Methods and apparatus for supporting group communications
View Patent ↗Group communications methods and apparatus are described. In particular, methods for granting a mobile device access to a communications resource, e.g., the right to transmit data, associated with a group are described. User requests for the communications resource are suppressed by the corresponding mobile device, for periods during which the communications resource has been granted to another mobile device. A mobile device may store a suppressed user request so that a resource request signal may be transmitted after the communications resource has been released by the mobile device that was previously granted the resource. In this manner requests that cannot be granted are not transmitted, increasing communications efficiency as compared to systems where requests are not suppressed at the mobile devices. A priority scheme is used in some embodiments to determine whether or not a request should be suppressed while another device has been granted the communications resource.
1. A group communications method comprising:
operating a group communications control unit to receive a communications resource request from a first mobile communications device belong to a group including said first mobile communications device and a plurality of additional communications devices;
operating said group communications control unit to broadcast a first IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group and a resource grant to said first communications device.
2. The group communications method of claim 1 , further comprising:
operating at least some of said plurality of additional communications devices to receive said first IP message; and
operating said at least some of said plurality of additional communications devices to suppress the generation of group resource requests in response to receiving said first IP message.
3. The group communications method of claim 2 , further comprising:
operating said group communications control unit to broadcast a second IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group, said second IP message also including a resource release message.
4. The group communications method of claim 3 , further comprising;
operating at least one of said at least some of said plurality of additional communications devices to stop suppressing the generation of resource requests in response to said second IP message.
5. The group communications method of claim 2 , further comprising:
operating said group communications control unit to broadcast a second IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group, said second IP message also including a resource release message indicating the release of the resource granted to said first communications device.
6. The group communications method of claim 2 , wherein said group communications control unit includes a grant priority level indicator in said first IP message.
7. A control unit for controlling resource grants in a group communications environment, the controller comprising:
means for receiving a communications resource request from a first mobile communications device belong to a group including said first mobile communications device and a plurality of additional communications devices;
means for generating a first IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group and a resource grant to said first communications device; and
means for broadcasting a first IP message.
8. The control unit of claim 7 , further comprising:
means for processing a resource release signal received from said first mobile communications device;
means for generating a second IP message including a multicast address corresponding to said group and a resource message indicating release of the resource granted to said first communications device; and
means for broadcasting the second IP message.
9. The control unit of claims 8 , wherein said means for broadcasting a first IP message includes an antenna.