Patent ID: 7995503

Claim:
A method for provisioning a network service provider application (NSP application) in a digital interactive broadcasting environment, comprising the steps of: A) at a broadcasting headend server, incorporating an application provisioning descriptor including at least an application version information and a location information of the NSP application to be provisioned into an application information table (An table) and transmitting the AIT table through a digital broadcasting network in a form of an always tuned transport stream (ATTS); and B) at a user set-top box, b-1) checking the application version information specified in the application provisioning descriptor and a downloaded status of the application, and comparing the application version information with a version information of an application previously stored into the set-top box, b-2) if the application version specified in the application provisioning descriptor is the same with the version of the application previously stored in the set-top box and downloading of the application has been performed normally, executing the previously stored application without any downloading, and b-3) if the application version specified in the application provisioning descriptor is different from the version of the application previously stored in the set-top box or if downloading of the application has been performed abnormally, accessing and downloading the application based on the location information of the application to be provisioned, which is specified in the application provisioning descriptor wherein the ATTS is independent of A/V (audio/video) data of a service a user is watching, and wherein the application provisioning descriptor includes information on a descriptor tag, a descriptor length, an application version, an AIT URL service length, a network identifier, a transport stream identifier, a service identifier and a stored priority.