Systems, Methods, and Apparatus with a Common Wireless Communications Protocol

Abstract

A Common Wireless Communications Protocol (CWCP) below the TCP/IP layer is a part of OSI layer 3 a (SNDCF-Subnetwork Dependent Convergence Functions). CWCP serves as a common Application Program Interface (API) to the upper application layers. CWCP supports different call processing standards (GSM, WCDMA, CDMA2000) and provides seamless Web or e-mail interfaces using Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) or Transport Layer Interface (TLI) by the CWCP interfacing with the different physical layer (3G) standards. CWCP provides interoperability between the different physical standards and provides a plug-and-play environment for different wireless devices and applications. CWCP provides interoperability at the systems level via interoperable software through the IP software layer.

1 . A method of passing messages between layers of software code for multimode wireless communication over a plurality of wireless communication systems with differing communication protocols, the method comprising: 
 packing transmit data into a data portion of a transmit protocol data unit; and    prepending a header portion of the transmit protocol data unit to the data portion of the transmit protocol data unit, the header portion including a wireless protocol identifier to identify one of the plurality of wireless communication systems over which the transmit protocol data unit is to be transmitted.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising: 
 prior to packing the data portion and prepending the header portion, compressing the header portion of the transmit protocol data unit using header compression, and    compressing the data portion of the transmit protocol data unit using data compression.    
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising: 
 preparing and communicating the transmit protocol data unit as a wireless communication over one of the plurality of wireless communication systems;    receiving the wireless communication over the one of the plurality of wireless communication systems as a received protocol data unit;    stripping a header portion of the received protocol data unit from a data portion of the received protocol data unit, the header portion including a wireless protocol identifier to identify the one of the plurality of wireless communication systems over which the received protocol data unit was received; and    unpacking the data portion of the received protocol data unit into received data.    
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein, 
 the packing and the prepending occur at a sending end, and    the method further comprises, at a receiving end, 
 stripping a header portion of the received protocol data unit from a data portion of the received protocol data unit, the header portion including a wireless protocol identifier to identify the one of the plurality of wireless communication systems over which the received protocol data unit was received; and  
 unpacking the data portion of the received protocol data unit into received data.  
   
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising: 
 prior to the packing of the data portion and the prepending of the header portion, 
 compressing the header portion of the transmit protocol data unit using header compression, and  
 compressing the data portion of the transmit protocol data unit using data compression;  
   performing the packing of the data portion and the prepending of the header portion;    preparing and communicating the transmit protocol data unit as a wireless communication over one of the plurality of wireless communication systems;    receiving the wireless communication over the one of the plurality of wireless communication systems as a received protocol data unit;    stripping a compressed header portion of the received protocol data unit from a data portion of the received protocol data unit;    decompressing the compressed header portion into a received header, the received header including a wireless protocol identifier to identify the one of the plurality of wireless communication systems over which the received protocol data unit was received;    unpacking the data portion of the received protocol data unit into compressed received data; and    decompressing the compressed received data into received data.    
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1  wherein 
 the header portion further includes a segment number and a sequence number, and    the transmit data is one or more TCP/IP segments for transmission.    
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein 
 the plurality of wireless communication systems includes at least one of AMPS, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, TDMA, CDMA2000, WCDMA, WLAN, WIFI, and Bluetooth.    
   
   
       8 . A method of communicating data to and from a wireless device over one of a plurality of different wired and wireless communication protocols, the method including: 
 at a sending end, 
 packing data into a data portion of a protocol data unit, and  
 adding a header portion of the protocol data unit to the data portion of the protocol data unit, the header portion including a wireless protocol identifier to identify one of the plurality of different wired and wireless communication protocols through which the protocol data unit is to be transmitted from the sending end; and  
   at a receiving end, 
 removing the header portion of the protocol data unit from the data portion of the protocol data unit, the header portion including the wireless protocol identifier to identify the one of the plurality of different wired and wireless communication protocols through which the protocol data unit was received; and  
 unpacking the data portion of the protocol data unit into data at the receiving end.  
   
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 8  wherein the plurality of different wired and wireless communication protocols is a plurality of different wireless communication protocols.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the plurality of different wireless communication protocols is at least one of AMPS, GSM, CDMA, TDMA, CDMA2000, and WCDMA.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 9  wherein the plurality of different wireless communication protocols is at least one of WLAN, WIFI, GPRS and Bluetooth.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 8  wherein the plurality of different wired and wireless communication protocols includes a wired communication protocol.  
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 12  wherein the wired communication protocol is Ethernet for a wired local area network.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 8  wherein, 
 at the sending end, the method further includes receiving a message from an upper layer of software as the data to be packed into the data portion; and    at the receiving end, the method further includes passing the received data to an upper layer of software as a message thereto.