Access node, mobility management network element, and paging message processing method

• US 10,321,355 B2
• Filed: 06/24/2016
• Issued: 06/11/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Yin, Yu, Qi, Caixia
• Primary Examiner(s): Jain, Raj
• Application Number:
  US15/192,358
• Publication Number:
  US 20160309362A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,082 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/745 Address table lookup; Address filtering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/19 at layers above the network layer network arrangements for networked applications for scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0268 using specific QoS parameters for wireless networks, e.g. QoS class identifier [QCI] or guaranteed bit rate [GBR] negotiating SLA or negotiating QoS H04W28/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0289 Congestion control load shedding arrangements in network planning H04W16/08; performing reselection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/00 User notification, e.g. alerting and paging, for incoming communication, change of service or the like
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/02 Arrangements for increasing efficiency of notification or paging channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 Mobility data transfer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/24 Transfer of terminal data
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/14 Backbone network devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 Gateway arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/14 between access point controllers and backbone network device

Abstract

A mobility management network element receives a node capability notification message from the access node, where the node capability notification message is used to indicate that the access node supports use of a user datagram protocol (UDP), to receive a paging message from the mobility management network element, the mobility management network element selects the UDP to send a first paging message to the access node such that a consumption degree of resources of the mobility management network element may be reduced, and occurrence of congestion on the mobility management network element may be avoided.

Claims

1. A paging message processing method, comprising:

receiving, by a mobility management network element, a node capability notification message from an access node, the node capability notification message indicating that the access node supports use of a user datagram protocol (UDP) to receive a paging message, and the access node also supporting use of a stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) to receive the paging message;

selecting, by the mobility management network element, the UDP or the SCTP to send the paging message to the access node;

sending, by the mobility management network element, the paging message to the access node using the UDP when the UDP is selected to send the paging message to the access node; and

sending, by the mobility management network element, the paging message to the access node using the SCTP when the SCTP is selected to send the paging message to the access node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the UDP or the SCTP to send the paging message to the access node comprises:

determining whether a congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send a prior paging message; and

selecting the UDP to send the paging message to the access node when the congestion occurred.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein determining whether the congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message comprises:

acquiring a usage of a central processing unit of the mobility management network element when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message;

determining whether the usage exceeded a threshold; and

determining that the congestion occurs when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message and when the usage exceeded the threshold.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein determining that the congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message comprises:

determining that a data packet loss occurred when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message; and

determining that the congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send the paging message and when the data packet loss occurred.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the UDP or the SCTP to send the paging message to the access node comprises:

receiving a data packet from a serving gateway to trigger the paging message; and

acquiring an attribute of the data packet, the paging message being sent to the access node using the UDP according to the attribute of the data packet.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the attribute of the data packet is determined according to one of the following parameters:

an enhanced packet switch (EPS) bearer identity;

a linked bearer identity;

an access point name;

a quality of service (QoS) classification identifier; and

an allocation/retention priority.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein acquiring the attribute of the data packet comprises:

acquiring the EPS bearer identity corresponding to the data packet;

locating a bearer context according to the EPS bearer identity to obtain a corresponding access point name or a QoS classifier identity; and

determining the attribute of the data packet according to the access point name or the QoS classifier identity.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein acquiring the attribute of the data packet comprises:

acquiring the linked bearer identity corresponding to the data packet;

locating a bearer context according to the linked bearer identity to obtain a corresponding access point name; and

determining the attribute of the data packet according to the access point name.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the node capability notification message is an evolved node B (eNodeB) configuration update message or an S1 interface establishment request message that carries an identifier that indicates whether the access node supports the UDP.

10. A paging message processing method, comprising:

sending, by an access node, a node capability notification message to a mobility management network element, the node capability notification message indicating that the access node supports use of a user datagram protocol (UDP), to receive a paging message from the mobility management network element, and the access node also supporting use of a stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) to receive the paging message from the mobility management network element; and

receiving, by the access node, the paging message from the mobility management network element using the UDP.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

acquiring, by the access node, a SCTP connection information of the mobility management network element according to a mobility management network element identifier in the paging message after the access node receives the paging message from the mobility management network element using the UDP;

determining whether a first Internet Protocol (IP) address in the SCTP connection information is same as a second IP address in the paging message;

sending, by the access node, the paging message to a user terminal when the first IP address is same as the second IP address; and

discarding, by the access node, the paging message when the first IP address is different than the second IP address.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the node capability notification message is an evolved node B (eNodeB) configuration update message or an S1 interface establishment request message that carries an identifier that indicates whether the access node supports the UDP.

