Handset based dynamic parental controls
Contents
1. CONTACTS DATA STORAGE s FIGURE 2 U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 3 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 CHILD COMMUNICATIONS STATUS 1 OO SELECT CHILD MOBILE STATION 11 10 Mew Active Carts 120 CANCEL ACTIVE Catt 121 BREAK IN TO ACTIVE CALL 122 LISTEN TO ACTIVE CaLL 123 Review Cart History CI 30 Catt Loo 131 MINUTES USED 132 CHILD COMMUNICATIONS SETUP 200 SETUP Link with CHILO MOBILE STATION 210 ENTER MNEMONIC NAME 220 DISABLE LINK WITH CHILD MOBILE STATION 230 SELECT DEDICATED TELEPHONE NUMBER 240 Lust ASSOCIATED PARENT MOBILE STATIONS 250 PREFERENCES 300 Quick PREFERENCES 310 NOTIFY OF ALL INBOUND AND OUTBOUND Carus 1 SCREEN ALL INBOUND AND OUTBOUND CALLS 31 2 SCREEN ALL OUTBOUND CALLS 313 DETAILED PREFERENCES 320 SELECT TELEPHONE NUMBER 321 SELECT TELEPHONE NUMBER OPTIONS 322 INBOUND SETTINGS 323 ALWAYS ALLOW 324 OUTBOUND SETTINGS 336 ALWAYS ALLOW 337 ALWAYS SCREEN 338 ALWAYS SCREEN 325 Awars BLOCK 339 ALWAYS BLOCK 326 CONDITIONAL SETTINGS 340 CONDITIONAL SETTINGS 327 SELECT CONDITION 341 SELECT CONDITION 328 MINUTES EXCEEDED 342 MINUTES EXCEEDED 329 NUMBER OF CALLS EXCEEDED 343 THRESHOLD Minutes 330 SELECT ACTION 344 NUMBER OF CALLS EXCEEDED 331 Brock 345 THRESHOLD NUMBER 332 SCREEN CALL 348 SELECT ACTION2. a user may be provided with the option of how to handle calls that are not connected with the child mobile station selection 360 For example blocked calls may nevertheless be permitted to connect with a voice messaging service associated with the child mobile station selection 362 or alternatively such calls may be canceled altogether selection 363 The parent mobile station may also provide the option of enabling an operator mode selection 361 in which the parent speaks to one or both parties before permitting a call to be connected with a child mobile station A displayed notification that a call is being made to or from a child mobile station is preferably in the form of a dialog box displayed on a touch screen of the parent mobile station Display of this notification may depending on user settings 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 be accompanied by a vibration and or auditory alert exemplary notification used for screening calls is illustrated in FIG 4 In the notification of FIG 4 a dialog box 80 displays information about an inbound caller including the caller s name 82 and telephone number 84 The dialog box further displays one or more command buttons 86 88 offering the user of the parent mobile station to permit a connection by selecting button 88 or to cancel the inbound call by selecting button 86 The notification may further include a reminder not shown of wheth
3. individual is equipped with com patible accessory nodes such as a PDA Personal Digital Assistant or telephone handset or headset the accessory nodes communicate with the wireless telecommunications network through the gateway In this way the compatible accessories can expend only a small amount of power com municating with the nearby gateway rather than the larger amount of power that would be necessary to communicate directly with for example a more distant base transceiver station BTS of a wireless telecommunications network One partial implementation of the personal mobile gate way concept is the use of a Bluetooth enabled mobile tele phone to serve as a wireless modem to provide an Internet connection for a nearby Bluetooth enabled laptop computer To avoid unauthorized use of one s mobile telephone to estab lish an Internet connection the mobile telephone generally prompts its user for authorization to accept such a connection In this rapidly advancing world of wireless communica tions it is expected to become ever more difficult for parents to protect and exercise control over their children who have access to such communications SUMMARY A parent mobile station is provided that enables parental control over communications with at least one associated child mobile station In a preferred embodiment the parent mobile station receives requests for inbound and outbound calls with third parties to and from the c
4. mobile station establishes a wireless data link 616 with a service provider 614 and the parent mobile station retrieves from a content provider such as a Web server among other examples the content addressed by the URL of the request Once the parent mobile station 610 has retrieved the child requested content the content is displayed in a browser win dow 618 of the mobile station In this way the parent user can view the content such as a Web page before it is delivered to the child mobile station The browser window 618 of the mobile station presents input options to the parent user such as command buttons to determine whether to block the con tent button 620 or to approve the multimedia content for forwarding to the child mobile station button 622 If the content is approved the content is sent by the parent mobile station 610 over a wireless link 624 to the child mobile station 624 and displayed in a browser window 626 which may bea refreshed version of the browser window 604 If the content is not approved the parent mobile station may inform the child mobile station 604 over a wireless link 630 that the content is not approved or the parent mobile station may simply decline to provide any data to the child mobile station which by default prevents successful viewing of the content The child may be informed in a browser window 628 which may be a refreshed version of the browser window 604 that permission to view the co
5. mobile stations 26 28 are also provided The parent mobile station 24 exchanges two way voice communications with the base transceiver station 22 and the child mobile stations 26 28 exchange two way voice communications with the parent mobile station 24 The parent and child mobile stations may be arranged as nodes in a hub and spoke architecture 30 with the parent mobile station serving as the hub In such an arrangement two way voice communications between child mobile sta tions and the wireless telecommunications network are car ried out through the parent mobile station without additional intervening nodes In an alternative embodiment parent and child mobile stations are arranged in a mesh network architecture 32 which may be an ad hoc network In such an embodiment a child mobile station such as child mobile station 34 may communicate with the wireless telecommunications network through one or more other nodes in the mesh network such as nodes 36 and 40 among others The network protocol how ever is selected such that at least one of the nodes through which child mobile station communicates is a parent mobile station such as parent mobile station 38 that is associated with that child mobile station This routing protocol may be enforced by for example encrypting communications to and from the child mobile station such that only a parent mobile station can decrypt those communications In some embodi ments a mesh ne
6. only on the last fifty or some other number calls and the amount of time which may be a number of minutes used may be cleared at the end of each 0 30 40 45 55 8 billing cycle or at another configurable interval Call history information is preferably stored at the parent mobile station The parent mobile station further provides a child commu nications setup menu selection selection 200 This selection enables the mobile station to setup selection 210 or disable selection 230 associations with a child mobile station Prox imity to an un associated child mobile station may trigger a parent mobile station to prompt its user as to whether it should associate itself with the child mobile station Ifa child mobile station is identified with a hardware serial number or other difficult to remember designation a user of the parent mobile station may enter a mnemonic selection 220 associated with the child mobile station In an embodiment in which the parent mobile station is assigned two or more telephone num bers menu options on the parent mobile station preferably enable selective assignment of one or more of those telephone numbers to one or more of the child mobile stations selection 240 such that calls to a child mobile station can be made over the public switched telephone network by dialing such an assigned telephone number the success of such calls in estab lishing a connection being subject to the contr
