Control node for a mobile communication network and a method for allocating resources in said network
AssigneeTelefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
InventorsSofia Svedevall, Bo Ehrenholm, Par Gustavsson, Thomas Walldeen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention relates to a control node for a mobile communication network. The control node has means arranged to provide the IMSI of at least some of the currently set up connections and means arranged to allocate resources for the connections based on said IMSI information. The present invention also relates to a method for allocating resources for a connection in a mobile communication network.
Claims37
A method for sharing radio resources in a cell amongst multiple operators, wherein the method is implemented by a control node and comprises:
- determining that a mobile terminal connection is a candidate to be handed over to the cell;
- obtaining International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) information for the mobile terminal connection;
- based on the IMSI information, identifying a home operator for the mobile terminal connection as being an operator of a core network to which the connection is connected;
- determining whether and/or which of the shared radio resources in the cell are to be allocated to the mobile terminal connection for handover to the cell, based on the home operator identified for that connection and one or more rules that give different ones of the multiple operators different priorities to the shared radio resources in the cell;
- and
- allocating one or more of the shared radio resources in accordance with said determining whether and/or which of the shared radio resources in the cell are to be allocated,
- wherein, when the home operator identified for the mobile terminal connection has a lower priority to the shared radio resources than a competing operator that shares those radio resources, said allocating comprises allocating one or more of the shared radio resources in the cell to the mobile terminal connection provided that those radio resources are not needed for a mobile terminal connection having the competing operator as its home operator.
A control node for sharing radio resources in a cell amongst multiple operators, said node comprising:
- a communication interface for obtaining International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) information for a mobile terminal connection;
- memory configured to store the IMSI information;
- and
- a control circuit operatively associated with the communication interface and memory, and configured to:
- determine that a mobile terminal connection is a candidate to be handed over to the cell;
- based on the IMSI information, identify a home operator for the mobile terminal connection as being an operator of a core network to which the connection is connected;
- determine whether and/or which of the shared radio resources in the cell are to be allocated to the mobile terminal connection for handover to the cell, based on the home operator identified for that connection and one or more rules that give different ones of the multiple operators different priorities to the shared radio resources in the cell;
- and
- allocate one or more of the shared radio resources in the cell in accordance with the determining of whether and/or which of the shared radio resources in the cell are to be allocated,
- wherein, when the home operator identified for the mobile terminal connection has a lower priority to the shared radio resources than a competing operator that shares those radio resources, said control circuit is configured to allocate one or more of the shared radio resources in the cell to the mobile terminal connection provided that those radio resources are not needed for a mobile terminal connection having the competing operator as its home operator.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.