Providing bonded services at a non-anchor node

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016308918-A1
Application number	US-201615047855-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 19, 2016
Priority date	Apr 14, 2015
Publication date	Oct 20, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The disclosure relates generally to supporting bonded services at non-anchor nodes. A non-anchor gateway device is configured to support service bonding for a user device and communication with an anchor node of the user device. The non-anchor gateway device is configured to associated a set of user device data plane connections of the user device to form a bonded session for the user device where the set of user device data plane sessions includes a first user device data plane connection associated with a first access network and a second user device data plane connection associated with a second access network. The non-anchor gateway device is configured to map user device traffic of the user device between the user device data plane connections of the bonded session and a user device data plane session between the gateway device and the anchor node for the user device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . An apparatus, comprising:
a processor and a memory communicatively connected to the processor, the processor configured to:
associate, at a gateway device, a set of user device data plane connections of a user device to form a bonded session for the user device, the set of user device data plane sessions including a first user device data plane connection associated with a first access network and a second user device data plane connection associated with a second access network; and
map user device traffic of the user device between the user device data plane connections of the bonded session and a user device data plane session between the gateway device and an anchor node for the user device.

2 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to:
obtain an address for the bonded session for the user device; and associate the address with the bonded session for the user device.

3 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein, to obtain the address for the bonded session, the processor is configured to:
select the address from a respective set of addresses assigned by the anchor node for the respective user device data plane connections.

4 . The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the address comprises an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

5 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the user device traffic comprises downstream traffic intended for delivery to the user device, wherein, to map the user device traffic between the user device data plane connections of the bonded session and the user device data plane session, the processor is configured to:
determine an allocation of the user device traffic to the user device data plane connections of the bonded session; and provide the user device traffic to the user device data plane connections of the bonded session based on the allocation of the user device traffic to the user device data plane connections of the bonded session.

6 . The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the allocation of the user device traffic to the user device data plane connections of the bonded session based on at least one of policy information associated with the user device or traffic monitoring information determined based on monitoring of the user device traffic.

7 . The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the allocation of the user device traffic to the user device data plane connections of the bonded session is indicative of respective portions of the user device traffic to be transported by the respective user device data plane connections of the bonded session.

8 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the user device traffic comprises upstream traffic provided by the user device via the bonded session, wherein, to map the user device traffic between the user device data plane connections of the bonded session and the user device data plane session, the processor is configured to:
provide the user device traffic received via the user device data plane connections of the bonded session to the user device data plane session between the gateway device and the anchor node for the user device.

9 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the user device traffic comprises upstream traffic provided by the user device via the bonded session, wherein, to map the user device traffic between the user device data plane connections of the bonded session and the user device data plane session, the processor is configured to:
combine respective portions of the user device traffic received via the user device data plane connections of the bonded session to form combined user device traffic; and provide the combined user device traffic to the user device data plane session between the gateway device and the anchor node for the user device.

10 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first user device data plane connection comprises a wireless connection and the first access network comprises a wireless access network, wherein the processor is configured to:
support a non-relocation handover of the user device using a handover procedure configured for handover between wireless access points.

11 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the bonded session for the user device has an address associated therewith for use by the first user device data plane connection and the second user device data plane connection, wherein the address was assigned by the anchor node for use by the first user device data plane connection, wherein the processor is configured to:
detect a non-relocation handover of the user device; and determine, based on a determination as to whether the non-relocation handover is associated with the first user device data plane connection or the second user device data plane connection, whether to obtain a new address for the bonded session.

12 . The apparatus of claim 11 , wherein the processor is configured to:
based on a determination as that the non-relocation handover is associated with the first user device data plane connection, propagate from the gateway device toward the anchor node a request for a new address for the first user device data plane connection; and associate the new address with the bonded session for use by the first user device data plane connection and the second user device data plane connection.

13 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first user device data plane connection comprises a wireless connection and the first access network comprises a wireless access network, wherein the processor is configured to:
detect a relocation handover of the user device that is associated with the first user device data plane connection; and propagate, from the gateway device toward the anchor node, a message configured to trigger a handover of the first user device data plane connection from the gateway device to a second gateway device associated with the anchor node.

14 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the user device comprises a customer premises equipment (CPE) device or a wireless user device.

15 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first access network is a wireline access network and the second access network is a wireless access network.

16 . The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the wireline network comprises a cable network or a digital subscriber line (DSL) network, wherein the wireless network comprises a cellular network or a wireless local area network (WLAN).

17 . The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first access network is a first type of wireless access network and the second access network is a second type of wireless access network.

18 . The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the first type of wireless access network is a cellular network and the second type of wireless access network is a WiFi network.

19 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method, the method comprising:
associating a set of user device data plane connections of a user device to form a bonded session for the user device, the set of user device data plane sessions including a first user device data plane connection associated with a first access network and a second user device data plane connection associated with a second access network; and mapping user device traffic of the user device between the user device data plane connections of the bonded session and a user device data plane session between the gateway device and an anchor node for the user device.

20 . A method, comp

Assignees

• Muley Praveen Vasant
• Thiebaut Laurent
• Henderickx Wim
• Van De Velde Thierry
• Kompella Vachaspathi P
• Alcatel Lucent Usa Inc
• Alcatel-Lucent Bell N V
• Alcatel Lucent

Inventors

• Muley Praveen Vasant
• Thiebaut Laurent
• Henderickx Wim
• Van De Velde Thierry
• Kompella Vachaspathi P

Classifications

• H04L61/2007

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L43/0876

  Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level · CPC title

• H04L65/1069 Primary

  Session establishment or de-establishment · CPC title

• H04L43/062

  related to network traffic · CPC title

• H04L12/2863 Primary

  Arrangements for combining access network resources elements, e.g. channel bonding (modem pooling H04L25/14; routing of packets H04L45/00; multichannel or multilink protocols H04L69/14) · CPC title