WO2016058383A1

WO2016058383A1 - Traffic control method and apparatus

Info

Publication number: WO2016058383A1
Application number: PCT/CN2015/079298
Authority: WO
Inventors: 钟安利; 孙晓宇; 任斌
Original assignee: 中兴通讯股份有限公司
Priority date: 2014-10-17
Filing date: 2015-05-19
Publication date: 2016-04-21
Also published as: CN105578450A

Abstract

Disclosed are a traffic control method and apparatus. The method comprises: acquiring, by a terminal, a package traffic plan of a user; and performing, by the terminal, calculation on data traffic received and/or sent by an air interface, and performing, when the used user data traffic reaches a package traffic plan value, network disconnection processing on the terminal.

Description

Flow control method and device

Technical field

This document relates to virtual carrier technology, especially a flow control method and device.

Background technique

With the injection of private capital into traditional telecom operators, a large number of virtual operators (VNOs, Virtual Network Operators) have participated in the construction of wireless communications. A virtual operator is an operator that does not have its own communication infrastructure and uses traditional telecom providers to implement communication services. By leasing the relevant infrastructure to traditional operators, virtual operators establish their own communication services to provide consumers with more personalized services. Virtual operators do not have their own communication technology equipment and technical support, and services rely on traditional operators to achieve.

Because virtual operators cannot use the traditional telecom operator's billing management system, one of the problems faced by virtual operators is how to manage the use of user traffic. If the virtual operator builds its own billing management system, it will face problems such as insufficient expenses and operational management experience. Therefore, how to implement billing for services provided by virtual operators has become an urgent problem to be solved.

Summary of the invention

The embodiment of the invention provides a flow control method and device, which can implement the management of the user's traffic usage by the virtual operator simply and conveniently, and reduce the investment of the virtual operator to the self-built charging management system.

A flow control method comprising:

The terminal acquires a user's package flow plan;

The terminal performs statistics on the data traffic received and/or sent by the air interface, and when the used user data traffic reaches the package traffic plan value, the terminal is disconnected from the network.

Optionally, the method further includes: when the terminal is used for the first time, the activation is completed by performing registration on the website of the operator, and the website backend notifies the terminal in the form of a short message after the registration is completed; the content of the short message includes the package flow plan. .

Optionally, the acquiring the user's package flow plan includes:

The activated short message is converted into a short message data structure stored in the extensible markup language XML file, and the short message content is parsed to obtain the package flow plan and stored in the nonvolatile memory NVM of the terminal.

Optionally, the statistics include: presetting two global variables, respectively, for recording data traffic received and sent by the air interface;

The data traffic received and/or sent by the recorded air interface is the real-time accumulated traffic of the terminal since the data is started to be recorded.

Optionally, the method further includes: setting a timer to periodically write the flow value obtained by the accumulated traffic into the NVM of the terminal;

The upper application reads the traffic global variable according to the preset calling rule to obtain the used traffic information, and displays the used traffic information in real time.

Optionally, the performing network disconnection processing on the terminal includes: executing an underlying data service DS module application program interface API to deactivate the network.

Optionally, the method further includes: detecting validity of the subscriber identity module SIM in the terminal, and prohibiting the user from using the terminal when the SIM is illegal.

Optionally, the legality of the SIM in the detecting terminal includes: checking whether the SIM is a specific carrier card, and whether it is a specific prepaid card, and if any of the checks is not satisfied, the SIM card is considered to be illegal.

Optionally, the method further includes: when the SIM card is illegal, reminding the user by the upper application that the terminal is in a locked Lock state.

Optionally, when the user sends a text message change to the website, or adds a package traffic plan, the website sends a short message to the terminal to confirm the new package flow plan; the method further includes:

The terminal parses the received update short message, and after detecting the traffic plan change, the terminal re-dials the network.

A flow control device is disposed in the terminal, where the flow control device includes at least an air interface interaction OTA module, a traffic statistics module, and a dial management pdp management module;

The OTA module is configured to parse the received activated short message, and store the parsed package traffic plan into the security area of the terminal;

The traffic statistics module is configured to perform statistics on data traffic received and/or sent by the air interface; compare the used user data traffic and the package traffic plan value in real time, and when the used user data traffic reaches the package traffic plan value, Sending a disconnection message to the pdp management module;

The pdp management module is configured to perform an underlying DS module API to deactivate the network when receiving the disconnection message from the traffic statistics module.

Optionally, the device further includes a user identity card lock SIM Lock module, configured to detect the legitimacy of the user identity module SIM in the terminal, and when the SIM is illegal, prohibiting the user from using the terminal, and The OTA module, the traffic statistics module, and the pdp management module send a stop notification.

