WiFi boost with LTE IP anchor
AssigneeAlcatel Lucent
InventorsSatish Kanugovi, Subramanian Vasudevan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A radio access network element includes a base station configured to: allocate, based on received radio link measurement information, at least a first portion of downlink packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) packets received at the base station for delivery to a user equipment over a wireless local area network (WLAN) link between a WLAN access point and the user equipment, the received radio link measurement information being indicative of at least one of a WLAN link quality and a loading of the WLAN link; and output the first portion of the received downlink PDCP packets to the WLAN access point for delivery to the user equipment over the WLAN link.
Claims13
A radio access network element comprising:
- a base station configured to,
- send an access point addition message to a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point, the access point addition message including a WLAN address for a user equipment, and requesting that the WLAN access point add the WLAN address to a list of user equipments allowed to access a WLAN subsystem identified by a service set identifier (SSID) at the WLAN access point;
- instruct the user equipment to connect to the WLAN subsystem identified by the SSID;
- obtain, from the WLAN access point, a local Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to the user equipment by the WLAN access point;
- maintain a mapping between the local IP address and a UE session identifier associated with a cellular IP connection for the user equipment;
- allocate, based on received radio link measurement information, at least a first portion of downlink packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) packets received at the base station for delivery to the user equipment over a WLAN link between the user equipment and the WLAN subsystem at the WLAN access point and a second portion of the received downlink PDCP packets for delivery to the user equipment over the cellular IP connection, the received radio link measurement information being indicative of at least one of a WLAN link quality and a loading of the WLAN link;
- and
- output the first portion of the received downlink PDCP packets to the WLAN access point for delivery to the user equipment over the WLAN link based on the mapping.
A radio access network element comprising:
- a base station configured to,
- send an access point addition message to a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point associated with a WLAN gateway, the access point addition message including a WLAN address for a user equipment, and requesting that the WLAN access point add the WLAN address to a list of user equipments allowed to access a WLAN subsystem identified by a service set identifier (SSID) at the WLAN access point;
- instruct the user equipment to connect to the WLAN subsystem identified by the SSID;
- obtain, from the WLAN access point, an Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to the user equipment by the WLAN access point;
- establish a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) tunneling protocol (GTP) tunnel between the base station and the WLAN gateway;
- maintain a mapping between a UE session identifier associated with a cellular IP connection for the user equipment, the IP address, and a GTP tunnel identifier for the GTP tunnel;
- allocate, based on received radio link measurement information, at least a first portion of downlink packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) packets received at the base station for delivery to the user equipment over a WLAN link between the user equipment and the WLAN subsystem of the WLAN access point and a second portion of the received downlink PDCP packets for delivery to the user equipment over the cellular IP connection, the received radio link measurement information being indicative of at least one of a WLAN link quality and a loading on the WLAN link;
- and
- output the first portion of the downlink PDCP packets to the WLAN gateway over the GTP tunnel between the base station and the WLAN gateway for delivery to the user equipment via the WLAN access point over the WLAN link based on the mapping.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.