LOCAL DISCOVERY OF MOBILE NETWORK SERVICES, INCLUDING REQUESTING A DETAILED SERVICE DESCRIPTION

摘要

Local discovery of mobile network services involves coupling a communications device (102) to a local network segment (110) of a mobile data network. An announcement (124) is sent from the communication device (102) and/or a network entity (506) describing a service available via the respective devices (102, 506). The announcement (124) is receivable by any device on the local network segment (110). A request (236) is received at the device (102) for a detailed description of the service information in response to the announcement (124). A description of the service (408 A, 510) is sent from the communications device (102) to the originator of the request in response to the request (236), and the service is established between the originator and the communication device (102) and/or network entity (506) in response to the sending of the description of the service (408 A, 510).