Optionally, the SIM Lock module is further configured to send a startup notification to the OTA module, the traffic statistics module, and the pdp management module when checking that the SIM is legal.

Optionally, the SIM Lock module is further configured to remind the user by the upper application that the terminal is in a locked Lock state.

Optionally, the OTA module is configured to

The received activation short message is converted into a short message data structure stored in the XML file, and the short message content is parsed to obtain the package flow plan and stored in the NVM of the terminal.

Optionally, the traffic statistics module is further configured with a timer, configured to periodically write the statistical traffic value into the NVM of the terminal;

The traffic value after the statistics is the data traffic received or sent by the air interface of the record is the real-time accumulated traffic of the terminal since the data is started to be recorded.

Optionally, the OTA module is further configured to parse the received update short message, and notify the pdp management module after detecting the traffic plan change;

The pdp management module is further configured to invoke a dialing interface to cause the terminal to re-dial the network.

A computer readable storage medium storing program instructions that, when executed, can implement the method of any of the above.

The traffic control method and device in the embodiment of the present invention implement the operator charging management in the terminal, and implement the management of the user traffic usage by the virtual operator simply and conveniently, and reduce the virtual operator's self-built charging management. Systematic investment. The invention realizes adaptive management of traffic by the terminal In case of use, the operator's self-built maintenance billing system is omitted, which is especially suitable for virtual operator services.

BRIEF abstract

The drawings described herein are intended to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are intended to be a part of the invention. In the drawing:

1 is a schematic structural diagram of a flow control device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a flow control method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Embodiments of the invention

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be noted that, in the case of no conflict, the features in the embodiments and the embodiments in the present application may be arbitrarily combined with each other.

When the user uses the terminal for the first time, it needs to register on the VNO website. After the registration is completed, the website background can send an activation message to the terminal in the form of a short message, and notify the terminal of the service information. The service information includes a package flow plan.

1 is a schematic structural diagram of a flow control device according to an embodiment of the present invention. The flow control device of the present invention is located above an existing terminal service (PHONE SERVICES), and can use the services provided by each module of the PHONESERVICES, and each module provides an application through the package. Program interface (API). When the user first uses the terminal, the activation needs to be completed by registering on the operator's website. After the registration is completed, the website background can notify the terminal by SMS, and the short message content includes the package flow plan.

As shown in FIG. 1 , the flow control device of the embodiment of the present invention is disposed in a terminal, and includes at least an air interface interaction (OTA) module, a traffic statistics module, a dial management module (also referred to as a pdp management module), and a user identity card lock ( SIM Lock) module;

The OTA module is configured to parse the received activation SMS and store the parsed package traffic plan in the security zone of the terminal.

The OTA module converts the received activation message into an SMS data structure stored in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file, and parses the SMS content to obtain the package traffic plan and stores it in the terminal's non-volatile memory (NVM). So the terminal gets the user package traffic plan. among them, The text message content can start with 7E. For example, the 500M package traffic message format is: 7E F*5007E.

The traffic statistics module is configured to collect statistics on the data traffic received and/or sent by the air interface (called um iface) (in bytes) to obtain the used user data traffic, that is, as long as the data passes through the um iface, the statistics are performed. Does not confirm whether the network receives such data, such as retransmission or network signal is not good, the network can not receive the data, but the data is only um iface is counted; real-time comparison of used user data traffic and The package traffic plan value (S), when it is found that the used user data traffic reaches the package traffic plan value, sends a disconnection message to the pdp management module.

In the actual application, two global variables can be defined in the traffic statistics module to record the data traffic received and sent by the air interface. The data traffic received and/or sent by the recorded air interface is the real-time accumulated traffic of the terminal since the data is recorded.

When the package traffic plan includes uplink and downlink traffic, the data traffic received and sent by the air interface must be counted. When the package browsing plan includes only downlink or uplink traffic, it only needs to count the data traffic received or sent by the air interface.

To prevent the user from shutting down abnormally, the traffic statistics module is also configured with a timer to periodically write the calculated traffic value to the NVM of the terminal. The traffic value after the statistics is the data traffic received or sent by the recorded air interface. The terminal accumulates traffic in real time since the data is recorded. For example, the flow value is written to the NVM at intervals of 1 s. In this way, upper-layer applications such as the Web UI can read traffic global variables according to specific calling rules (such as 1s) and display the used traffic information to the user in real time. A person skilled in the art knows that the Web UI is an interaction interface between the terminal and the user. For a non-screen terminal such as a CPE or a router, the device parameters can be set through the Web UI, and the Web UI can be opened by a browser such as an IE.

