JP2009089005A - Base station device, and terminal device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve a problem that the amount of information which can be transmitted to a user is limited when providing information for the user using an identifier, such as an SSID, whose settable characters are limited in number. <P>SOLUTION: An identifier generator 13 generates a second identifier containing information on a content separately from a first identifier for allowing a connection request from a terminal device 20. A beacon transmitter 14 transmits the second identifier generated by the identifier generator 13 as a beacon. A connection processor 15 allows a connection request with a first identifier that the terminal device 20 already holds and rejects a connection request with the second identifier. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a base station apparatus and a terminal apparatus that distribute and receive content.

  In recent years, content distribution using a wireless local area network (LAN) has become widespread. In accordance with the speeding up of the wireless LAN, a moving image distribution service has been put into practical use. An access point in the wireless LAN periodically emits a beacon, and a terminal device such as a mobile phone receives the beacon. The beacon includes a predetermined identifier. The terminal device makes a connection request to the access point using the identifier. The access point only allows connection with a terminal device with a matching identifier.

  For example, in the IEEE 802.11 series, an SSID (Service Set Identifier) or an ESSID (Extended Service Set Identifier) can be set as the identifier. The ESSID is an extension of the SSID. Hereinafter, in the present specification, these are collectively referred to as SSID. The SSID is an identifier of a network, and can specify a network and an access point to be connected even when a plurality of wireless LANs are constructed in the vicinity. In the SSID, only alphanumeric characters and some symbol characters (hereinafter collectively referred to as alphanumeric characters) can be used.

Patent Document 1 discloses an information distribution system, which includes an information type name of information that a wireless LAN terminal desires to distribute information, a network identifier notified by an access point, and a host name of an information distribution server. It has a predetermined correspondence.
JP 2007-5892 A

  However, when information is provided to the user using an identifier such as an SSID that limits the number of characters that can be set, the amount of information that can be transmitted to the user is limited. Therefore, it is difficult for the user to fully understand the service provided from the access point by the identifier.

  The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to provide a communication system and a base station that can provide sufficient information to a user of a terminal device using an identifier with a limited number of characters that can be set. To provide a device and a terminal device.

  A base station apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention is a base station apparatus that distributes predetermined content, and includes a second identifier that includes information related to the content separately from a first identifier for permitting a connection request from a terminal device. An identifier generation unit to generate, and a beacon transmission unit to transmit the second identifier generated by the identifier generation unit as a beacon.

  It should be noted that any combination of the above-described constituent elements and a conversion of the expression of the present invention between a method, an apparatus, a system, a recording medium, a computer program, and the like are also effective as an aspect of the present invention.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, sufficient information can be provided to the user of a terminal device using the identifier with which the number of characters which can be set is restrict | limited.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a communication system 100 according to an embodiment of the present invention. The communication system 100 includes a base station device 10 and a terminal device 20. The base station device 10 is an access point that constitutes a wireless LAN, and performs multicast distribution of content that can be received and played back by the terminal device 20. The content can include at least one of text, still images, moving images, audio, metadata, and the like. In the following description, it is assumed that the base station apparatus 10 is installed in a commercial store such as a convenience store and performs multicast distribution of contents in the store and in the vicinity thereof as an independent broadcasting system. For example, advertisement videos and coupons are distributed as content.

  The base station apparatus 10 includes a service information storage unit 11, a service ID storage unit 12, an identifier generation unit 13, a beacon transmission unit 14, a connection processing unit 15, and a connection identifier storage unit (referred to as a first identifier storage unit in FIG. 1). ) 16. In addition, a content distribution processing unit (not shown) is provided. The content distribution processing unit performs content distribution processing on the terminal device 20. The terminal device 20 includes a beacon receiving unit 21, an identifier processing unit 22, a service ID storage unit 23, a connection identifier storage unit (referred to as a first identifier storage unit in FIG. 1) 24, a user interface 25, and a connection processing unit 26. Including. In addition, a content reception processing unit (not shown) is provided. The content reception processing unit receives content distributed from the base station device 10.

  Each configuration of the base station device 10 and the terminal device 20 can be realized in hardware by a CPU, memory, or other LSI of an arbitrary computer, and is realized by a program loaded in the memory in software. Here, however, the functional blocks realized by the cooperation are depicted. Therefore, those skilled in the art will understand that these functional blocks can be realized in various forms by hardware only, software only, or a combination thereof.

  The service information storage unit 11 stores service information. The service information is information related to the content to be distributed and is set in advance by the administrator. For example, "Sanyodenki store sale-Gifu Hashima station square store" is set. In this way, the service information can be described by a free character string including kanji, katakana, and hiragana.

  The service ID storage unit 12 stores a service ID. The service ID is an identifier for specifying the content distribution service, and is set in advance by the administrator. The service ID is formed by a character string described in alphanumeric characters or the like.