7. party wherein the system is operable in response to a determi nation by the authority control logic to permit the voice communications to enable a voice connection between a user of the child mobile station and the third party using the microphone and speaker as transducers the voice connection being routed through the parent mobile station 11 A system comprising a parent mobile station wherein the parent mobile station comprises wireless communication circuitry capable of communicat ing i with a content provider over a wireless telecom munications network and 11 with an associated child mobile station a display authority control logic operative i to detect a request by the associated child mobile station to retrieve content from the content provider ii to cause the requested content to be retrieved by the parent mobile station 111 to cause the requested content to be displayed on the parent mobile station iv to cause a request for user input regarding the requested content to be displayed on the parent mobile station and v based on the user input to a cause the wireless communication circuitry to send the content to the child mobile station or to b prevent the content from being sent to the child mobile station 12 The system of claim 11 further comprising the associ ated child mobile station the child mobile station comprising a display child wireless communication circuitry capable of commu nicati
8. such 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 14 content has previously been previewed and blocked by the parent user subsequent attempts by the child user to view the content may be blocked without requiring a preview In some embodiments a parent s response to particular previewed content may be supplied to an adaptive learning algorithm that determines whether similar content e g content at the same or similar URLs or content including similar charac teristic words and phrases will require parental previewing in the future Inferences made from a parent user s previous responses may be just one factor among others for determin ing whether particular content requires previewing Some embodiments may operate as described in FIG 8 with the addition of other command buttons such as a button not shown displayed in the preview window 618 that corre sponds to a Not Now choice In such an embodiment the selection of the Not Now button prevents the child user from accessing the requested content but does not mark the content as being inappropriate For example a parent user can select the Not Now button to prevent a child user from accessing a sports or entertainment Web site when the child user is supposed to be doing homework but the URL of the requested Web site will not be blacklisted and it will not be provided to the adaptive learning algorithm as an example of inappropriate conte
9. to com municate wirelessly with others on for example the public switched telephone network PSTN without having a direct physical link to the wireless telecommunications network For example the child mobile station may not be provided with the RF circuitry necessary to establish radio communi cations with base transceiver stations of the wireless telecom munications network or the child mobile station may not be associated with any active account so that attempts to register wireless telecommunications network would be unsuc cessful As communications from the child mobile station are routed through the parent mobile station the parent is able to exercise direct control over the child s communications In particular it is preferred that at least a substantial portion and preferably all of the voice data exchanged in a connec tion between a child mobile station and a third party is routed through the parent mobile station That is the voice data itself not merely signaling data used to set up a call is conveyed through the parent mobile station The restrictions implemented by a parent mobile station may be implemented in a variety of ways Restrictions may be preset such that any call from the child mobile station or any call made from an outside caller to reach the child mobile station will not be successful in establishing a connection unless the call satisfies preset conditions The preset condi tions may in
10. when a call is less likely to be permitted The authority control logic may further report the outcome of attempted outbound calls from the child mobile station For example the authority control logic may report that an attempted call was blocked by parental controls thereby discouraging a second attempt by the user ofthe child mobile station who otherwise may have thought that the call failed because of network problems Insome embodiments the parent and child mobile stations may have identical hardware but may be configured differ ently such that for example the child mobile station is per mitted to communicate with the wireless telecommunications network only through an associated parent mobile station These different configurations may be provided by for example different SIM or USIM Universal Subscriber Identity Module cards different software different informa tion provided during provisioning and or other options D An Exemplary Parental Control Method 1 An Outbound Call Method As illustrated in FIG 6 the user of a child mobile station dials a telephone number associated with a third party step 500 The child mobile station transmits the telephone num ber to a parent mobile station in a call request step 502 The parent mobile station receives the call request including the telephone number step 504 The parent mobile station then searches through a local database or other contact informa tion to identi
11. 333 BLOCK CALL 3 34 SCREEN CALL 335 NOTIFICATION PREFERENCES 350 NOTIFICATION 35 1 AUDIO 352 VIBRATE 353 Display 354 SHOW CALLED CALLING NUMBER 355 FIG U RE 3 Snow CALLER 356 NS Show MINUTES 357 SHOW REMAINING MINUTES 358 U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 4 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 82 877 555 0554 Tovs MARKETING DIRECT CALLING CHILD PHONE A 84 86 88 90 442 446 N COMMUNICATION CIRCUITRY USER INTERFACE LOGIC COMMUNICATION LOGIC 454 462 FIGURE 5 458 U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 5 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 CHILD MOBILE STATION l PARENT MOBILE STATION DiAL NUMBER 504 SEND NUMBER RECEIVE 502 IN CALL REQUEST CALL REQUEST FIND NAME 500 506 DISPLAY NOTIFICATION sio 508 RECEIVE PERMIT INSTRUCTION RECEIVE CANCEL INSTRUCTION CANCEL CALL 514 ESTABLISH CONNECTION WITH THIRD PARTY 516 518 1 ESTABLISH CONNECTION ESTABLISH CONNECTION WITH PARENT MOBILE STATION WITH CHILD MOBILE STATION 54g CONDUCT VOICE COMMUNICATIONS WITH THIRD PARTY 512 RELAY COMMUNICATIONS 4 BETWEEN CHILD MOBILE STATION AND THIRD PARTY 520 522 FIGURE U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 6 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 CHILD MOBILE STATION PARENT MOBILE STATION RECEIVE INBOUND CALL SIGNAL 524 I 526 DISPLAY NOTIFICATION l R
12. 8 are also in communication with the user interface logic 454 The user interface logic provides device drivers for audio visual and tactile communications presented to and received from a user The child mobile station is also provided with session control logic 460 which may be SIP logic or another session layer logical interface In a child mobile station the session control logic is operative to establish voice communications sessions with a parent mobile station and in some embodi ments with other child mobile stations The session control logic 460 is operative to establish voice communications in response to one or more of various occurrences such as dialing or selection of a telephone number by a user or notification of an inbound call among others The session control logic 460 and the user interface logic 454 both interface with voice communication logic 462 The voice communication logic 462 is an application layer mod ule supporting voice communications over sessions estab lished by the session control logic A network interface not shown may be employed to provide network layer function ality between the RF circuitry and the voice communication logic The child mobile station may also be provided with author ity control logic not shown in communication with the session control logic and or the voice communication logic to implement at least some access policies governing com munications by the child mobile statio
13. ECEIVE CANCEL INSTRUCTION Ecem 53 4 ESTABLISH CONNECTION WITH THIRD PARTY 538 540 i ESTABLISH CONNECTION ESTABLISH CONNECTION wiTH PARENT MOBILE STATION WITH CHILD MOBILE STATION 540 CONDUCT VOICE COMMUNICATIONS WITH THIRD PARTY 528 RECEIVE PERMIT INSTRUCTION 536 RELAY COMMUNICATIONS t BETWEEN CHILD MOBILE STATION AND THIRD PARTY 542 544 FIGURE 7 U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 7 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 614 Loading Child Requested Content 624 628 Permission Denied FIGURE 8 US 7 869 792 1 HANDSET BASED DYNAMIC PARENTAL CONTROLS BACKGROUND This disclosure relates to wireless communications and in particular to parental control over wireless voice communi cations The instant access to global communications afforded by wireless networking has been shown to have almost immea surable value The technologies that allow people to access enormous amounts of information and to communicate instantly with others though can easily be misused For example it is of particular concern that children not be per mitted access to adult oriented Internet sites and conversely untrustworthy adults should not be permitted to contact chil dren over such networks Moreover even when children s use of network resources is proper it can be excessive as children are known to incur excessive connection charges often
