User equipment (UE) policy enhancment for UE route selection policy (URSP) in evolved packet system (EPS)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12507146-B2
Application number	US-202318176822-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 1, 2023
Priority date	Mar 29, 2022
Publication date	Dec 23, 2025
Grant date	Dec 23, 2025

Abstract

A service device (e.g., a user equipment (UE), a new radio NB (gNB), mobility management entity (MME), or other network component or network management component) as a service provider or a service consumer can process or generate a downlink (DL) generic non-access stratum (NAS) transport (DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT) message that includes a UE policy container with UE route selection policy (URSP) rules associated with a 5G network in response to providing UE capability information for provisioning URSP rules in EPS. Parameters from the URSP rules associated with a 5G network can be derived to establish a packet data network (PDN) connection in an evolved packet system (EPS) of a 4G network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A User Equipment (UE) comprising:
a memory; processing circuitry, coupled to the memory, configured to, when executing instructions stored in the memory, cause the UE to:
receive a downlink (DL) generic non-access stratum (NAS) transport (DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT) message that includes a UE policy container with UE route selection policy (URSP) rules associated with a 5G network, wherein the URSP rules include at least one 5G-related URSP rule that is non-applicable to operation in an evolved packet system (EPS) of a 4G network and at least one EPS-related URSP rule that is applicable to operation in an EPS of a 4G network;
provision the at least one EPS-related URSP rule and refrain from provisioning the at least one 5G-related URSP rule;
obtain a parameter from the at least one EPS-related URSP rule to establish a packet data network (PDN) connection in an evolved packet system (EPS) of a 4G network; and
establish the PDN connection in the EPS of the 4G network based on the parameter from the at least one EPS-related URSP rule.

2 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
provide an acknowledgement (ACK) in an uplink (UL) generic NAS transport (UL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT) message in response to receiving the DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT message.

3 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
transmit an ATTACH REQUEST message or a TRACKING AREA UPDATE (TAU) REQUEST message that includes a UE network capability information element (IE) with a UE capability information to provision an update of the URSP rules of the 5G network in the EPS of the 4G network; and in response to transmitting the ATTACH REQUEST message or the TAU REQUEST message, receive an ATTACH ACCEPT message or a TAU ACCEPT message comprising an EPS network feature support IE that indicates a network capability to update of the URSP rules from the 5G network for the 4G network.

4 . The UE of claim 3 , wherein the ATTACH ACCEPT message or the TAU ACCEPT message comprises a Generic message container type IE and a Generic message container IE.

5 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT message comprises a generic message container IE that indicates a presence of UE policy container of the 5G network for the EPS of the 4G network based on a bit value.

6 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to cause the UE to apply the at least one EPS-related URSP rule when establishing the PDN connection and refrain from applying a preconfigured rule in a Mobile Equipment (ME) or a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) associated with the UE.

7 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the at least one 5G-related URSP rule comprises a parameter including multi-access preferences, 5G ProSe layer 3, or UE to network relay offload.

8 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the parameter of the at least one EPS-related URSP rule is associated with the EPS of the 4G network based on one or more of: an application associated with the PDN connection, a non-seamless non-3GPP offload indication, a Data Network Name (DNN) to derive an Access Point Name (APN), an access type preference, a Session and Service Continuity (SSC) mode, location information, or a traffic category parameter for a specific application.

9 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
transmit an ATTACH REQUEST message or a first PDN connectivity request message that includes a UE capability information as a part of an enhanced Protocol Configuration Options (ePCO) to provision an update of the URSP rules of the 5G network in the 4G network; and in response to providing the ATTACH REQUEST message or the first PDN connectivity request message, receive an ATTACH ACCEPT message that includes an Activate Default Bearer Context Request message or a standalone Activate Default Bearer Context Request message which includes URSP rules in the ePCO to update the URSP rules from the 5G network when the UE is connected to the 4G network.

10 . A baseband processor comprising:
processing circuitry, coupled to a memory, configured to:
receive a downlink (DL) generic non-access stratum (NAS) transport (DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT) message that includes a UE policy container comprising updated URSP rules to obtain policy components for use in a 4G network, wherein the URSP rules include at least one 5G-related URSP rule that is non-applicable to operation in an evolved packet system (EPS) of a 4G network and at least one EPS-related URSP rule that is applicable to operation in an EPS of a 4G network;
transmit an acknowledgment of the DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT message; provision the at least one EPS-related URSP rule and refrain from provisioning the at least one 5G-related URSP rule; obtain a parameter from the at least one EPS-related URSP rule to establish a packet data network (PDN) connection in an evolved packet system (EPS) of a 4G network; and establish the PDN connection in the EPS of the 4G network based on the parameter from the at least one EPS-related URSP rule.

11 . The baseband processor of claim 10 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
transmit a UE capability information that includes information related to handling a provisioning of UE Route Selection Policy (URSP) rules in a UE Network Capability Information Element (IE) in an ATTACH REQUEST message or a TRACKING AREA UPDATE (TAU) REQUEST message; and receive an ATTACH ACCEPT message or a TAU ACCEPT message comprising an EPS network IE that indicates the URSP rules from a 5G network to be used for evolved packet system (EPS) of the 4G network based on the UE capability information, wherein the acknowledgment of the DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT message is transmitted via an uplink (UL) generic NAS transport (UL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT) message.

12 . The baseband processor of claim 11 , wherein the DL GENERIC NAS TRANSPORT message comprises a generic message container type IE that includes the UE policy container of the 5G network for the EPS of the 4G network associated with a bit value, wherein the bit value of the UE policy container indicates a presence of UE policy type information for establishing a packet data network (PDN) connection in the EPS of the 4G network.

13 . The baseband processor of claim 11 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
to apply the at least one EPS-related URSP rule when establishing the PDN connection and refrain from applying a preconfigured rule from a Mobile Equipment (ME) or a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM).

14 . The baseband processor of claim 11 , wherein the
parameter of the at least one EPS-related URSP rule is associated with one or more of: the PDN connection, a non-seamless non-3GPP offload indication, a Data Network Name (DNN) to derive an Access Point Name (APN), an access type preference, a Session and Service Continuity (SSC) mode, a location information, or a traffic category parameter for a specific application.

15 . The baseband processor of claim 11 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:
receive another ATTACH ACCEPT message or another TAU ACCEPT message comprising another EPS network feature support IE that indicates one or more updated URSP rules from the 5G network to establish a PDN connection in the 4G network in response to a UE mobility or a change in a mobility parameter of the URSP rules that are associated with both the EPS of the 4G network and the 5G network, wherein the updated URSP rules replace one or more of the URSP

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Gupta Vivek G
• Kiss Krisztian
• Prakasam Sridhar
• Vamanan Sudeep Manithara

Classifications

• H04W48/18

  Selecting a network or a communication service · CPC title

• H04W76/12

  Setup of transport tunnels · CPC title

• H04W40/02 Primary

  Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing · CPC title

• H04W76/10

  Connection setup · CPC title

• H04W28/0865 Primary

  of different Radio Access Technologies [RATs], e.g. LTE® or Wi-Fi® · CPC title