data messages containing its associated address for transmitting via a cellular network control channel of said CMR system an acknowledgement message that confirms reception of said selected data message, said acknowledgement message formatted as an identification signal transmitted by one of the cellular radiotelephones when said cellular radiotelephone identifies itself to said CMR system; and

at least one mobile switching center (MSC) for receiving said acknowledgement message via said cellular network control channel from each of said remote communications devices, said MSC operative to transmit said acknowledgement message via a first communications l