14. ay or may not be notified that the call was canceled because of parental con trols Upon an instruction to permit the inbound call step 536 the parent mobile station establishes communications with the third party step 538 and with the child mobile station step 540 Having setup communications with the third party caller and with the child mobile station the parent mobile station relays communications between the two step 542 such that the third party and the user of the child mobile station can carry out voice communications with one another step 544 US 7 869 792 13 Ifno timely response is entered at the parent mobile station the parent mobile station may perform a default action which in different embodiments and or different configurations may result either in the call being canceled or connected E An Exemplary Multimedia Access Method In the exemplary method illustrated in FIG 8 a child mobile station 602 is provided with Web browser software with an open Web browser window 604 In a text box 606 of the Web browser window 604 a user of the child mobile station 602 enters a URL uniform resource locator of a Web site the child user would like to visit The child mobile station 602 wirelessly sends this URL in a request 608 to an associ ated parent mobile station 610 preferably using a Bluetooth or wireless LAN link A notification 612 is displayed for the user of the parent mobile station 610 The parent
15. az United States Patent Zhou et al US007869792B1 10 Patent No US 7 869 792 B1 45 Date of Patent Jan 11 2011 54 HANDSET BASED DYNAMIC PARENTAL CONTROLS 75 Inventors Tong Zhou Overland Park KS US David Mohan Overland Park KS US Baoquan Zhang Overland Park KS US 73 Assignee Sprint Spectrum L P Overland Park KS US Notice Subject to any disclaimer the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U S C 154 b by 905 days 21 Appl No 11 717 758 22 Filed Mar 13 2007 51 Int CI H04M 1 66 2006 01 H04W 12 00 2009 01 52 US CL 455 411 455 519 455 4143 455 445 455 420 58 Field of Classification Search None See application file for complete search history 56 References Cited U S PATENT DOCUMENTS 7 302 272 B2 11 2007 Ackley 455 414 1 X 7 587 198 B2 9 2009 2005 0164687 Al 7 2005 DiFazio 2005 0282589 Al 12 2005 Barneah 2006 0121951 Al 6 2006 Perdomo et al 2006 0133414 Al 6 2006 Luoma et al 2006 0293057 Al 12 2006 Mazerski et al 455 445 2008 0146211 1 6 2008 Mikan etal 455 419 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Bluetooth Specification Version 1 1 Part K 3 Cordless Telephony Profile Feb 22 2001 Bluetooth Specification Version 1 1 Part F 3 Telephony Control Pro tocol Specification TCS Binary Feb 22 2001 455 414 2 Steve Karty Bluetooth Personal Area Netwo
16. bile station As used herein the verbs preview and display are not intended to be limited only to content that can be seen visually F Alternative Embodiments The modules logic and data storage elements described herein may be implemented through hardware software combination of hardware and software Although the above examples help to elucidate the invention other examples or variations on these examples are possible and consequently the scope of the invention is limited only by the following claims The invention claimed is 1 A system comprising a parent mobile station wherein the parent mobile station comprises US 7 869 792 15 wireless communication circuitry capable of communicat ing 1 with a third party over a wireless telecommuni cations network and ii with an associated child mobile station a display authority control logic operative 1 to detect a request by the associated child mobile station to establish voice communications with a third party the request including a telephone number and to determine whether to permit or deny the voice communications with the third party and voice communication logic operative in response to a determination by the authority control logic to permit the voice communications to relay the permitted voice communications between the third party and the child mobile station through the wireless communication cir cuitry the system
17. clude the identities of authorized and or unau thorized telephone numbers for inbound and or outbound calls and the amount of time the child has spent using the mobile station which may be reset on a periodic e g monthly basis Restrictions may be made on a call by call basis in which information about an inbound and or out bound call is displayed on the parent mobile station giving the parent an opportunity to permit or to block a connection In some instances a parent may optionally act as an tor speaking to an inbound caller before determining whether to relay the connection to the child mobile station Other restrictions may be made in mid connection For example if a child has exceeded the permissible amount of time using the mobile station either cumulatively or in the present connection the call may be disconnected either automatically or by providing call information to the parent who can decide whether or not to terminate the call The 0 5 20 30 35 40 45 50 4 parent may be provided with the capability of breaking into an active connection for example to notify the child that he or she is exceeding his or her allotted time Preferably communications between the parent and the child mobile station are conducted using a wireless local area network WLAN protocol such as an IEEE 802 11 protocol ora wireless personal area network PAN such as Bluetooth In alternati
18. dif ferent areas on the touch screen The notifications preferably indicate the identity by telephone number name or both of a party attempting to call the child mobile station or of a party that the child mobile station is attempting to call Contacts data 70 stored at the parent mobile station may be retrieved to provide a name associated with the telephone number Other information provided to a user of the parent mobile station in a notification or at other times may be call history informa tion suchas a call log stored in a call log data storage 72 at the US 7 869 792 7 parent mobile station Preferably the call log data storage 72 includes separate call log information for calls conducted with a user of the parent mobile station parent data 74 versus calls conducted with a user of the child mobile station child data 76 This separation may be a logical separation As one example of such a logical separation call log data for both the parent and child mobile station may be stored in a single data structure containing a plurality of entries where each entry provides information on a single call and wherein at least some of those entries include a field indicating whether that call was made with the parent mobile station or with the child mobile station In this way call log data for the parent and child is logically separate even if it is interleaved in a particu lar storage medium The authority control int
19. econd inbound call and thereafter relaying voice communications between the child mobile station and the wireless telecommunica tions network through the parent mobile station to con nect the second inbound call with the child mobile sta tion and for at least a third one of the inbound calls determining that the third inbound call is destined for the child mobile station and determining that the child mobile station is not permitted to receive the third inbound call 20 25 30 18 15 The method of claim 14 further comprising after determining that the child mobile station is not permitted to receive the third inbound call canceling the third inbound call 16 The method of claim 14 further comprising after determining that the child mobile station is not permitted to receive the third inbound call enabling the parent mobile station to connect with the third inbound call 17 The method of claim 14 wherein determining that the child mobile station is permitted to receive the second inbound call includes displaying on the parent mobile sta tion information about the second inbound call and thereaf ter identifying a user response the user response being selected from the group consisting of i taking action to permit the call and 11 not taking action to cancel the call 18 The method of claim 14 wherein determining that the child mobile station is not permitted to receive the third inbound call includes display
