Dynamic switching between one-to-many download methods in "All-IP" cellular networks

To facilitate upgrades to software, firmware, or FPGA functionality in terminals, over-the-air downloads can provide in-the-field solutions. For mobile terminals, over-the-air downloads provide a security-conscious option due to the ubiquitous availability of the radio interface as they guarantee that the upgrade will be performed if the terminal is to be allowed to use the operator's network. Ensuring system stability through urgent upgrades, this provides a degree of certainty which has hitherto not been present in other forms of downloads. In this paper, we concentrate on mass-upgrades, as might apply to an OS, codec, or urgent security upgrade in a number of terminals concurrently. We investigate relative performances of a range of one-to-many reliable data transfer techniques. Based on these performances, we introduce a unified protocol, able to dynamically switch between the one-to-many download methods many-unicast, multicast, and broadcast during a file download, thereby achieving enhanced performance of the mass-upgrade download from both user and system perspectives, as well as from the perspectives of other users in the network which have to share the same resources as the one-to-many download.