Data link layer quality of service for UMTS

Abstract

A Data Link Layer (DLL) protocol for direct support of the Internet Protocol (IP) networking in the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), is provided. The disclosed Data Link Layer comprises a Radio Link Control (RLC) sublayer and a Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayer. At a transmit end, as well as at a receiving end of the UMTS wireless system, a plurality of Quality of Service (QoS) planes are created according to IP QoS requirements. At the RLC level, each QoS plane comprises a Data-RLC and a Control-RLC. The QoS planes are optimized to handle the QoS requirements of a corresponding Class of Service (CoS). At the transmitting end, the data packets received from the upper layers are directed to a QoS plane according to the particular QoS information they contain, and processed according to their particular QoS requirement. A Segmentation, Concatenation, and Reframing module (SCR) is used to generate variable size RLC frames, including multiframing. The variable size RLC frames are transmitted to the MAC sublayer using logical channels. At the MAC sublayer, the RLC frames are multiplexed onto transport channels based on their QoS requirements and transmitted to the physical layer for propagation to the receiving end.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.