System and method of offloading traffic to a wireless local area network
AssigneeQUALCOMM Incorporated
InventorsGavin Bernard Horn, Arnaud Meylan, Rohit Kapoor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and apparatus for offloading traffic from a cellular network to a wireless local area network (WLAN) are described. One example method generally includes receiving, from a serving base station, a request to measure one or more WLAN access points (APs), determining one or more metrics for the WLAN APs, comparing the metrics for the WLAN APs to a threshold, and reporting metrics for at least a first AP of the WLAN APs if the metrics for the first AP exceed the threshold.
Claims18
A method for wireless communications by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
- determining, at the UE, if a serving base station of a Radio Access Network (RAN) supports interworking between wireless local area network (WLAN) and RAN;
- based upon the determination, determining whether to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with a WLAN access point (AP), wherein a policy from a core network (CN) indicates a type of traffic for which to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic;
- and
- associating or exchanging transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic after accessing the serving base station for the type of traffic, based on the policy,
- wherein the type of traffic comprises at least one of Internet Protocol (IP) flows, bearer, or access point name (APN) traffic.
An apparatus for wireless communications by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
- means for determining, at the UE, if a serving base station of a Radio Access Network (RAN) supports interworking between wireless local area network (WLAN) and RAN;
- means for determining whether to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with a WLAN access point (AP) based upon a result of determining if the serving base station supports the interworking between WLAN and RAN, wherein a policy from a core network (CN) indicates a type of traffic for which to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic;
- and
- means for associating or exchanging transmissions with the W LAN AP for the type of traffic after accessing the serving base station for the type of traffic, based on the policy,
- wherein the type of traffic comprises at least one of Internet Protocol (IP) flows, bearer, or access point name (APN) traffic.
An apparatus for wireless communications by a user equipment (UE), comprising:
- at least one processor configured to
- determine, by the UE, if a serving base station of a radio access network (RAN) supports interworking between wireless local area network (WLAN) and RAN,
- based upon the determination, determine whether to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with a WLAN access point (AP), wherein a policy from a core network (CN) indicates a type of traffic for which to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic;
- and
- associate or exchange transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic after accessing the serving base station for the type of traffic, based on the policy,
- wherein the type of traffic comprises at least one of Internet Protocol (IP) flows, bearer, or access point name (APN) traffic;
- and
- a memory coupled with the at least one processor.
A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed on at least one processor causes the at least one processor to:
- determine, by a user equipment (UE), if a serving base station of a radio access network (RAN) supports interworking between wireless local area network (WLAN) and RAN;
- based upon the determination, determine whether to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with a WLAN access point (AP), wherein a policy from a core network (CN) indicates a type of traffic for which to access the serving base station before associating or exchanging transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic;
- and
- associate or exchange transmissions with the WLAN AP for the type of traffic after accessing the serving base station for the type of traffic, based on the policy,
- wherein the type of traffic comprises at least one of Internet Protocol (IP) flows, bearer, or access point name (APN) traffic.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.