The pdp management module is configured to perform an underlying data service (DS, Data Service) module API to deactivate the network even if the terminal is disconnected from the network when receiving the disconnected network message from the traffic statistics module. The SIM Lock module is configured to detect the legality of the SIM card in the terminal, including whether the SIM card is a specific carrier card or a specific prepaid card, wherein the user is prohibited from using the terminal as long as any one of the checks is not satisfied. And sending a stop notification to the OTA module, the traffic statistics module, and the pdp management module; when the SIM card is legal, sending a start notification to the OTA module, the traffic statistics module, and the pdp management module; and at the same time, the user can be reminded by the upper layer application, such as the Web UI, the terminal Locked (Lock) status.

Alternatively, the user may also change or add the package flow plan by sending a text message to the website background. At this point, the website background will send a text message to the OTA module to confirm the new package traffic plan.

The OTA module is further configured to parse the received update short message, and notify the pdp management module after detecting the traffic plan change;

The pdp management module is also set to invoke the dial-up interface to enable the terminal to re-dial the network.

2 is a flowchart of a flow control method according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the method includes:

Step 200: The terminal acquires a package traffic plan of the user.

Before this step, the user needs to complete the activation by registering on the operator's website for the first time. After the registration is completed, the website background can notify the terminal by SMS, and the short message content includes the package flow plan.

The package flow plan for obtaining users in this step includes:

The received activation SMS is parsed, and the parsed package traffic plan is stored in the security zone of the device. Optionally, after receiving the activated short message, the short message data structure is converted into an XML file, and the short message content is parsed to obtain a package flow plan and stored in the NVM of the terminal, so that the terminal obtains the user package traffic plan. Among them, the short message content can start with 7E, for example, the 500M package traffic short message format is: 7E F*5007E.

Step 201: Perform statistics on the data traffic received or sent by the air interface. When the used user data traffic reaches the package traffic plan value, the terminal is disconnected from the network.

In this step, the user data traffic that has been used includes the sum of the traffic sent and received.

In this step, as long as the data is um iface, the data is not confirmed whether the network receives the data. For example, if the network is not retransmitted or the network signal is not good, the network cannot receive the data, but the data only needs to pass the um iface. It was carried out statistics. The statistics may include: presetting two global variables for recording the uplink/downlink data respectively, and recording the uplink/downlink data as the real-time accumulated traffic of the terminal since the data is started to be recorded; wherein, the uplink data is the transmitted data, and the downlink data is the received data. The data.

This step interrupt network processing includes: executing the underlying DS module API to deactivate the network

The step further includes: setting a timer, such as writing the flow value to the NVM according to the period of the timer, such as 1 s interval. In this way, upper-layer applications such as the Web UI can read traffic global variables according to specific calling rules (such as 1s) and display the used traffic information to the user in real time. A person skilled in the art knows that the Web UI is an interaction interface between the terminal and the user. For a non-screen terminal such as a CPE or a router, the device parameters can be set through the Web UI, and the Web UI can be opened by a browser such as an IE.

The step 200 may further include: detecting the validity of the SIM card in the terminal, including whether the SIM card is a specific carrier card and a specific prepaid card, wherein the user is prohibited from using the The terminal can remind the user through the upper layer application, such as the Web UI, that the terminal is in the Lock state; when the SIM card is legal, the user can use the terminal.

When the user changes or adds the package traffic plan by sending a text message to the background of the website, the website background sends a short message to the terminal to confirm the new package flow plan. The method in the embodiment of the present invention may include:

The terminal parses the received update short message, and after detecting the change of the traffic plan, invokes the dialing interface to enable the terminal to dial the network again.

The embodiment of the present invention further provides a terminal, including a processor and a memory, where the memory stores a designation, and when the designation is executed, the terminal may be caused to perform the steps in the method of the embodiment of the present invention.

The traffic control apparatus and method in the embodiment of the present invention implement carrier billing management in the terminal, and implement the management of user traffic usage by the virtual operator simply and conveniently, and reduce the virtual operator's self-built billing management. Systematic investment. The embodiment of the invention realizes that the terminal adaptively manages the traffic usage, and the operator self-built maintenance and charging system is omitted, which is particularly suitable for the virtual operator service.

One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that all or a portion of the steps of the above-described embodiments can be implemented using a computer program flow, which can be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as on a corresponding hardware platform (eg, The system, device, device, device, etc. are executed, and when executed, include one or a combination of the steps of the method embodiments.

Alternatively, all or part of the steps of the above embodiments may also be implemented by using an integrated circuit. These steps may be separately fabricated into individual integrated circuit modules, or multiple modules or steps may be fabricated into a single integrated circuit module. achieve. The devices/function modules/functional units in the above embodiments may be implemented by using a general-purpose computing device, which may be concentrated on a single computing device, It can be distributed over a network of multiple computing devices.

