POSITIONING AND LOCATION UPDATING OF USERS IN A HOME NETWORK OF A MOBILE PHONE SYSTEM FORMED BY A MULTIMEDIA CORE NETWORK

摘要

The present invention relates to a system and a method for defining and updating user location in a home network of a public mobile phone system formed by a multimedia core network. The system and method according to the present invention can be utilized, for example, by service providers providing telecommunication services for businesses when starting to operate as virtual mobile network operators by providing mobile phone services to their customers by utilizing existing multimedia core networks as such. The system according to the invention comprises a multimedia core network, a signalling gateway from the multimedia network to the public mobile phone network and a mobility proxy, which connects the multimedia core network to the home location register of the public mobile phone network. The mobility proxy maintains the location of the users in the multimedia core network by (re)registering the users to the multimedia core network always at the time of connection. The location of a user A (i.e. the sender of a connection set-up request) is associated to that signalling gateway or mobility proxy, via which the connection set-up request of the user A arrives in the multimedia core network. The location of a user B (i.e. the receiver of the connection set-up request) is in turn associated to that signalling gateway or mobility proxy, via which the user B can be reached from a public mobile phone network. The location of the user B is defined on the basis of an identity of the mobile switching centre received from the home location register of the user B.