Silent proactive handoff
AssigneesToshiba America Research, Inc., Telcordia Inc.
InventorsTao Zhang, Raziq Yaqub
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Abstract
In some embodiments, a silent proactive handoff is performed wherein a mobile device that is using a current network to transport its application traffic uses its silent periods to connect to at least one target network temporarily and uses this temporary connectivity to perform actions needed for handoff into the target network. Among other things, with such a silent proactive handoff approach, e.g., if handoff actions to a target network fail during silent periods, there can still be essentially no impact on the applications.
Claims21
A method for performing silent proactive handoff of a mobile device to a target network while the mobile device is using a current network, comprising:
- while the mobile device is using the current network to transport application traffic and the current network satisfies the mobile device's requirements, having the mobile device use at least one silent period to temporarily connect to at least one target network to proactively perform at least one handoff action for potential later handoff to the target network.
A mobile device having silent proactive handoff capability, comprising:
- a) a traffic monitor component configured to monitor time periods between packets transmitted to or from the mobile device over a current access network;
- b) a target network selector component configured to select a target network to which the mobile device may potentially switch to;
- c) a silence predictor component configured to predict an actionable silence period;
- and
- d) a silent handoff controller configured to control a silent proactive handoff to a target network during the actionable silent period.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.