Media resources include music, video, pictures and the like. Taking music as an example, the music in a terminal is typically a ring tone of a mobile phone. The ring tone of the mobile phone is a cue tone stored in the mobile phone for prompting an incoming call to the mobile phone. When there is an incoming call, the mobile phone plays the ring tone to prompt the incoming call. Ring tones of mobile phones usually may be classified into mono ring tones and chord ring tones, depending on the type of the mobile-phones and the support by the mobile phones. A mono ring tone is a fragment of monotone melody, i.e., a fragment of melody composed of musical notes such as “1, 2, 3, . . . ”. Mobile phones in the early stage only support monotone music as a ring tone. A chord ring tone is a fragment of melody composed of complex rhythms and has a corresponding file format. Different brand names or models of mobile phones usually support different file formats. Presently, most mobile phones prevailing in the market support chord ring tones. A certain amount of music fragments in certain types are usually stored in a mobile phone when the mobile phone is shipped from the factory, so that the user may choose one from the music fragments as his ring tone. In addition, the user may download other music fragments and use any of the music fragments as his ring tone as required.
In the prior art, a system for downloading a ring tone to a terminal is shown in FIG. 1.
That system includes a subscriber using the ring tone downloading service, the Internet, a server of the ring tone downloading service provider (hereafter referred to as “ring tone download server”), a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) gateway, a Push Proxy Gateway (PPG), a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network and a WAP terminal (a terminal supporting WAP applications or other devices).
The ring tone download server is a Web Server connected to the WAP gateway and the PPQ to provide a WAP information sending capability including WAP short message pushing and ring tone content sending, etc. The WAP gateway is connected to the ring tone download server via WAP protocol and is connected to the WAP terminal through the GPRS network, to provide a content sending channel. The PPG is connected to the GPRS network and is configured to actively push information. In other words, the PPG receives a WAP information push request from the ring tone download server and sends the WAP information to the WAP terminal. The WAP terminal is a mobile phone terminal supporting WAP. The WAP gateway is connected to the ring tone download server via Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and is connected to the GPRS network via WAP protocol. The ring tone download server is connected to the PPG via Push Access Protocol (PAP). The PPG is connected to the GPRS network via Push Over-The-Air (P-OTA) protocol.
The method used in the system for downloading a ring tone to a terminal includes that the subscriber chooses the ring tone at the website, and then downloads the ring tone to the terminal by means of a short message or through the over-the-air network. A chord ring tone may only be downloaded through the over-the-air network. The over-the-air network is an over-the-air transmission network established in the mobile network to provide data services, such as a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network. To download a chord ring tone to the terminal, the terminal user has to choose the required ring tone content and the brand name and model of the terminal on the website. Then, the website sends the specified content to the specified terminal through the GPRS network according to the specified Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card ID.
A flow chart of the method for downloading music to a terminal by the system is shown in FIG. 2. The method includes the following processes.
In process 201, the subscriber using the ring tone downloading service accesses the ring tone download server through the Internet.
In process 202, the subscriber chooses the brand name and model of the terminal and a ring tone on the user interface provided by the ring tone download server.
In process 203, the ring tone download server creates information content to be sent to the subscriber according to the subscriber's choice in process 202.
In process 204, the ring tone download server submits the message created in process 203 to the PPG.
In process 205, the PPG pushes the message received in process 204 to the WAP terminal through the GPRS network.
In process 206, after the WAP terminal receives the message pushed from the PPQ if the subscriber chooses to use the proposed service, the WAP terminal initiates a connection request to the WAP gateway through the GPRS network and sends a ring tone file download request to the WAP gateway.
In process 207, the WAP gateway sends the ring tone file download request initiated by the subscriber to the ring tone download server.
In process 208, the ring tone download server sends the ring tone file to be downloaded to the WAP gateway.
In process 209, the WAP gateway sends the ring tone file to the WAP terminal through the GPRS network.
In process 210, after confirming the sending result, the WAP gateway returns the current download result to the ring tone download server.
The ring tone download server then may choose to resend (if the sending has failed) or charge (if the sending is successful) according to the result returned from the WAP gateway.