When the device/function module/functional unit in the above embodiment is implemented in the form of a software function module and sold or used as a stand-alone product, it can be stored in a computer readable storage medium. The above mentioned computer readable storage medium may be a read only memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk or the like.

Industrial applicability

The embodiment of the invention realizes that the terminal adaptively manages the traffic usage, and the operator self-built maintenance and charging system is omitted, which is particularly suitable for the virtual operator service.

Claims

A flow control method comprising:

The terminal acquires a user's package flow plan;

The terminal performs statistics on the data traffic received and/or sent by the air interface, and when the used user data traffic reaches the package traffic plan value, the terminal is disconnected from the network.
The flow control method according to claim 1, further comprising: when the terminal is used for the first time, the activation is completed by registering on the website of the operator, and the website backend notifies the terminal in the form of a short message after the registration is completed; The content includes the package flow plan.
The flow control method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the acquiring the user's package flow plan comprises:

The activated short message is converted into a short message data structure stored in the extensible markup language XML file, and the short message content is parsed to obtain the package flow plan and stored in the nonvolatile memory NVM of the terminal.
The flow control method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the statistics comprise: presetting two global variables for recording data traffic received and sent by the air interface;

The data traffic received and/or sent by the recorded air interface is the real-time accumulated traffic of the terminal since the data is started to be recorded.
The flow control method according to claim 4, further comprising: setting a timer to periodically write the flow value obtained by the accumulated traffic into the NVM of the terminal;

The upper application reads the traffic global variable according to the preset calling rule to obtain the used traffic information, and displays the used traffic information in real time.
The flow control method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the performing the network disconnection processing on the terminal comprises: executing an underlying data service DS module application program interface API to deactivate the network.
The flow control method according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: detecting validity of the subscriber identity module SIM in the terminal, and prohibiting the user from using the terminal when the SIM is illegal.
The flow control method according to claim 7, wherein said detecting a SIM in the terminal The legality includes: checking whether the SIM is a specific carrier card, and whether it is a specific prepaid card, and if any of the checks is not satisfied, the SIM card is considered illegal.
The flow control method according to claim 8, further comprising: when the SIM card is illegal, alerting the user through an upper application that the terminal is in a locked Lock state.
The flow control method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein when the user sends a text message change to the website or adds a package flow plan, the website background sends a short message to the terminal to confirm a new package flow plan; The method also includes:

The terminal parses the received update short message, and after detecting the traffic plan change, the terminal re-dials the network.
A flow control device is disposed in the terminal, where the flow control device includes at least an air interface interaction OTA module, a traffic statistics module, and a dial management pdp management module;

The OTA module is configured to parse the received activated short message, and store the parsed package traffic plan into the security area of the terminal;

The traffic statistics module is configured to perform statistics on data traffic received and/or sent by the air interface; compare the used user data traffic and the package traffic plan value in real time, and when the used user data traffic reaches the package traffic plan value, Sending a disconnection message to the pdp management module;

The pdp management module is configured to perform an underlying DS module API to deactivate the network when receiving the disconnection message from the traffic statistics module.
The flow control device according to claim 11, further comprising a user identity card lock SIM Lock module configured to detect the legitimacy of the subscriber identity module SIM in the terminal, and prohibiting the user from using the terminal when the SIM is illegal And sending a stop notification to the OTA module, the traffic statistics module, and the pdp management module.
The flow control device according to claim 12, wherein the SIM Lock module is further configured to send a start to the OTA module, the traffic statistics module, and the pdp management module when the SIM is legally checked. Notice.
The flow control device according to claim 13, wherein the SIM Lock module is further configured to alert the user through the upper application that the terminal is in a locked Lock state.
A flow control device according to any one of claims 11 or 14, wherein said OTA The module is set to,

The received activation short message is converted into a short message data structure stored in the XML file, and the short message content is parsed to obtain the package flow plan and stored in the NVM of the terminal.
The flow control device according to any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the traffic statistics module is further provided with a timer, which is configured to periodically write the statistical flow value into the NVM of the terminal;

The traffic value after the statistics is the data traffic received or sent by the air interface of the record is the real-time accumulated traffic of the terminal since the data is started to be recorded.
The flow control device according to any one of claims 11 to 14, wherein the OTA module is further configured to parse the received update short message, and notify the pdp management module after detecting a traffic plan change;

The pdp management module is further configured to invoke a dialing interface to cause the terminal to re-dial the network.
A computer readable storage medium storing program instructions that, when executed, can implement the method of any of claims 1-10.