20. er absent timely action by the user of the parent mobile station the call will be connected or will be canceled An additional command button 90 may be provided that allows the parent to answer the call In such a case the parent having answered the call may subsequently be pro vided with the option of whether to forward the call to the child mobile station 2 Child Mobile Station Functionality One embodiment of a child mobile station is illustrated in FIG 5 The child mobile station 442 is provided with an RF communications circuit 444 for conducting wireless commu nications with one or more other mobile stations such as a parent mobile station 42 and in some embodiments with other child mobile stations Preferably the child mobile sta tion is a Part 15 device operated under Part 15 of the Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations Preferably the child mobile station is not capable of transmitting an equivalent isotropically radiated power EIRP of more than one watt The child mobile station 442 is provided with a micro phone 446 and a speaker 448 to convert audio signals to electrical signals and electrical signals to audio signals respectively The speaker and microphone are in communi cation with user interface logic 454 through respectively a digital to analog converter 450 and an analog to digital con verter 452 A keypad 456 whether physical or implemented virtually such as on a touch screen and display 45
21. erface 68 preferably provides a menu driven interface offered on the display 58 for access ing real time and cumulative information on child mobile station use and for setting access policies An exemplary menu structure for such an interface is illustrated in FIG 3 The menu structure illustrated in FIG 3 is preferably imple mented in addition to other conventional menu items relating to use of the parent mobile station as a stand alone mobile station for telephone calls between the parent mobile station and other conventional telephones and mobile stations over a wireless telecommunications network and or the public switched telephone network As illustrated in FIG 3 the menu structure includes high level selections entitled Child Communications Status 100 Child Communication Setup 200 and Preferences 300 By selecting Child Communication Status a user can review current and or cumulative information about the use of associated child mobile stations Under Child Communica tion Setup a user can associate or disassociate one or more child mobile stations with the parent mobile station and pro vide information useful in providing communication services for the child mobile station Under Preferences a user can set notification and policy settings relating to authority exer cised over child mobile station communications Through the Child Communications Status menu selec tion a user selec
22. formance results Franca Delmastro et al An Experimental Study of P2P Group Communication Applications in Real World MANETs Alan Lim et al A Comparative Study of Cooperative Algorithms for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks Evgeny Osipov et al A Path Density Protocol for MANETs Christian Rohner et al Interactions between TCP UDP and Rout ing Protocols in Wireless Multi hop Ad hoc Networks Marina Petrova et al Hop of No Return Practical Limitations of Wireless Multi Hop Networking Wolfgang Kief et al Thoughts on Mobile Ad hoc Network Testbeds Peter Barron et al Experiences Deploying an Ad hoc Network in an Urban Environment Luigi lannone et al MeshDV A Distance Vector mobility tolerant routing protocol for Wireless Mesh Networks Claudia Brazzola Social networks novel communication applica tions and needs in mobile contexts George Roussos On the Dimensionality of Wireless Connectivity Traces Marco Conti et al Cross Layer Support for Group Communication Applications in MANETs R Bruno et al Experimenting a Layer 2 based Approach to Internet Connectivity for Ad Hoc Networks Nicolas Boulicault et al Demo of Ana4 an Hybrid Local Area Ad hoc Network Architecture Pan Hui et al Haggle Architecture and Demo of its Real World Implementations Martin Nielsen Demo of residual bandwidth estimation in an 802 11 ad hoc netwo
23. further comprising the associated child mobile station the child mobile station comprising a a keypad b a microphone c a speaker and d child wireless communication circuitry capable of communi cating with the parent mobile station the child mobile station being operable in response to a keypad input to send to the parent mobile station the request to establish voice communications with the third party the request including the telephone number of the third party and the child mobile station further being operable to enable a voice connection between a user of the child mobile station and the third party using the microphone and speaker as transducers the voice connection being relayed through the parent mobile station 2 The system of claim 1 wherein the child mobile station is a Part 15 device 3 The system of claim 1 wherein the child wireless com munication circuitry is not capable of transmitting radio sig nals at greater than one Watt equivalent isotropically radiated power 4 The system of claim 1 wherein the child mobile station is not capable of direct communications with a base trans ceiver station 5 The system of claim 1 wherein the child mobile station and the parent mobile station are operative to communicate with one another using a Bluetooth protocol 6 The system of claim 1 wherein the child mobile station and the parent mobile station are operative to communicate with one another using a w
24. fy a name associated with the dialed telephone number step 506 The parent mobile station displays a noti fication of the attempted call to the user of the parent mobile station step 508 This notification preferably includes the dialed telephone number and if available the associated name of the third party If no name is associated with the dialed number the notification preferably indicates that no associated name is known The parent mobile station awaits from its user a timely instruction which may be provided through command button options provided in the notification Upon an instruction to cancel the outbound call step 510 the outbound call is not permitted to be connected and the parent mobile station informs the child mobile station that the call is canceled step 514 Upon an instruction to permit the outbound call step 512 the parent mobile station establishes a connection with the third party through the wireless telecommunications net work step 516 and with the child mobile station over preferably a wireless LAN PAN or Bluetooth connection step 518 Having setup communications with the third party and with the child mobile station the parent mobile station 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 12 relays voice communications between the called party and the child mobile station step 522 such that the third party and the user of the child mobile station can communicate with one an
25. hild mobile station a display authority control logic operative i to detect a request by the associated child mobile station to establish voice communications with a third party the request including a telephone number and ii to determine whether to permit or deny the voice communications with the third party and voice communication logic operative in response to a determination by the authority control logic to permit the voice communications to relay the permitted voice communications between the third party and the child mobile station through the wireless communication cir cuitry wherein the parent mobile station further comprises a a parent keypad b a parent microphone and c a parent speaker the parent mobile station further being oper able in response to a keypad input using the micro phone and speaker as transducers to enable a voice connection between a user of the parent mobile station and the third party and wherein the system further comprises the associated child mobile station the child mobile station comprising a a child keypad b a child microphone c a child speaker and d child wireless communication circuitry capable of communicating with the parent mobile station the child mobile station being operable in response to a keypad input to send to the parent mobile station the request to establish voice communications with the third party the request including the telephone number of the third
