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US 8,711,803 B1Granted
Fast base station switching method and system, and hierarchical zone-based fast handoff approach
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsGuo Qiang Wang, Brian Vezza
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of performing fast base station switching for hand off is provided that involves the use of a tunnel from a serving base station to a target base station. During a hand off, packets are forwarded by the serving base station to the target base station using the tunnel. A hierarchical hand off method is also provided that uses a diversity hand off method for a hand off between base stations of different zones, and uses a non-diversity handoff, such as the fast base station switching method, for a hand off between base stations in the same zone.
Claims16
A method comprising:
- defining a plurality of non-diversity handoff zones, each non-diversity handoff zone comprising a respective plurality of non-diversity-enabled base stations;
- to perform a handoff between a first base station and a second base station of said base stations:
- performing a non-diversity handoff to complete the handoff if the first base station and the second base station are in the same non-diversity handoff zone;
- performing a diversity handoff to complete the handoff if the first base station and the second base station are in different non-diversity handoff zones.
1 more element
A system comprising:
- a plurality of base stations organized into non-diversity handoff zones;
- an inter-zone handoff controller;
- the system being adapted to perform handoffs between a first of the base stations and a second of the base stations by:
- performing a non-diversity handoff to complete the handoff if the first base station and the second base station are in the same non-diversity handoff zone;
- performing a diversity handoff under control of the inter-zone handoff controller to complete the handoff if the first base station and the second base station are in different non-diversity handoff zones.
2 more elements
A base station comprising:
- at least one input port for receiving packets destined for mobile stations;
- an output port for outputting packets on a tunnel towards another base station in a common non-diversity handoff zone;
- physical layer hardware;
- a packet dispatcher adapted to transmit received packets for a given mobile station to the given mobile station via the physical layer hardware while the given mobile station is attached to the base station, such that the packet dispatcher continues to transmit received packets for a given mobile station to the given mobile station during diversity handoff to another base station in a different non-diversity handoff zone, and to send the packets towards the output port during a fast base station switch handoff to the another base station in the common non-diversity handoff zone.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.