Location and Context Management in a RAN Inactive Mode
AssigneeHuawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
InventorsWilliam Anthony Gage, Nathan Edward TENNY
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method at a network node of a radio access network (RAN) for managing a context of a user equipment (UE) operating in an inactive mode, the method comprising: receiving, from a second network node, a context retrieval request comprising a UE identifier and a first message, the first message being protected with a first cryptographic key; validating the first message using a stored cryptographic key associated with a UE context indicated by the UE identifier; and sending a context retrieval response message to the second network node containing a relocation indication of whether the UE context is to be relocated to the second network node.
Claims13
An anchor node of a radio access network (RAN), the anchor node comprising a memory and at least one processor configured to:
- receive, from a second network node, a context retrieval request comprising an identifier of a user equipment (UE) operating in an inactive mode and a first message, the first message being protected with a first cryptographic key;
- validate the first message using a stored cryptographic key associated with a UE context indicated by the identifier of the UE;
- and
- send a context retrieval response to the second network node, the context retrieval response containing a relocation indication of whether the UE context is to be relocated to the second network node.
A serving node of a radio access network (RAN), the serving node comprising:
- a memory and at least one processor configured to:
- receive, from a user equipment (UE), an identifier of a UE operating in an inactive mode and a first message, the first message being protected with a first cryptographic key;
- send the identifier of the UE and the first message to a second network node;
- receive, from the second network node, a second message protected with a second cryptographic key;
- and
- send the second message to the UE.
A serving node of a radio access network (RAN), the serving node comprising a memory and at least one processor configured to:
- receive, from a user equipment (UE), an identifier of a UE operating in an inactive mode and a first message, the first message being protected with a first cryptographic key;
- send the identifier of the UE and the first message to a second network node;
- receive, from the second network node, a context associated with the UE;
- derive, based on the context, a second cryptographic key;
- and
- send a second message to the UE protected with the second cryptographic key.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.