26. hild mobile station In response to the requests the parent mobile station determines whether or not to permit the inbound and outbound calls The determination may be made automatically and or with real time input from a user of the parent mobile station If a call is permitted voice communications between the third party and the child mobile station are routed through the parent mobile station The parent mobile station preferably communicates with the third party through a wireless telecommunications network If a call is not permitted the parent mobile station does not relay such communications The child mobile station preferably communicates with the parent mobile station using a wireless local area network WLAN or Bluetooth protocol and the child mobile station is preferably incapable of defeating the parental controls by establishing a direct connection to the wireless telecommunications network BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 is a schematic diagram of a network architecture including a wireless telecommunications network and a plu rality of parent and child mobile stations FIG 2 is a schematic functional block diagram of a parent mobile station FIG 3 is a tree structure diagram illustrating menu options for configuring the operations of a parent mobile station FIG 4 illustrates an exemplary incoming call notification such as may be displayed on a parent mobile station FIG 5 is a schematic functional block d
27. iagram of a child mobile station FIG 6 illustrates a method performed by parent and child mobile stations in handling a requested outbound call FIG 7 illustrates a method performed by parent and child mobile stations in handling an inbound call US 7 869 792 3 FIG 8 illustrates a method performed by parent and child mobile stations in handling a child mobile station s request to retrieve content DETAILED DESCRIPTION A Overview of One Exemplary Embodiment In an exemplary embodiment of a mobile communications parental control system a parent is provided with a parent mobile station capable of communicating directly over a wireless telecommunications network such as a CDMA net work A child is provided with a child mobile station that is not capable of communicating directly over the wireless tele communications network Instead the child mobile station is capable of communicating with the wireless telecommunica tions network only through the parent mobile station To communicate over the wireless telecommunications network the child mobile station establishes two way wireless voice communications with the parent mobile station and the par ent mobile station establishes two way wireless voice com munications with the wireless telecommunications network The parent mobile station relays voice communications between the child mobile station and the wireless telecom munications network In this way the child is able
28. ing on the parent mobile sta tion information about the third inbound call and thereafter identifying a user response the user response being selected from the group consisting of 1 taking action to cancel the call and ii not taking action to permit the call 19 The method of claim 14 further comprising receiving from the child mobile station a plurality of requests to make outbound calls at least some of those requests including a telephone number for at least a first one of the requests including a first telephone number determining that the child mobile station is permitted to make a first outbound call and thereafter routing voice communications between the child mobile station and a third party at the first tele phone number and for at least a second one of the requests including a second telephone number determining that the child mobile station is not permitted to make a second outbound call
29. ireless LAN protocol 7 The system of claim 1 wherein the authority control logic is operative in response to the request by the child mobile station to establish voice communications with the third party 1 to cause a notification identifying the third party to be displayed on the display wherein the notification includes a request for a user input and ii to make the determination of whether to permit or deny the voice com munications with the third party based on the user input 8 The system of claim 7 wherein the parent mobile station includes contacts data associating names and telephone num bers and wherein the notification identifying the third party includes a name of the third party 9 The system of claim 1 wherein the parent mobile station further comprises a a parent mobile station keypad b a parent mobile station microphone and cc a parent mobile station speaker the parent mobile station further being operable using the parent mobile station microphone and parent mobile station speaker as transducers to enable a voice connec tion between a user of the parent mobile station and the third party 5 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 16 10 A system comprising a parent mobile station wherein the parent mobile station comprises wireless communication circuitry capable of communicat ing 1 with a third party over a wireless telecommuni cations network and ii with an associated c
30. ireless telecommunications network signals the par ent mobile station of the inbound call As illustrated in FIG 7 the parent mobile station receives the signal indicating an inbound call step 524 Preferably the signal includes information identifying the telephone number of the third party The parent mobile station then searches through a local database or other contact informa tion to identify a name associated with the third party caller s telephone number step 526 and or the parent mobile station receives CallerID information naming the caller not shown The parent mobile station displays a notification of the inbound call to the user of the parent mobile station This notification preferably includes the third party caller s tele phone number and if available the associated name If no name is associated with the third party caller s telephone number the notification preferably indicates that no associ ated name is known The parent mobile station awaits from its user a timely instruction which may be provided through command button options provided in the notification Upon an instruction to cancel the inbound call step 530 the inbound call is not permitted e g the parent mobile station does not pick up the inbound call step 534 In different embodiments or in response to different configurations the child mobile station may or may not be informed that an inbound call was attempted and the third party caller m
31. itted to initiate or receive calls without limitation until it reaches a threshold number of minutes used during the cur rent billing cycle Typically this threshold number of minutes might be the number of minutes that can be used each billing cycle without incurring overage charges After the threshold number of minutes is reached though the child mobile sta tion may be permitted to initiate or receive calls only from a select set or whitelist of callers such as family members a babysitter or emergency personnel among others A parent mobile station preferably at least provides notifi cation of inbound and outbound calls from the child mobile station In some embodiments these notifications can be con figured by the user of the parent mobile station selection 350 In such embodiments the user of the parent mobile station can select whether the notification will include an audible signal selection 352 a vibration signal selection 353 and or a visual display selection 354 The information conveyed in the display may be configurable to include the telephone number of the calling called party selection 355 the name of the calling called party if pre stored or provided as Caller ID information selection 356 the number of minutes used by the child mobile station selection 357 and the number of minutes remaining in the child mobile station s account selection 358 among other information Ona parent mobile station
32. logic The user interface logic 54 provides device drivers for audio visual and tactile communications presented to and received from a user The parent mobile station is also provided with session control logic 60 which may be SIP logic or another session layer logical interface In a parent mobile station the session control logic is operative to establish voice communications sessions with the wireless telecommunications network and with any child mobile station The session control logic 60 is operative to establish voice communications in response to one or more of various occurrences such as dialing or other selection of a telephone number by a user signaling of an inbound call from the wireless telecommunications network or a communications request from a child mobile station among others The parent mobile station 42 is preferably operable to enable telephone calls between the parent mobile station and other conventional telephones and mobile sta 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 tions over a wireless telecommunications network and or the public switched telephone network The session control logic 60 and the user interface logic 54 both interface with voice communication logic 62 The voice communication logic 62 is an application layer module sup porting voice communications over sessions established by the session control logic In some embodiments voice com munications may be encoded one wa
