A delta representation scheme for updating between versions of mobile phone software

Abstract

In recent years the amount of software running on mobile phones has increased dramatically due to the start of data network connection services for mobile phones. As a result it has sometimes become necessary to repair defects in such products after they have been shipped to market. In this context, services have been launched that enable software to be updated after a terminal has been sold. The time taken for software to be updated is made up of the time taken to transmit the data to the handset via a mobile network or from a PC (which in turn depends on the amount of data being transmitted) and the time taken to overwrite the data on flash memory. A standard method for making the amount of data that needs to be transmitted to the handset small, is to only send delta data corresponding to those parts of the new version of the software that differ from the old version; it is generally necessary to make this delta as small as possible. Following a description of existing techniques for extracting deltas, in this paper we make multiple proposals regarding delta extraction schemes that are designed with the structure of mobile phone software particularly in mind with a view to making the delta data transmitted to the handset when updating software as small as possible; we then describe results of evaluations with actual mobile phones immediately prior to shipping. Both of the schemes that we propose are shown to allow a reduction of approximately 30 percent in the size of the delta when compared with standard delta representation mechanisms. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 90(7): 26–37, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20348