  The identifier generation unit 13 generates a second identifier including information related to the content, separately from the first identifier for permitting a connection request from the terminal device 20. The first connector is a connection identifier used for actual connection. The second connector is a notification identifier for notifying the terminal device 20 of information for allowing the user to determine whether or not to receive the content. Each of the first identifier and the second identifier may be an SSID.

  The identifier generation unit 13 converts the first character string that includes characters that are not defined in the second identifier, that is, unusable characters, into the second character string that is defined in the second identifier, that is, is composed of usable characters. Then, a second identifier including the second character string is generated. When the second identifier is the SSID, characters that cannot be used for the second identifier are characters other than alphanumeric characters and include kanji, hiragana, and katakana. In addition, Korean characters and Chinese kanji are also included. The second character string is a character string written with only alphanumeric characters or the like.

  When the second identifier is the SSID, the identifier generation unit 13 combines the service ID and the service information and converts the character string to generate an SSID composed of alphanumeric characters of 32 characters or less. To do. When the character string obtained by combining the service ID and the service information and converting the character string exceeds the limit number of identifier characters, the identifier generation unit 13 divides the character string into a plurality of characters, Include each in multiple identifiers. Specifically, when the character string obtained by conversion exceeds 32 characters, the character string is divided into a plurality of characters so that each character string after division is 32 characters or less.

  The beacon transmission unit 14 transmits the second identifier generated by the identifier generation unit 13 as a beacon. The connection identifier storage unit 16 stores the first identifier. The first identifier is also stored in the terminal device 20 that is permitted to connect to the base station device 10. In the present embodiment, the first identifier is not transmitted. That is, the first identifier is not disclosed to the terminal device 20, that is, has a stealth setting.

  The connection processing unit 15 rejects the connection request based on the second identifier from the terminal device 20 and permits the connection request based on the first identifier held in the terminal device 20 in advance. The connection processing unit 15 refers to the connection identifier storage unit 16 and permits connection when the connection request is based on the first identifier stored therein. On the other hand, the connection request by the 1st identifier and the 2nd identifier which are not memorize | stored in the connection identifier memory | storage part 16 is refused.

  The terminal device 20 is a terminal that can connect to the base station device 10 and receive the content. A mobile phone, a smartphone, a notebook PC, a dedicated terminal, and the like may be applicable.

The beacon receiving unit 21 receives a beacon transmitted from the base station device 10. More specifically, a second identifier including information related to the content, that is, service information and generated separately from the first identifier is received as a beacon from the base station apparatus 10.
The service ID storage unit 23 stores a service ID corresponding to the service ID stored in the base station device 10. This service ID may be set when an application for reproducing the content is downloaded, may be manually input by the user, or may be set by other methods.

  The identifier processing unit 22 extracts the service information from the second identifier included in the beacon received by the beacon receiving unit 21. Specifically, the identifier processing unit 22 reversely converts the second character string included in the second identifier received by the beacon receiving unit 21 and restores the first character string. More specifically, the service ID included in the second identifier is extracted, and it is determined whether or not the service ID is a service ID stored in the service ID storage unit 23. When the service ID is stored in the service ID storage unit 23, the service information included in the second identifier is acquired by executing the reverse process of the process performed by the identifier generation unit 13 of the base station apparatus 10 described above. . When the service ID is not stored in the service ID storage unit 23, it is not necessary to perform the reverse conversion of the second identifier generation process described above.

  The connection identifier storage unit 24 holds the first identifier set in the base station apparatus 10. Similarly to the service ID, the first identifier may be set when the application for reproducing the content is downloaded, manually input by the user, or set by other methods. Good. The first identifier is stored in association with the service ID.

  The user interface 25 includes at least a display unit or an audio output unit (not shown) and an operation unit, provides service information extracted by the identifier processing unit 22, and prompts the user to issue a connection request instruction to the base station apparatus 10. The user interface 25 may display the service information on the display unit or may output the audio information from the audio output unit. At this time, when a plurality of second identifiers are received, a plurality of service information is displayed. At that time, it is desirable to preferentially display the second identifier having a strong reception strength. For example, the images may be displayed side by side from the top in the descending order of reception intensity. When the second identifier is received from the plurality of base station apparatuses 10, the user can easily recognize which base station apparatus 10 should be requested to connect.

  Upon receiving the connection request instruction from the user interface 25, the connection processing unit 26 acquires a first identifier corresponding to the second identifier from the connection identifier storage unit 16, and uses the acquired first identifier to base station apparatus 10 Request connection to. More specifically, when specific service information is selected by the user from the user interface 25 and connection to the corresponding base station apparatus 10 is instructed, the first identifier corresponding to the service ID of the service information is used. Connection request to the base station apparatus 10.