33. n For example the authority control logic may prevent the child mobile station from communicating directly without intervening relays with any parent mobile station not associated with the child mobile station Alternatively in a multi hop network archi tecture such as some mesh or ad hoc networks the authority US 7 869 792 11 control logic may prevent the child mobile station from estab lishing a communications session over a path that does not include an associated parent mobile station and or the authority control logic may prevent the child mobile station from accepting data packets sent or over a path that does not include the associated parent mobile station Although a par ent mobile station bears the primary responsibility for enforc ing access policies the authority control logic of a child mobile station may mirror at least some of the access policy settings enforced by the parent mobile station For example the authority control logic of the child mobile station may be provided with information as to the number of minutes the child mobile station is permitted to use in each period In this way the user of a child mobile station attempting to make a call may be informed by the mobile station that he has exceeded the threshold number of minutes and that the call is not likely to be permitted As a result the user of the child mobile station is less likely to place demands on the parent mobile station and its user
34. ng with the parent mobile station US 7 869 792 17 the child mobile station being operable in response to user input to send to the parent mobile station the request to retrieve content from the content provider the child mobile station further being operable to display the content if the content is sent to the child mobile station by the parent mobile station 13 The system of claim 12 wherein the child mobile station and the parent mobile station are operable to communicate with one another through a protocol selected from the group consisting of a wireless local area network protocol and a wireless personal area network protocol and wherein the child mobile station is not operable to commu nicate using a wireless telecommunication protocol 14 A method of operating a parent mobile station wherein the parent mobile station is associated with at least one child mobile station the method comprising receiving from a wireless telecommunications network a plurality of signals identifying inbound calls for at least a first one of the inbound calls determining that the first inbound call is destined for the parent mobile station and thereafter enabling the parent mobile station to connect with the first inbound call for at least a second one of the inbound calls determining that the second inbound call is destined for the child mobile station determining that the child mobile station is permitted to receive the s
35. nt In such embodiments the Not Now button may be paired with a Never Allow button not shown which the parent can use to identify content consid ered inappropriate Content marked with the Never Allow button need not be previewed to the parent user in the future It is to be understood that a single Web page may be comprised of dozens of embedded resources each addressed by a different URL Preferably the parent mobile station also retrieves these embedded resources for display to its human user When the Web page as a whole is approved for viewing by the user of the parent mobile station this approval may be deemed effective for each of the displayed resources Because the embedded resources have been pre fetched by the parent mobile station any delay introduced by the need for human intervention at the parent mobile station is offset at least in part by the fact that the child mobile station can quickly retrieve needed resources locally from the parent mobile sta tion rather than over a distant network Although the example of FIG 8 was described in terms of Web pages it should be understood that other content retriev able over a network can be subjected to similar parental preview and control including multimedia content For example when a child user attempts to download an MP3 or other audio file the audio may be pre played at the parent mobile station before the file is allowed to be forwarded to the child mo
36. ntent has been denied In the example of FIG 8 the parent mobile station 610 operates as a proxy server for the child mobile station 602 except that the parent mobile station displays selected content to a human user before such content is forwarded to the child mobile station allowing the human user to make a real time decision concerning access to the content In a preferred embodiment not all content requested by the child mobile station is required to be previewed in this way rather only requests relating to blacklisted content or requests not relating to whitelisted content are displayed for preview by a human operator of the parent mobile station More complex pattern matching Bayesian or other algorithms may be used to determine which requests will or will not be subject to preview at the parent mobile station A determination as to what content will be previewed may be made based on the URL of the request e g the URL may be consistent with adult only sites based on the data sent in response to the request e g a JPEG file with a high percentage of flesh tone pixels or the presence of one or more keywords suggesting objectionable content or on some weighted combination of the two If content at a particular URL or within a particular domain has previously been previewed and allowed by the parent user subsequent attempts by the child user to view the content may proceed without requiring preview Conversely if
37. ol exercised by the parent mobile station In some embodiments each child mobile station may be associated with more than one parent mobile station for example when a mother and father each have parent mobile stations through which a child mobile station may communi cate In such an embodiment the menu may provide infor mation on the other parent mobile stations if any associated with a particular child mobile station selection 250 In this way a parent can determine whether an unauthorized holder ofa parent mobile station has attempted to gain authority over and or access to a child s mobile station Through a high level menu option the parent mobile sta tion enables review of and changes to the access policy set tings selection 300 For parent mobile station users uninter ested in managing detailed policy settings the mobile station may provide easy to use quick preference options selec tion 310 such as notify of all inbound and outbound calls selection 311 screen all inbound and outbound calls se lection 312 and screen all outbound calls selection 313 Based on marketplace preferences more complicated policy settings such as those described below may be pre pro grammed as one of the quick settings The parent mobile station may further provide the option to make detailed adjustments to the policy settings selection 320 For example policies may be made on a telephone number by
38. other over a voice connection step 520 Preferably the voice connection between the third party and the child mobile station approach a quality of service similar to that of conventional cellular telephonic communications In differ ent embodiments the relaying of voice communications may take different forms For example in a VoIP system the parent mobile station may operate as an IP proxy server for the child mobile station The third party may or may not be made aware that it is communicating through a parent mobile station If no timely response is entered at the parent mobile station the parent mobile station may perform a default action which in different embodiments and or different configurations may result either in the call being canceled or connected The parent mobile station may determine that no timely response is received when for example no response is entered during the passage of a predetermined amount of time such as 15 seconds after the notification is provided 2 An Inbound Call Method Inan exemplary method a parent mobile station is used to exercise authority over inbound calls to an associated child mobile station An outside caller such as a third party calling over the public switched telephone network dials a telephone number associated with a child mobile station The public switched telephone network signals the wireless telecommu nications network associated with the parent mobile station and the w
