Routing Solutions for LTE-WLAN Aggregation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016337485-A1
Application number	US-201615153959-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	May 13, 2016
Priority date	May 15, 2015
Publication date	Nov 17, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

Apparatus and methods are provided for user-plane LWA PDU routing. In one novel aspect, LTE PDU packets are routed through a WLAN AP to a UE by encapsulation of the data packets. In one embodiment, a bridge/VLAN architecture is used. The UE identifies one or more Ethernet Frames received the WLAN interface as containing the PDCP PDUs by decoding the EtherType. In another embodiment, the WLAN terminated tunneling is used by decoding the EtherType of indicating the PDCP type. In another novel aspect, an UE-terminated tunneling is created. In one embodiment, the IP tunneling is used. In another embodiment, the GRE tunneling is used. The GRE header contains a KEY field to identify the packets as being the LWA packets. In yet another embodiment, the IPSec tunneling is used. The SPI of the header is used to identify the packets as being the LWA data packets.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
establishing a connection with a first radio access network (RAN) by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless network, wherein the UE is associated with a second RAN for data aggregation; receiving one or more Ethernet Frames from the second RAN; identifying one or more received data packets from the second RAN as being encapsulated data packets from the first RAN upon detecting an EtherType field in the Ethernet Frames indicating data-aggregation packets; and parsing the identified data-aggregation packets from the second RAN according to parsing rules of the first RAN.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first RAN is a long term evolution (LTE) network with packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), the second RAN is a WLAN network, and the data aggregation is a LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA).

3 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the LTE and the WLAN are in the same virtual LAN (VLAN) created for LWA, and the LTE sets its EtherType field to be PDCP, which is copied to the EtherType field of the data packets sent to the UE by the WLAN.

4 . The method of claim 2 , wherein the EtherType field indicating PDCP, and wherein the PDCP data packets were transmitted by the LTE to the WLAN through a WLAN terminated (WT) tunneling between the LTE and the WLAN.

5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the WT tunneling is one of IP based tunneling comprising: a Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunneling, an IPSec tunneling, and an IPnIP tunneling.

6 . The method of claim 5 , further comprising: reporting a WLAN MAC address of the UE to the LTE, wherein the WLAN MAC address of the UE is mapped to a facilitating field for data forward.

7 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the IP based tunneling is a GRE tunneling, and wherein the facilitating field is a KEY field in the GRE header.

8 . The method of claim 6 , wherein the IP based tunneling is an IPSec tunneling, and wherein the facilitating field is a SPI field in the IPSec header.

9 . A method comprising:
establishing a connection with a first radio access network (RAN) by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless network, wherein the UE is associated with a second RAN for data aggregation; establishing an IP based tunnel between the first RAN and the UE for data aggregation through the second RAN; receiving one or more IP packets from the second RAN through the IP based tunnel; identifying the one or more IP packets as data aggregation packets from the first RAN; and parsing the identified data-aggregation packets from the second RAN according to parsing rules of the first RAN.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the first RAN is a long term evolution (LTE) network with packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), the second RAN is a WLAN network, and the data aggregation is a LTE-WLAN aggregation (LWA).

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising: receiving a routable IP address from the LTE through a radio resource control (RRC) signal channel.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the IP based tunnel is one tunnel comprising: a Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnel, an IPSec tunnel, and an IPnIP tunnel.

13 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the IP based tunnel is an IPnIP tunnel, and wherein the LWA packets are identified using an LWA-specific protocol number.

14 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the IP based tunnel is a GRE tunnel, and wherein a KEY field of the GRE is used for identifying the DRB of the PDCP PDUs.

15 . The method of claim 12 , wherein the IP based tunnel is an IPSec tunnel, and wherein an SPI field of the GRE is used for identifying the data radio bearer (DRB) of the PDCP PDUs.

16 . An user equipment (UE) connecting with a first RAN in a wireless communication network, comprising:
a radio frequency (RF) transceiver that transmits and receives radio signals in the wireless communication network with the first RAN and a second RAN for LTE-WALN aggregation (LWA); an LWA identifier that identifies one or more received data packets from the second RAN as being data-aggregation packets from the first RAN; and a de-encapsulator that de-encapsulates the identified data-aggregation packets received from the second RAN and decodes the first RAN packet data units (PDUs).

17 . The UE of claim 16 , wherein the LWA identifier identifies the data-aggregation packets based on an EtherType field of its corresponding Ethernet frame.

18 . The UE of claim 17 , wherein the EtherType indicates PDCP packets, and wherein the first RAN sends the data-aggregation packets to the UE through a virtual LAN (VLAN) created between the first RAN and the second RAN.

19 . The UE of claim 17 , wherein the EtherType indicates PDCP packets, and wherein the first RAN sends the data-aggregation packets to the UE through an IP based tunnel between the first RAN and the second RAN.

20 . The UE of claim 16 , further comprising: a UE-terminated tunnel creator that creates an IP based tunnel between the first RAN and the UE, and wherein the the LWA identifier identifies data packets received from the IP based tunnel as the data-aggregation packets.

Assignees

• Mediatek Inc

Inventors

• Nuggehalli Pavan Santhana Krishna
• Chou Chie-Ming
• Hsu Chia-Chun

Classifications

• H04L69/22 Primary

  Parsing or analysis of headers · CPC title

• H04L45/74

  Address processing for routing · CPC title

• H04L69/18

  Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols · CPC title

• H04W4/00

  Services specially adapted for wireless communication networks; Facilities therefor · CPC title

• H04W88/06

  adapted for operation in multiple networks {or having at least two operational modes}, e.g. multi-mode terminals · CPC title