Next, the operation of the communication system 100 according to the embodiment of the present invention will be described.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the base station apparatus 10 according to the embodiment.
The identifier generation unit 13 acquires service information from the service information storage unit 11, acquires a service ID from the service ID storage unit 12, and generates a notification SSID based on the SSID generation process described above (S10).

Here, an example of the notification SSID generation processing will be described.
In this example, it is assumed that the service ID is a character string including only alphanumeric characters such as “broadserv”, and the service information is a character string including a kanji character and a kana character “Sanyodenki store sale-Gifu Hashima station square store”. In this example, the service information is described in SJIS code. Under this assumption, there is no problem with the service ID as it is, but since the service information includes kanji and kana characters that cannot be used in the SSID, the character string is converted into a character string such as alphanumeric characters.

  Specifically, first, the character string “Sanyodenki store sale—Gifu Hashima station square store” is compressed and converted into binary data. Next, the binary data is converted into a character string “94h9ghkhkvaribh-95hdlvircfk” such as alphanumeric characters by using conversion means such as BASE64. This character string is for explanation. Thereby, the character string which consists of alphanumeric characters etc. can be acquired. After that, by combining with the service ID, a character string “broadserv_94h9ghkhkvaribh-95hdlvircfk” composed of alphanumeric characters or the like is generated.

  The beacon transmission unit 14 distributes the notification SSID generated by the identifier generation unit 13 as a beacon (S11). Thereafter, when the connection processing unit 15 receives a connection request from the terminal device 20 (Y in S12), the connection processing unit 15 determines whether or not it is a connection request based on a connection SSID (S13). Here, the notification SSID is an example of the second identifier (notification identifier), and the connection SSID is an example of the first identifier (connection identifier). If the connection request is based on the connection SSID (Y in S13), the connection request is permitted and the connection process is executed (S14). If the connection request is based on the SSID for notification (N in S13), the connection request is rejected and the connection process is not executed. The processing from step S11 to step S14 is repeated until the distribution of the content ends (Y in S15).

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the terminal device 20 according to the embodiment.
When trying to connect to the base station device 10, the beacon receiving unit 21 receives the notification SSID sent from the base station device 10 (S20). The identifier processing unit 22 determines whether the service ID included in the notification SSID matches any service ID held in the service ID storage unit 23 (S21). If they match (Y in S21), the service information included in the SSID for notification is extracted by performing the inverse conversion of the generation process described above, and the user interface 25 displays the extracted service information (S22). Wait for user instructions.

  When the connection is instructed by the user (Y in S23), the connection processing unit 26 acquires the connection SSID corresponding to the service ID from the connection identifier storage unit 24 (S24). The connection processing unit 26 makes a connection request to the base station apparatus 10 using the acquired connection SSID (S25). Thereafter, the terminal device 20 receives content from the base station device 10 (S26). The reception of the content ends in response to the end of the content or an end instruction from the user (Y in S27).

  As described above, according to the present embodiment, the identifier whose number of characters is limited by generating and distributing the second identifier including the judgment material related to the content separately from the first identifier used for the actual connection. Can be used to provide sufficient information to the user of the terminal device. Further, by rejecting the connection request based on the second identifier to be distributed, making the first identifier private, and permitting only the connection request from the terminal device to which the first identifier has been notified in advance, Access from non-compliant terminal devices can be restricted. Thus, it is possible to easily realize a paid service and a member service.

  Furthermore, according to the present embodiment, the base station apparatus 10 converts the first character string including characters other than alphanumeric characters into the second character string including only alphanumeric characters, and then the second character string. Generate an identifier containing Then, the terminal device 20 side reversely converts the second character string included in the identifier to restore the first character string, so that the terminal can be used even if an identifier whose usable character type is limited is used. An easy-to-understand display is possible for the user of the apparatus. For example, the user of the terminal device can view information related to the content not by alphanumeric characters but by kanji and kana characters.

  The present invention has been described based on some embodiments. This embodiment is an exemplification, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to combinations of the respective constituent elements and processing processes, and such modifications are also within the scope of the present invention. is there.

  In the above-described embodiment, the example in which the first identifier is not distributed has been described. However, a modification in which the first identifier is encrypted and distributed as a beacon is also conceivable. In this modification, the identifier generation unit 13 encrypts the first identifier. For example, encryption is performed using WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). The beacon transmission unit 14 transmits the first identifier encrypted by the identifier generation unit 13 as a beacon.

