Handover method
AssigneeBritish Telecommunications public limited company
InventorFrancisco Jose Faus Gregori
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method of performing network handover between wireless local area network devices for a mobile device connected to a voice service via a secure data tunnel to a packet data gateway of a cellular network including determining that a quality of a connection to a current wireless local area network is below a threshold value; determining that a handover target network is available; establishing connectivity with the target handover network; suppressing a connection to a base station of the cellular network; sending a new network address of the mobile device to the packet gateway using a set of credentials relating to the secure data tunnel so as to change an endpoint of the secure data tunnel to the new network address.
Claims5
A method of performing network handover between wireless local area network devices for a mobile device connected to a voice service via a secure data tunnel to a packet data gateway of a cellular network, comprising:
- determining that a quality of a connection to a current wireless local area network is below a threshold value;
- determining that a target handover wireless local area network is available;
- establishing connectivity with the target handover wireless local area network from the current wireless local area network;
- suppressing a connection to a base station of the cellular network;
- sending a new network address of the mobile device to the packet data gateway using a set of credentials relating to the secure data tunnel so as to change an endpoint of the secure data tunnel to the new network address;
- monitoring for a response from the packet data gateway identifying whether the changes to the endpoint of the secure data tunnel has been performed;
- and
- terminating the voice service is the response is received by the mobile device within a timeout period.
An apparatus for connecting to a voice service via a secure data tunnel to a packet data gateway of a cellular network and operable to perform network handover between wireless local area network devices via a secure data tunnel to a packet data gateway of a cellular network, comprising:
- a cellular network interface;
- a wireless local area network interface;
- a processor configured to:
- determine that a quality of a connection to a current wireless local area network is below a threshold value,
- determine that a target handover network is available,
- establish connectivity with the target handover network,
- suppress a connection to a base station of the cellular network,
- send means for sending a new network address of the mobile device to the packet data gateway using a set of credentials relating to the secure data tunnel so as to change an endpoint of the secure data tunnel to the new network address,
- monitor for a response from the packet data gateway identifying whether the change to the endpoint of the secure data tunnel has been performed, and
- terminate the voice service if the response is received by the mobile device within a timeout period.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.