Short message transmission and handover procedures

• US 10,477,445 B2
• Filed: 12/27/2017
• Issued: 11/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/05/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sun Patent Trust
• Original Assignee: Sun Patent Trust
• Inventors: Velev, Genadi, Bachmann, Jens, Ikeda, Shinkichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Duong, Frank
• Application Number:
  US15/855,010
• Publication Number:
  US 20180139671A1
• Time in Patent Office: 685 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/0058 Transmission of hand-off measurement information, e.g. measurement reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• 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 68/005 Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/12 Setup of transport tunnels
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/27 Transitions between radio resource control [RRC] states
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/30 Connection release
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/36 for reassigning the resources associated with the released connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/38 triggered by timers

Abstract

The present invention relates to an improved method for handover of a mobile node from E-UTRAN to UTRAN in a scenario where SMS is the only service of the mobile node. The improved handover method allows saving radio resources by establishing the signalling connection for SMS exchange in the target network, and avoiding the data connection in the target network, since it is not used. The MME takes the decision to establish or not the data connection in the target UTRAN, and accordingly instructs the SGSN and UE to set the corresponding PDP contexts for the data connection to a “preserved” state, so as to avoid the establishment of same. Embodiments further relate to improved SMS delivery for IDLE mode UEs that activate ISR so as to avoid the involvement of the MSC server. Instead, packet-switched domain nodes are to be involved only.

Claims

1. A user equipment comprising:

a receiver, which, in operation, receives a trigger message from a connectivity-related network entity to establish connectivity with a mobile communication network via a control plane only and not via a user plane, and

circuitry, which is coupled to the receiver and which, in response to the triggering message, establishes control plane connectivity with the connectivity-related network entity,

wherein, the circuitry starts a timer when initiating the establishment of the control plane connectivity and stops the timer when at least one of a plurality of defined conditions is met.

2. The user equipment according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of defined conditions include at least one of:

a) receipt of a security protected Non-Access Stratum (NAS) message;

b) establishment of a bearer for the user plane; and

c) release of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection.

3. The user equipment according to claim 1, comprising:

a transmitter, which is coupled to the circuitry and which, in operation, sends a Non-Access Stratum (NAS) service request to the connectivity-related network entity to establish the connectivity with the mobile communication network.

4. The user equipment according to claim 1, wherein the connectivity-related network entity is a Mobility Management Entity (MME).

5. The user equipment according to claim 1, wherein the timer is a control-plane establishment timer or a radio resource release timer.

6. The user equipment according to claim 1, wherein the timer is T3417 timer defined in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards.

7. The user equipment according to claim 1, wherein the receiver, in operation, receives downlink small data from a base station in the mobile communication network, using a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.

8. A method performed by a user equipment, the method comprising:

receiving a trigger message from a connectivity-related network entity to establish connectivity with a mobile communication network via a control plane only and not via a user plane,

establishing control plane connectivity with the connectivity-related network entity, in response to the triggering message,

starting a timer when initiating the establishment of the control plane connectivity, and

stopping the timer when at least one of a plurality of defined conditions is met.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the plurality of defined conditions include at least one of:

a) receipt of a security protected Non-Access Stratum (NAS) message;

b) establishment of a bearer for the user plane; and

c) release of a Radio Resource Control (RRC) connection.

10. The method of claim 8, comprising:

sending a Non-Access Stratum (NAS) service request to the connectivity-related network entity to establish the connectivity with the mobile communication network.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the connectivity-related network entity is a Mobility Management Entity (MME).

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the timer is a control-plane establishment timer or a radio resource release timer.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the timer is T3417 timer defined in 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards.

14. The method of claim 8, comprising:

receiving downlink small data from a base station in the mobile communication network, using a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message.