Patent ID: 7152098

Claim:
A system for distributing data subsets from a transmission station ( 105 , 801 ) to a plurality of user stations ( 106 , 802 ) over a transmission channel ( 104 ) having a predetermined bandwidth and comprising a contents channel ( 109 , 804 ) and an announcement channel ( 110 , 803 ), the transmission station ( 105 , 801 ) comprising a data link ( 814 ) between the announcement channel ( 110 , 803 ) and the contents channel ( 109 , 804 ) and comprising a server ( 805 ), which is arranged to prepare a list of said data subsets to be transmitted and which is arranged to create for each data subset of said data subsets an index containing a description of a corresponding data subset, wherein each index is transmitted over the announcement channel ( 110 , 803 ) and each corresponding data subset is transmitted over the contents channel ( 109 , 804 ), and means for controlling via the data link ( 814 ) said transmission of the corresponding data subset over the contents channel ( 109 , 804 ) in response to each index being transmitted over the announcement channel ( 110 , 803 ) such that each index of the announcement channel ( 110 , 803 ) is a description of a future data subset to be transmitted over the contents channel ( 109 , 804 ), each of the plurality of user stations comprising a local advisor application ( 810 , 811 , 812 ), a means for receiving the indices ( 809 ) and a means for receiving the data subsets ( 812 ) and a local storage ( 813 ), wherein for each data subset the index containing a description of said corresponding data subset is received by the means for receiving the indices ( 809 ) from the announcement channel ( 110 , 803 ), wherein the local advisor application ( 810 , 811 , 812 ) is arranged to appoint a user profile specifying data subsets of interest to a user and is arranged to download said data subsets from the contents channel via the means for receiving the data subsets ( 812 ) to the local storage ( 813 ) in accordance with a predetermined quality of matching between each corresponding index and the user profile.