APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR REDUCING THE TRAFFIC VOLUME ASSOCIATED WITH HLR QUERIES FOR DETERMINING ROUTING INFORMATION WHEN DELIVERING SHORT MESSAGES (SMS)

摘要

Methods and apparatus for reducing the traffic volume associated with home location register queries used to determine a subscriber's location in a wireless telecommunications network (300) or in an IP multimedia subsystem network (500). A query reduction mechanism (QRM) (308, 508) is in communication with a short message service center (SMSC) (302, 502) and with a home location register (HLR) (304) to provide a destination location to send an incoming message. The SMSC sends a lookup query to the QRM and the QRM sends a location response back to the SMSC. The message is then sent to the mobile switching center (396, 506) according to the determined location for transmission to the destination mobile device. The QRM includes a route cache (315, 515) with location information, route caching logic (316, 516), and a passive monitor (322, 522) to receive subscriber location updates.