39. ower EIRP of less than one watt Wireless communications from a mobile station to the wireless tele communications network may be carried out using an EIRP of greater than or less than one watt but mobile stations capable of establishing a direct link with the wireless tele communications network preferably have the ability to trans mit wireless communications at an EIRP of greater than one watt though even with such an ability they need not always send such transmissions at more than one watt C Mobile Station Functionality 1 Parent Mobile Station Functionality In one embodiment illustrated in FIG 2 a parent mobile station 42 is provided with wireless communications circuitry 44 which preferably includes one or more RF communica tions circuits for conducting wireless communications with the service provider network and with one or more other mobile stations such as a child mobile station The parent mobile station is provided with transducers such as a micro phone 46 and a speaker 48 to convert audio signals to elec trical signals and electrical signals to audio signals respec tively The speaker and microphone are in communication with user interface logic 54 through respectively a digital to analog converter 50 and an analog to digital converter 52 A numeric or alphanumeric keypad 56 whether physical or implemented virtually such as on a touch screen and display 58 are also in communication with the user interface
40. paid by their parents Numerous efforts have been made to restrict children s access to various network resources For example software programs and proxy servers have been used to limit both the scope and duration of children s access to the Web Child specific mobile telephones such as the TicTalk or the Fire fly similarly allow parents to impose limitations as to who children are permitted to speak with and for how long Many innovations have been made using network proto cols used for voice communications For example voice communications may be carried using a VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol wherein voice communications are digi tized packetized and sent over the Internet and or a LAN Local Area Network Such communications may be set up through the use of the session initiation protocol SIP SIP proxy servers are available to provide client registration authentication and administration for VoIP endpoints One such proxy server is the SIP 50 proxy server offered by Planet Networking amp Communication Various network topographies have been explored for voice and data communications For example it has been proposed that such communications may be carried over a mesh or ad hoc network In such networks data packets are wirelessly routed from node to node in a mesh This enables nodes within the mesh to communicate with one another Because individual nodes can act as repeaters for other nodes in the mesh
41. rk Cyclop3 Internet Filtering Proxy User Guide printed from the World Wide Web on Mar 1 2007 PC Chaperone by Precipice Softward PC Chaperone Features 2007 Net Orbit Network Supervision Software Net Orbit User Guide 2007 Content watch Internet Protection ContentProtect Professional Suite Administrator s Guide Dec 2006 Content watch Internet Protection Net Nanny Home Suite User Guide Feb 2007 cited by examiner U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 1 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 s FIGURE BASE TRANSCEIVER STATION F A PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK 14 BASE STATION CONTROLLER MOBILE SWITCHING CENTER BASE STATION CONTROLLER d BASE n TRANSCEIVER SY M STATION ww OO we A M A M o omo 2 uan U S Patent Jan 11 2011 Sheet 2 of 7 US 7 869 792 B1 Mesue 46 A D CONVERTER D A CONVERTER 50 USER INTERFACE SESSION CONTROL LOGIC RF COMMUNICATION aeos CIRCUITRY VOICE COMMUNICATION 44 LOGIC 54 62 LOGIC AUTHORITY CONTROL 56 INTERFACE 58 68 AUTHORITY CONTROL Locic CALL Loc 64 DATA STORAGE 70
42. rk Technology Office of the manager National Communications System Technology Notes Technology and Programs Division vol 7 No 3 Jul 2000 Mobileman IST 2001 38113 Mobile Metropolitan Ad hoc Net works Dec 2002 Mobile Office Technology How to Use a Bluetooth Enabled Cell Phone http mobileoffice about com od typesofaccessavailable ht bluetooth printed from the world wide web on Jan 17 2007 Brian McConnell SMS Relay An Idea for Fault Tolerant Com munications O Reilly Wireless DevCenter Sep 28 2001 Claudio Lavecchia et al Real Life Experience of Cooperation Enforcement Based on Reputation CORE for MANETs Continued Primary Examiner Philip J Sobutka 57 ABSTRACT A parent mobile station is provided that enables real time parental control over communications with an associated child mobile station The parent mobile station receives noti fication of attempted inbound and outbound calls with third parties to and from the child mobile station or of requests from the child mobile station to retrieve content from a con tent provider In response to the notifications the parent mobile station determines whether or not to permit the inbound and outbound calls or the retrieval of content If permitted communications with the child mobile station are routed through the parent mobile station which itself com municates over a wireless telecommunications network If not permitted the parent mobile
43. station does not relay such communications The child mobile station preferably com municates with the parent mobile station using a wireless local area network WLAN or Bluetooth protocol and is preferably incapable of defeating the parental controls with a direct connection to the wireless telecommunications net work 19 Claims 7 Drawing Sheets 612 US 7 869 792 Page 2 OTHER PUBLICATIONS Planet Networking amp Communication SIP Proxy Server 2005 Planet Networking amp Communication SIP 50 SIP Proxy Server User s Manual Rev 1 0 May 2005 Durga Pandey et al Voice Mesh Progress Report Viral Commu nications MIT Media Lab Nov 18 2005 Durga Pandey et al Fluid Voice Viral Communications MIT Media Lab Jan 18 2006 Mobileman IST 2001 38113 MobileMAN Presentation Mobile Metropolitan Ad hoc Networks Jul 2005 R Bernasconi et al Experiments with an enhanced MAC architec ture for multi hop wireless networks MobileMAN project Nicolas Boulicault et al Experiments of Ana4 An Implementation of a 2 5 Framework for Deploying Real Multi hop Ad hoc and mesh Networks Marc Heissenbuttel et al GNU Linux Implementation of a Posi tion based Routing Protocol Minmin Tu et al Implementation Strategies for a Secure and Effi cient Multi hop MANET Platform Francesca Cuomo et al A linux based Bluetooth scatternet forma tion kit from design to per
44. ta tion or to discontinue conversion of the encoding including encryption if applicable of relayed communications such that relayed communications are unintelligible In instances where communication sessions are not immediately discon nected the parent mobile station may be operative to send an audible message to the child mobile station and or the party with whom the child mobile station is in communication notifying of impending disconnection The parent mobile station is further provided with an authority control interface 68 which provides a software interface between the user interface logic 54 and the authority control logic 64 Through the authority control interface 68 a user of the parent mobile station can set predetermined con trols over child mobile phone use can be notified of the child mobile station s communication activities and or can acti vate control features in real time In a preferred embodiment the authority control interface 68 provides the capability to present real time notifications to auser of the parent mobile station to return a user s response to such notifications to access real time and cumulative information on child mobile station use and to set access policies In one such embodiment notifications are provided as pop up notifications on a touch screen offering a user an opportunity to permit or to deny a communication event relat ing to an associated child mobile station by selection of
45. telephone number basis to distinguish between various parties that may attempt to contact the child mobile station or that the child mobile station may attempt to contact selection 322 In such a case the user can enter or select the relevant telephone number and apply the desired settings to that number A separate selection may be provided for setting policies on handling calls to and from numbers that are oth erwise not specifically listed Alternatively or in addition wildcards or other regular expression type features may iden tify sets of telephone numbers that should be treated identi cally For example inbound calls from telephone numbers with an 800 866 or 888 area code may be blocked while outbound calls to those area codes may be permitted Calls to or from a telephone number whose area code and prefix together suggest an undesirable PBX exchange may be blocked or screened even without identifying all extensions within the exchange Different policy settings may apply to inbound and out bound calls for any one telephone number As for inbound call settings selection 323 a call from the selected telephone number may always be allowed selection 324 always be US 7 869 792 9 screened selection 325 always be blocked selection 326 or the handling of the inbound call can depend on preconfig ured conditions selection 327 Similarly for outbound call settings selection 336 a call from