  The terminal device 20 includes an encryption key storage unit instead of the connection identifier storage unit 24. In the present modification, the encryption key storage unit is an encrypted first for allowing the base station device 10 to accept a connection request. An encryption key for decrypting the identifier is stored. For example, the WEP key is stored. This WEP key can also be obtained by the same method as the service ID and the first identifier according to the embodiment. In this modification, the beacon receiving unit 21 receives from the base station apparatus 10 as information a beacon including a second identifier generated separately from the first identifier and the encrypted first identifier. Upon receiving the connection request instruction from the user interface 25, the connection processing unit 26 acquires an encryption key for decrypting the encrypted first identifier from the encryption key storage unit, and the encrypted key is encrypted with the acquired encryption key. The first identifier is decoded, and a connection request is made to the base station apparatus 10 using the first identifier. For example, the connection processing unit 26 acquires the WEP key corresponding to the encrypted first identifier received by the beacon receiving unit 21 from the encryption key storage unit, and decrypts the first identifier with the encryption key. Thereafter, a connection request is made to the base station apparatus 10 using the decrypted first identifier.

  The connection processing unit 15 on the base station device 10 side permits a connection request based on the first identifier decoded by the terminal device 20. According to this modification, the same effects as those of the above-described embodiment can be obtained. Since the terminal device 20 does not hold the first identifier, it is not necessary to hold all the first identifiers, the capacity required for the terminal device 20 is reduced, and the base station device 10 also sets the first identifier. It is possible to set and change freely.

  In the embodiment, the identifier generation unit 13 adds the service information as it is to the SSID, except for conversion of the character type. In this respect, some conversion processing such as encryption and compression may be further performed. The identifier generation unit 13 may set a plurality of notification SSIDs, divide and incorporate service information into a plurality of notification SSIDs, and the identifier processing unit 22 may integrate them. According to this, the number of characters of service information can be set to exceed 32 characters.

  Further, a WEP key may be set for the first identifier (for example, SSID).

  In the embodiment, the service ID is assumed to be a character string such as alphanumeric characters. In this regard, the service ID may be a character string of binary data having no meaning or a character string including kanji and kana characters. In this case, the identifier processing unit 22 first restores the received notification SSID, and then confirms the service ID.

1 is a block diagram showing a communication system according to an embodiment of the present invention. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the base station apparatus which concerns on embodiment. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of the terminal device which concerns on embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Base station apparatus, 11 Service information memory | storage part, 12 Service ID memory | storage part, 13 Identifier production | generation part, 14 Beacon transmission part, 15 Connection processing part, 16 Connection identifier memory | storage part, 20 Terminal device, 21 Beacon reception part, 22 Identifier Processing unit, 23 service ID storage unit, 24 connection identifier storage unit, 25 user interface, 26 connection processing unit, 100 communication system.

Claims (7)

A base station device that distributes predetermined content,
In addition to the first identifier for permitting a connection request from the terminal device, an identifier generating unit that generates a second identifier including information on the content;
A beacon transmitter that transmits the second identifier generated by the identifier generator as a beacon;
A base station apparatus comprising: A connection processing unit that rejects the connection request by the second identifier and permits the connection request by the first identifier;
The base station apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the beacon transmission unit does not transmit the first identifier.   The base station apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the connection processing unit permits a connection request based on the first identifier held in advance by the terminal apparatus. A connection processing unit that rejects the connection request by the second identifier and permits the connection request by the first identifier;
The identifier generation unit encrypts the first identifier,
The base station apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the beacon transmission unit transmits the first identifier encrypted by the identifier generation unit as a beacon.   The base station apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the connection processing unit permits a connection request based on the first identifier decoded by the terminal apparatus. A terminal device capable of receiving predetermined content from a base station device,
A first identifier storage unit that stores a first identifier for allowing the base station apparatus to accept a connection request;
A beacon receiver that includes information about the content and receives from the base station device a second identifier generated separately from the first identifier as a beacon;
An identifier processing unit that extracts information about the content from a second identifier included in the beacon received by the beacon receiving unit;
A user interface that provides information extracted by the identifier processing unit and prompts a connection request instruction to the base station device;
When receiving the connection request instruction from the user interface, the first identifier corresponding to the second identifier is acquired from the first identifier storage unit, and a connection request is made to the base station apparatus using the acquired first identifier. A processing unit;
A terminal device comprising: A terminal device capable of receiving predetermined content from a base station device,
An encryption key storage unit for storing an encryption key for decrypting the encrypted first identifier for allowing the base station device to permit a connection request;
A beacon receiving unit that includes information related to the content, the second identifier generated separately from the first identifier, and the encrypted first identifier as a beacon from the base station device;
An identifier processing unit that extracts information about the content from a second identifier included in the beacon received by the beacon receiving unit;
A user interface that provides information extracted by the identifier processing unit and prompts a connection request instruction to the base station device;
When receiving the connection request instruction from the user interface, an encryption key for decrypting the encrypted first identifier is obtained from the encryption key storage unit, and the encrypted first identifier is obtained using the obtained encryption key. And a connection processing unit that requests connection to the base station apparatus using the
A terminal device comprising:

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