13. A mobility management network element, comprising:

a memory comprising instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions, which causes the processor to be configured to;

receive a node capability notification message from an access node, the node capability notification message indicating that the access node supports use of a user datagram protocol (UDP) to receive a paging message, and the access node also supporting use of a stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) to receive the paging message;

select the UDP or the SCTP to send the paging message to the access node in response to the node capability notification message;

send the paging message to the access node using the UDP when the UDP is selected to send the paging message to the access node; and

send the paging message to the access node using the SCTP when the SCTP is selected to send the paging message to the access node.

14. The mobility management network element of claim 13, wherein the processor being configured to select the UDP or the SCTP to send the paging message to the access node comprises the processor being configured to:

determine whether a congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send a prior paging message; and

select the UDP to send the paging message to the access node when the congestion occurred.

15. The mobility management network element of claim 14, wherein the processor being configured to determine that the congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message comprises the processor being configured to:

acquire a usage of a central processing unit of the mobility management network element when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message;

determine whether the usage exceeded a threshold; and

determine that the congestion occurs when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message and when the usage exceeded the threshold.

16. The mobility management network element of claim 14, wherein the processor being configured to determine that the congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message comprises the processor being configured to:

determine whether a data packet loss occurred when the SCTP was used to send the prior paging message; and

determine that the congestion occurred when the SCTP was used to send the paging message and when the data packet loss occurred.

17. The mobility management network element of claim 13, wherein the processor being configured to select the UDP or the SCTP to send the paging message to the access node comprises the processor being configured to:

receive a data packet from a serving gateway to trigger the paging message; and

acquire an attribute of the data packet, the paging message being sent to the access node using the UDP according to the attribute of the data packet.

18. The mobility management network element of claim 17, wherein the attribute of the data packet is determined according to one of the following parameters:

an enhanced packet switch (EPS) bearer identity;

a linked bearer identity;

an access point name;

a quality of service (QoS) classification identifier; and

an allocation/retention priority.

19. The mobility management network element of claim 18, wherein the processor is further configured to:

acquire the EPS bearer identity corresponding to the data packet;

locate a bearer context according to the EPS bearer identity to obtain a corresponding access point name or a QoS classifier identity; and

determine the attribute of the data packet according to the access point name or the QoS classifier identity.

20. The mobility management network element of claim 18, wherein the processor is further configured to:

acquire the linked bearer identity corresponding to the data packet;

locate a bearer context according to the linked bearer identity to obtain a corresponding access point name; and

determine the attribute of the data packet according to the access point name.

21. The mobility management network element of claim 13, wherein the node capability notification message is an evolved node B (eNodeB) configuration update message or an S1 interface establishment request message that carries an identifier that indicates whether the access node supports the UDP.

22. An access node, comprising:

a memory comprising instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions, which causes the processor to be configured to;

send a node capability notification message to a mobility management network element, the node capability notification message indicating that the access node supports use of a user datagram protocol (UDP) to receive a paging message from the mobility management network element, and the access node also supporting use of a stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) to receive the paging message from the mobility management network element; and

receive the paging message from the mobility management network element using the UDP.

23. The access node of claim 22, wherein the processor is further configured to:

acquire a SCTP connection information of the mobility management network element according to a mobility management network element identifier in the paging message after the access node receives the paging message from the mobility management network element using the UDP;

determine whether a first Internet Protocol (IP) address in the SCTP connection information is same as a second IP address in the paging message;

send the paging message to a user terminal when the first IP address is same as the second IP address; and

discard the paging message when the first IP address is different than the second IP address.

24. The access node of claim 22, wherein the node capability notification message is an evolved node B (eNodeB) configuration update message or an S1 interface establishment request message that carries an identifier that indicates whether the access node supports the UDP.