46. the selected telephone number may always be allowed selection 337 always be screened selection 338 always be blocked selection 339 or the handling of the inbound call can depend on preconfig ured conditions selection 340 If the handling of a call depends on preconfigured condi tions those conditions can be configured selections 328 341 by a user of the parent mobile station Such conditions include determining if the child mobile station has spent an excess amount of time colloquially too many minutes using the telephone during the current billing cycle selec tions 329 342 or has made or received too many telephone calls in a period selections 331 343 In either case the parent mobile station can preselect the threshold number of minutes selection 330 or number of calls selection 332 A user of the parent mobile station can further be provided with the option of how to handle calls from a particular number of set of numbers if the condition is true selections 333 344 For example once a condition becomes true the parent mobile station can be instructed to block inbound and or outbound calls selections 334 345 or it may be instructed to screen all such calls selections 334 345 such that parent permission in response to a notification is required before a connection can be established As one example of policies that may be set on a parent mobile station a child mobile station may normally be per m
47. ts the child mobile station selection 110 for which it wishes to collect information If only one child mobile station is associated with the parent mobile station this menu level may not be necessary For the selected child mobile station a selection can be made to view information about any connection that is currently active at the child mobile station selection 120 preferably a call that is being relayed through the parent mobile station Given the informa tion about the connection if any the parent mobile station may offer the options to cancel the connection selection 121 to break into the connection selection 122 allowing the user of the parent mobile station to speak with one or both of the parties on the connection or to listen to the connection in progress selection 123 subject to applicable laws The parent mobile station also provides the option to view call history selection 130 such as a call log of the child mobile station s calls selection 131 and or the cumulative amount of time during which the child mobile station has had active connections selection 132 The call history informa tion accessible through this interface preferably displays only child mobile station calls while parent mobile station calls are made accessible through a different menu option The call history information is preferably cleared according to a default or configurable protocol For example the call history may store information
48. two nodes may be in communication with one another even if they are out of range of direct radio frequency RF communications Ifone or more of the nodes in the mesh has access to an outside network such as a public switched telephone network PTSN or the Internet other nodes in the mesh may also communicate with the outside network using the node to relay communications to and from the outside network Telephonic voice communications are often carried out with the use of a wireless hands free headset In the operation of such a headset a user s mobile station establishes short range wireless communications with the headset using a per sonal area network PAN protocol such as Bluetooth Voice communications are carried wirelessly between the facilities of a telecommunications service provider and the mobile station using a wireless telecommunications protocol such as for example CDMA Code Division Multiple Access or GSM Global System for Mobile Communications The mobile station relays these voice communications to a nearby headset which includes audio transducers through which audible speech is digitized and played back 20 25 40 45 50 55 60 65 2 Telecommunications equipment providers have envi sioned the use of a personal phone hub or personal mobile gateway PMG Such a gateway serves as a single point of contact between an individual and a wireless telecommuni cations network When an
49. twork architecture may be implemented concurrently with a hub and spoke architecture and mobile stations may arrange themselves in different architectures depending on the proximity and communications capabilities of nearby mobile stations US 7 869 792 5 an embodiment in which the parent and child mobile stations are a part of a mesh network wherein at least one node in the mesh is capable of communicating with the ser vice provider network the parent mobile station itself need not have the ability to communicate directly with the service provider network or if the parent mobile station does have that ability it need not make use of it Ina preferred embodiment communications between indi vidual mobile stations whether the mobile stations are com munications endpoints or are relaying communications on behalf of other mobile stations are carried out using a wire less protocol such as a Bluetooth protocol an 802 11 proto col or another other wireless LAN or PAN protocol Com munications conveyed between a mobile station and the service provider network again whether or not the mobile station is an endpoint of the communication are preferably conveyed using a wireless telecommunications protocol such as an EVDO Evolution Data Optimized or other COMA protocol or a GSM protocol Wireless communications between individual mobile sta tions are preferably carried out using an equivalent isotropi cally radiated p
50. ve embodiments the child mobile station may actually be capable of directly establishing communications over the wireless telecommunications network In these embodiments restrictions may be implemented on the child s access to the wireless telecommunications network such as restrictions on the number of minutes the child can use the mobile station or whitelist and or blacklist restrictions on inbound and outbound calls In other embodiments the child mobile station may be able to access only particular features of a wireless telecommunications network such as data ser vices e g an Internet connection and or text messaging services such as SMS short message service messaging B Network Architecture An exemplary network architecture used in the implemen tation of a mobile communications parental control system is illustrated in FIG 1 A mobile switching center 10 of a wire less telecommunications service provider network 12 is in communication with the public switched telephone network 14 One or more base station controllers BSCs 16 18 are associated with the mobile switching center 10 Each base station controller operates one or more base transceiver sta tions BTSs 20 22 Preferably the telecommunications net work provides 12 conventional wireless telecommunications services with mobile stations that do not implement the parental controls disclosed herein At least one parent mobile station 24 and one or more child
51. y when exchanged with the wireless telecommunications network and another way when exchanged with a child mobile station In such embodi ments the voice communication logic may include a conver sion module to change between the two encoding protocols to relay voice communications between a child mobile station and the wireless telecommunications network A network interface not shown may be employed to provide network layer functionality between the RF circuitry and the voice communication logic The parent mobile station is further provided with author ity control logic 64 in communication with the session control logic 60 and or the voice communication logic 62 to imple ment real time and predetermined access policies for access by a child mobile station Where access policies are config urable the parent mobile station preferably stores access policy settings locally as access policy data 66 The authority control logic interfaces with the voice communication logic 62 and or the session control logic to implement the access policies For example the authority control logic 64 may instruct the session control logic 60 to disconnect or to fail to connect sessions that violate an access policy With or without disconnection of communication sessions the authority con trol logic 64 may instruct the voice communication logic 62 to discontinue relaying of communications between the wire less telecommunications network and the child mobile s
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search