Radio access networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9414399-B2
Application number	US-201313762283-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 7, 2013
Priority date	Feb 7, 2013
Publication date	Aug 9, 2016
Grant date	Aug 9, 2016

Abstract

Among other things, a communication system comprising remote units and a controller is described. Each of the remote units comprises one or more radio frequency (RF) units to exchange RF signals with mobile devices. At least some of the RF signals comprise information destined for, or originating from, a mobile device. The controller comprises one or more modems and is connected to an external network. At least one of the modems is a baseband modem and is configured to pass first data corresponding to the information. The at least one of the modems is configured to perform real-time scheduling of the first data corresponding to the information. The controller is separated from the remote units by an intermediate network. The intermediate network comprises a switched Ethernet network over which second data corresponding to the information is carried in frames between the controller and the remote units.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A communication system for a site comprising:
remote units to exchange RF signals with mobile devices, RF signals comprising information destined for, or originating from, mobile devices; and
a controller connected to an external network, the controller comprising a scheduler to assign airlink resources to the mobile devices, the airlink resources being for transmission or reception of at least some of the information passing between the remote units and the mobile devices;
wherein the controller is separated from the remote units by an intermediate network, the intermediate network comprising a switched Ethernet network over which data corresponding to the information is passed between the controller and the remote units, the switched Ethernet network comprising switches and a network in between the switches for passage of the data; and
wherein the controller is configured to obtain information about data capacity demands in different areas of the site, and to configure one or more communication cells in the different areas of the site based on the information about data capacity demands in order to accommodate the data capacity demands, wherein the one or more communication cells are configured by changing assignments of a number of the remote units to the one or more communication cells.

2. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the external network comprises the Internet, and the mobile devices are cellular communication devices that communicate using the long term evolution (LTE) standard.

3. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the remote units are configured to perform some baseband modem functionality.

4. The communication system of claim 3 , wherein the remote units are configured to perform substantially all long term evolution (LTE) standard “Layer 1” modem functionality.

5. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the controller and the remote units are configured to exchange control information via an interface that is based on the femto application platform interface (FAPI) standard.

6. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the switches is connected to at least one of the remote units over a one gigabit/second Ethernet link.

7. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the airlink resources comprise orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) resources.

8. The communication system of claim 2 , wherein the airlink resources comprise long term evolution (LTE) Resource Blocks (RBs).

9. The communication system of claim 1 , further comprising:
one or more modems;
wherein the controller comprises one or more processing devices, the one or more processing devices being programmed to execute one or more baseband modem functions and to associate the one or more modems with one or more of the remote units to thereby configure the communication cells in the site.

10. The communication system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more processing devices are programmed to associate one or more of the modems with the one or more of the remote units to configure the communication cells dynamically.

11. The communication system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more modems are configured to control a set of the remote units through the switched Ethernet network to form a single communication cell on a same carrier frequency, wherein the set of the remote units in the single communication cell comprise one or more antennas, and wherein the one or more antennas are associated with a common cell identifier.

12. The communication system of claim 11 , wherein the common cell identifier comprises a long term evolution (LTE) physical cell-ID (identifier) and the remote units in the single communication cell are each configured to transmit the same LTE physical cell-ID.

13. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein each of the remote units comprises one or more physical antennas, wherein each physical antenna corresponds to a virtual antenna port, wherein at least some of the physical antennas are assigned to a same virtual antenna port, and wherein physical antennas assigned to a same virtual antenna port are configured to transmit a common signal.

14. The communication system of claim 13 , wherein the remote units having physical antennas assigned to a same virtual antenna port transmit same long term evolution (LTE) downlink reference signals associated with the same virtual antenna port.

15. The communication system of claim 14 , wherein the LTE downlink reference signals comprise a channel state information reference Signal (CSI-RS) that includes a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) scrambling identifier (ID).

16. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein a remote unit of the remote units is configured to receive signals from a mobile device, the signals comprising more than one channel state information (CSI) feedback signal.

17. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises one or more processing devices, the one or more processing devices being programmed to associate one or more modems with one or more of the remote units to thereby configure a single communication cell that comprises the one or more of the remote units; and
wherein the one or more of the remote units of the single communication cell are configured to implement a synchronization protocol to perform synchronization of communication within the single communication cell.

18. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises one or more processing devices, the one or more processing devices being programmed to associate one or more modems with one or more of the remote units to thereby configure a single communication cell that comprises the one or more of the remote units; and
wherein the one or more processing devices are programmed to modify an association of the one or more of the modems with the one or more of the remote units to thereby re-configure the single communication cell.

19. The communication system of claim 18 , wherein re-configuring the single communication cell comprises splitting the single communication cell into two or more communication cells.

20. The communication system of claim 1 , wherein the controller comprises one or more processing devices, the one or more processing devices being programmed to associate one or more first modems with one or more first remote units of the remote units to thereby configure a first communication cell that comprises the one or more first remote units, and to associate one or more second modems with one or more second remote units of the remote units to thereby configure a second communication cell that comprises the one or more second remote units;
wherein the one or more processing devices are programmed to modify an association of the one or more of first modems with the one or more first remote units to thereby re-configure the first communication cell, and to modify an association of the one or more of second modems with the one or more second remote units to thereby re-configure the second communication cell; and
wherein re-configuring the first communication cell and reconfiguring the second communication cell comprises combining at least part of the first communication cell and at least part of the second communication cell into a single communication cell.

21. The communication system of claim 20 , wherein the controller is configured to combine the at least part of the first communication cell and the at least part of the se

Assignees

• Eyuboglu Vedat
• Barabell Arthur J
• Commscope Technologies Llc

Inventors

• Eyuboglu Vedat
• Barabell Arthur J

Classifications

• H04W72/54

  based on quality criteria · CPC title

• H04W72/12 Primary

  Wireless traffic scheduling · CPC title

• H04L1/1812

  Hybrid protocols; Hybrid automatic repeat request [HARQ] · CPC title

• H04L5/005

  of common pilots, i.e. pilots destined for multiple users or terminals · CPC title

• H04L5/0023

  Time-frequency-space · CPC title