Method and apparatus for estimating an achievable link throughput based on assistance information

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9538439-B2
Application number	US-201414262451-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 25, 2014
Priority date	May 10, 2013
Publication date	Jan 3, 2017
Grant date	Jan 3, 2017

Abstract

Methods and apparatuses are provided for determining available uplink bandwidth as an achievable throughput for a link. An available link capacity of a link with a cell for a user equipment is estimated based on a communication quality measured in the cell. An available fraction of cell resources for the user equipment over the link is also estimated based at least in part on received assistance information. An available bandwidth of the cell is then estimated as an achievable throughput for the user equipment over the link as a function of the estimated available link capacity and the estimated available fraction of cell resources. Moreover, a network procedure can be performed based at least in part on comparing the achievable throughput to one or more thresholds.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for determining available bandwidth of a cell, comprising:
estimating an available link capacity of a downlink with a cell for a user equipment based on a communication quality measured in the cell;
estimating an available fraction of cell resources for the user equipment over the downlink based at least in part on received assistance information, wherein the received assistance information comprises at least one of a transport block size (TBS), one or more channel quality indicator (CQI) offsets or a CQI-to-TBS mapping table;
estimating available bandwidth of the cell as an achievable throughput for the user equipment over the downlink as a function of the estimated available link capacity and the estimated available fraction of cell resources; and
communicating with a wireless local area network to associate with the wireless local area network while remaining in idle mode communications with the cell based at least in part on comparing the achievable throughput to one or more thresholds.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein estimating the available link capacity of the downlink is based at least in part on determining a CQI as a spectral efficiency measurement of a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) determined for a signal received from the cell.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the received assistance information comprises the one or more CQI offsets, and estimating the available fraction of cell resources comprises scaling the CQI by at least one of the one or more CQI offsets.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the received assistance information comprises the CQI-to-TBS mapping table, and estimating the available bandwidth is based at least in part on determining a TBS from the CQI-to-TBS mapping table based on the CQI.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein estimating the available fraction of cell resources further comprises determining a downlink bandwidth at the cell, and wherein estimating the available bandwidth is based at least in part on the downlink bandwidth at the cell and the CQI.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein estimating the available fraction of cell resources further comprises determining a downlink bandwidth at the cell, and wherein estimating the available bandwidth is based at least in part on a product of the downlink bandwidth at the cell and the CQI.

7. The method of claim 2 , wherein estimating the available fraction of cell resources further comprises determining a downlink bandwidth at the cell, and wherein the received assistance information includes a CQI offset table that maps CQI values and associated downlink bandwidth values to the one or more CQI offsets, and estimating the available bandwidth is based at least in part on determining at least one of the one or more CQI offsets that maps to the downlink bandwidth at the cell and the CQI.

8. The method of claim 2 , wherein estimating the available fraction of cell resources further comprises determining a downlink bandwidth at the cell, wherein estimating the available bandwidth is based at least in part on the downlink bandwidth at the cell and the CQI, and wherein the downlink bandwidth at the cell is at least one of received in a signal from the cell, estimated based at least in part on measuring reference signal tones or downlink channel resource elements, or determined based on a default parameter.

9. A method for determining available bandwidth of a cell, comprising:
estimating an available link capacity of an uplink with a cell for a user equipment based on a communication quality measured in the cell;
estimating a power headroom for the user equipment over the uplink based at least in part on received assistance information, wherein the received assistance information comprises a power headroom offset;
estimating available bandwidth of the cell as an achievable throughput for the user equipment over the uplink as a function of the estimated available link capacity and the power headroom; and
communicating with a wireless local area network to associate with the wireless local area network while remaining in idle mode communications with the cell based at least in part on comparing the achievable throughput to one or more thresholds.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein estimating the available link capacity is based at least in part on computing an uplink path loss to the cell related to a reference signal received power measured for a reference signal and a transmit power broadcasted by the cell for the reference signal, and wherein estimating the power headroom is further based at least in part on determining a power for reception of a base modulation and coding scheme at the cell based at least in part on the uplink path loss.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein estimating the power headroom is further based at least in part on a maximum transmit power.

12. The method of claim 9 , further comprising receiving the power headroom offset as an uplink grant from the cell, wherein determining the power headroom is based at least in part on the power headroom offset.

13. An apparatus for determining available bandwidth of a cell, comprising:
a link capacity estimating component operable for estimating an available link capacity of a downlink with a cell for a user equipment based on a communication quality measured in the cell;
a cell resources estimating component operable for estimating an available fraction of cell resources for the user equipment over the downlink based at least in part on received assistance information, wherein the received assistance information comprises at least one of a transport block size (TBS), one or more channel quality indicator (CQI) offsets or a CQI-to-TBS mapping table;
a bandwidth estimating component operable for estimating available bandwidth of the cell as an achievable throughput for the user equipment over the downlink as a function of the estimated available link capacity and the estimated available fraction of cell resources; and
a network communications component operable for communicating with a wireless local area network to associate with the wireless local area network while remaining in idle mode communications with the cell based at least in part on comparing the achievable throughput to one or more thresholds.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the link capacity estimating component further comprises a spectral efficiency determining component operable for determining a CQI as a spectral efficiency measurement of a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) determined for a signal received from the cell, and wherein the link capacity estimating component is further operable for estimating the available link capacity of the downlink as the CQI.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the cell resources estimating component comprises a CQI offset determining component operable to obtain one or more CQI offsets as the received assistance information, and wherein the cell resources estimating component is operable for estimating the available fraction of cell resources by scaling the CQI by at least one of the one or more CQI offsets.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the cell resources estimating component comprises a TBS determining component operable for receiving the CQI-to-TBS mapping table as the received assistance information, and wherein the bandwidth estimating component is further operable for estimating the available bandwidth based at least in part on determining a TBS from the CQI-to-TBS mapping table based on the CQI.

17. The apparatus of claim 14 , wherein the cell resources estimating component comprises a

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Pica Francesco
• Sambhwani Sharad Deepak
• Kapoor Rohit
• Horn Gavin Bernard
• Vajapeyam Madhavan Srinivasan
• Meylan Arnaud
• Faccin Stefano

Classifications

• H04W24/02

  Arrangements for optimising operational condition · CPC title

• H04W36/08 Primary

  Reselecting an access point · CPC title

• H04W36/14 Primary

  Reselecting a network or an air interface · CPC title