COMMUNIQUE SYSTEM FOR VIRTUAL PRIVATE NARROWCASTS IN CELLULAR COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

• Main Authors: GRAZIANO, JAMES, M, MCKENNA, DANIEL, B
• Format: Patent
• Language: English; French; German
• Published: 17.06.2009
• Subjects: BROADCAST COMMUNICATION; ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE; ELECTRICITY; TRANSMISSION; TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHICCOMMUNICATION; WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS

The communiqué system for private virtual narrowcasts operates with existing cellular communication networks to provide private virtual narrowcast communication services, that are initiated by a narrowcast host, to subscribers. The Communiqué can be unidirectional (broadcast) or bi-directional (interactive) in nature and the extent of the Communiqué is narrowcast, where cells and/or cell sectors are grouped to cover a predetermined geographic area or demographic population or subscriber interest group to transmit information to a private group of subscribers who populate the target audience for the narrowcast transmissions. The grouping of cells to form the communiqué coverage area for the narrowcast transmissions need not be contiguous and can comprise dynamic combinations of contiguous and non-contiguous cells as well as combinations of in-building wireless coverage areas, standard terrestrial cells, non-terrestrial cells, orchestrated in a hierarchical manner. The private virtual narrowcasts use the code, frequency and time domains to enable multiple users to share the same wireless resource in a manner that, from the users perspective, has dedicated spectrum or channel capacity to their particular application. The applications can include asymmetric bi-directional communications where private virtual narrowcasts stimulate the generation of point-to-point responses from subscriber terminal devices.