Differential routing of voice handover traffic and non-voice handover traffic in response to congestion on an inter-base-station interface

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9681350-B1
Application number	US-201514854505-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 15, 2015
Priority date	Sep 15, 2015
Publication date	Jun 13, 2017
Grant date	Jun 13, 2017

Abstract

Disclosed are methods and systems to facilitate differential routing of voice handover traffic and non-voice handover traffic. In particular, a wireless communication system may include a controller, a backhaul interface that passes through the controller, an inter-base-station interface that does not pass through the controller, as well as first and second base stations that are communicatively linked via (i) the backhaul interface and (ii) the inter-base-station interface. With this arrangement, the system may encounter a trigger to configure transmission of handover signaling between the first and second base stations, and may responsively configure itself to transmit (i) via the inter-base-station interface handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of ongoing voice communications and (ii) via the backhaul interface handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of communications other than ongoing voice communications.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method operable in a wireless communication system comprising a controller and first and second base stations, wherein the first and second base stations are communicatively linked via (i) a backhaul interface on which the controller resides and (ii) an inter-base-station interface on which the controller does not reside, the method comprising:
making a determination, by the wireless communication system, that a congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above a threshold congestion level;
in response to making the determination, configuring the wireless communication system to transmit (i) via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of ongoing voice communications and (ii) via the backhaul interface rather than via the inter-base-station interface handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of communications other than ongoing voice communications; and
the wireless communication system transmitting handover signaling based on the configuring.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein, before the configuring, the wireless communication transmits via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface both (i) handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of ongoing voice communications and (ii) handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of communications other than ongoing voice communications.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the congestion level is representative of one or more of: (i) throughput, (ii) latency, and (iii) packet-loss rate.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein configuring the wireless communication system to transmit via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of ongoing voice communications comprises:
configuring the wireless communication system to transmit via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface buffered voice data that is to be communicated as part of ongoing voice communications being handed over between the first and second base stations.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
making a further determination, by the wireless communication system, that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is no longer at or above the threshold congestion level;
in response to making the further determination, reconfiguring the wireless communication system to transmit via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface both (i) handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of ongoing voice communications and (ii) handover signaling that facilitates handover between the first and second base stations of communications other than ongoing voice communications; and
after reconfiguring the wireless communication system, the wireless communication system transmitting handover signaling based on the reconfiguring.

6. A method operable in a wireless communication system comprising a controller and first and second base stations, wherein the first and second base stations are communicatively linked via (i) a backhaul interface that passes through the controller and (ii) an inter-base-station interface that does not pass through the controller, the method comprising:
serving, by the wireless communication system, a user equipment device (UE) over an air interface connection between the UE and the first base station;
while serving the UE, the wireless communication system (i) encountering a trigger to hand over the UE from being served by the first base station to being served by the second base station and (ii) determining that a congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above a threshold congestion level;
in response to encountering the trigger and to determining that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above the threshold congestion level, making a determination, by the wireless communication system, of whether the UE is engaging in voice communications;
if the determination is that the UE is engaging in voice communications, then, responsive to making the determination, the wireless communication system transmitting via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface handover signaling to hand over the UE from being served by the first base station to being served by the second base station; and
if the determination is that the UE is not engaging in voice communications, then, responsive to making the determination, the wireless communication system transmitting via the backhaul interface rather than via the inter-base-station interface handover signaling to hand over the UE from being served by the first base station to being served by the second base station.

7. The method of claim 6 ,
wherein the wireless communication system transmitting via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface handover signaling to hand over the UE from being served by the first base station to being served by the second base station is further responsive to determining that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above the threshold congestion level, and
wherein the wireless communication system transmitting via the backhaul interface rather than via the inter-base-station interface handover signaling to hand over the UE from being served by the first base station to being served by the second base station is further responsive to determining that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above the threshold congestion level.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein, before determining that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above the threshold congestion level, the wireless communication system transmits handover signaling via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface regardless of whether the UE is engaging in voice communications.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
after determining that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is at or above the threshold congestion level, making a further determination that the congestion level of the inter-base-station interface is no longer at or above the threshold congestion level; and
in response to making the further determination, the wireless communication system transmitting handover signaling via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface regardless of whether the UE is engaging in voice communications.

10. The method of claim 6 , wherein the congestion level is representative of one or more of: (i) throughput, (ii) latency, and (iii) packet-loss rate.

11. The method of claim 6 , wherein the wireless communication system transmitting handover signaling via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface if the determination is that the UE is engaging in voice communications comprises:
if the determination is that the UE is engaging in voice communications, then, responsive to making the determination, the wireless communication system transmitting via the inter-base-station interface rather than via the backhaul interface buffered voice data that is to be communicated as part of the voice communications.

12. A wireless communication system comprising:
a backhaul-network entity;
a backhaul interface that passes through the

Assignees

• Sprint Spectrum Lp

Inventors

• Marupaduga Sreekar
• Madineni Naresh
• Velusamy Saravana
• Wurtenberger Andrew M

Classifications

• H04W88/02

  Terminal devices · CPC title

• H04W36/24 Primary

  Reselection being triggered by specific parameters · CPC title

• H04W36/08

  Reselecting an access point · CPC title

• H04L47/12

  Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion · CPC title

• H04W88/08

  Access point devices · CPC title