Pooling of baseband units in fifth generation networks and beyond

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12034603-B2
Application number	US-202217653545-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 4, 2022
Priority date	Mar 4, 2022
Publication date	Jul 9, 2024
Grant date	Jul 9, 2024

Abstract

Described is pooling baseband units into a hub and mapping radio units associated with the hub to baseband units of the group based on respective resource capacity data of the respective baseband units and an estimated resource usage data of a device that couples to a baseband unit. In one alternative, estimated peak resource usage data of a radio unit over an operation interval is used to select a baseband unit, generally based on which baseband unit of the pool has the least remaining resource capacity, to which the radio unit is mapped for the operation interval. In another alterative, estimated peak resource usage data resource (usage and duration) of a user equipment session is used to dynamically map the user equipment session to a baseband unit, generally selected by which baseband unit of the pool has the least remaining resource capacity.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor of the system, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
pooling a group of baseband units into a hub; and
mapping respective radio units associated with the hub to respective baseband units of the group based on respective resource capacity data of the respective baseband units and an estimated resource usage data of a device that couples to a baseband unit of the respective baseband units.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the mapping the respective radio units associated with the hub to the respective baseband units is further based on ensuring that the mapping does not violate service level agreement constraint data.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the service level agreement constraint data comprises at least one of: latency constraint data, jitter constraint data, bandwidth constraint data, packet loss constraint data, availability constraint data, or throughput constraint data.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the device that couples to the baseband unit of the respective baseband units comprises a radio unit of the respective radio units, and wherein the estimated resource usage data comprises estimated respective peak resource usage data of the radio unit over an operation interval.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the mapping the respective radio units associated with the hub to the respective baseband units comprises selecting, for a radio unit of the respective radio units, a selected baseband unit comprising a baseband unit with a least remaining resource capacity among the respective baseband units.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the estimated resource usage data comprises estimated peak resource usage of the respective radio units over an operation interval, and wherein the mapping the respective radio units associated with the hub to the respective baseband units comprises selecting, for a radio unit of the respective radio units, a selected baseband unit comprising a baseband unit with a least remaining resource capacity among the respective baseband units that does not violate service level agreement constraint data.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the operations further comprise determining, following the mapping, an unused baseband unit, and causing the unused baseband unit to enter into a sleep mode of operation.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the device that couples to the baseband unit of the respective baseband units comprises a user equipment device coupled via a radio unit of the respective radio units, and wherein the estimated resource usage data comprises, for the user equipment device, estimated peak resource usage of a user equipment session and duration of the user equipment session.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the mapping the respective radio units associated with the hub to the respective baseband units comprises selecting, for a radio unit of the respective radio units to which the user equipment session is coupled, a selected baseband unit comprising a baseband unit with a least remaining capacity among the respective baseband units.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the estimated resource usage data comprises estimated peak resource usage of a user equipment session and duration of the user equipment session, and wherein the mapping the respective radio units associated with the hub to the respective baseband units comprises selecting, for a user equipment session, a baseband unit with a least remaining capacity among the respective baseband units that does not violate service level agreement constraint data.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise determining, following a disconnection of a user equipment session, whether a baseband unit has no connected user equipment session, and, in response to determining that a baseband unit has no connected user equipment session, causing the baseband unit that has no connected user equipment session to enter into a sleep mode of operation.

12. A method, comprising:
estimating, by network equipment comprising a processor, peak resource usage data of a radio unit of a group of radio units over an operation interval;
determining, by the network equipment, respective remaining resource capacities of respective baseband units of a pool of baseband units;
selecting, by the network equipment based on the peak resource usage data and the respective remaining resource capacities, a baseband unit from the pool of baseband units, resulting in a selected baseband unit; and
mapping, by the network equipment, the radio unit to the selected baseband unit for the operation interval.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the selecting the baseband unit comprises selecting the baseband unit of the pool with a least remaining resource capacity among the respective baseband units that is consistent with service level agreement constraint data.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising determining, by the network equipment following the mapping, an unused baseband unit, and instructing the unused baseband unit to enter into a sleep mode of operation.

15. The method of claim 12 , further comprising grouping, by the network equipment, the pool of baseband units into a hub based on respective location data of base stations comprising the pool of baseband units.

16. A non-transitory machine-readable medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, the operations comprising:
estimating peak resource usage data of a user equipment session;
determining respective remaining resource capacities of baseband units of a pool of baseband units;
selecting, based on the peak resource usage data and the remaining resource capacities, a baseband unit of the baseband units, resulting in a selected baseband unit; and
mapping the user equipment session to the selected baseband unit.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise determining, following a disconnection of the user equipment session, whether the selected baseband unit has no other connected user equipment session, and, in response to determining that the selected baseband unit has no other connected user equipment session, facilitating entering the selected baseband unit into a sleep mode of operation.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the selecting the baseband unit comprises selecting the baseband unit of the pool with a least remaining resource capacity among the respective baseband units that is not inconsistent with service level agreement constraint data.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the user equipment session is a first user equipment session, wherein the selected baseband unit is a first baseband unit, and wherein the operations further comprise determining, following a disconnection of a second user equipment session, whether a second baseband unit has no other connected user equipment session, and, in response to determining that the second baseband unit has no other connected user equipment session, facilitating entering the second baseband unit into a sleep mode of operation.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise grouping the pool of baseband units into a hub based on respective location data of base stations comprising the po

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp
• At&T Intellect Al P Property I L P

Inventors

• Jung Gueyoung
• Zelezniak Aleksandr
• Joshi Kaustubh
• Puzhavakath Narayanan Shankaranarayanan

Classifications

• H04L41/12 Primary

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L41/5019

  Ensuring fulfilment of SLA · CPC title

• H04W24/02 Primary

  Arrangements for optimising operational condition · CPC title

• H04L41/0893

  Assignment of logical groups to network elements · CPC title

• H04L41/0896

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title