Combining multiple physical traffic channels in a wireless communication system

• US 20060182152A1
• Filed: 02/16/2005
• Published: 08/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Wang, Xin, Bi, Qi, Yang, Yang, Tarraf, Ahmed A.
• Application Number:
  US11/059,247
• Publication Number:
  US 20060182152A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/542
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2856 Access arrangements, e.g. Internet access asynchronous transfer mode networks H04L12/5601; broadband local area networks H04L12/2801; optical access or distribution networks H04Q11/0067; access to open networks H04L12/5691; digital subscriber line end-user equipment and bit-level processing of data on a PSTN-based network H04M11/00; home network gateways H04L12/2834; wireless access networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/168 specially adapted for link layer protocols, e.g. asynchronous transfer mode [ATM], synchronous optical network [SONET] or point-to-point protocol [PPP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/28 involving a plurality of connections, e.g. multi-call or multi-bearer connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/15 Setup of multiple wireless link connections

Abstract

A wireless communication system (20) allows communications between a mobile station (22) and a wireless network (24) over combined physical traffic channels (44, 46). In a disclosed example, a mobile station (22) has multiple wireless access terminals (40, 42) for transmitting different portions of a communication over multiple physical traffic channels (44, 46). In a disclosed example, each wireless access terminal (40, 42) utilizes one of the channels (44, 46). A known multilink PPP protocol facilitates splitting a communication into portions to be communicated over the combined physical traffic channels (44, 46) and then recombined at the mobile station (22) or an appropriate portion of the network (24). With a disclosed example, the achievable throughput using combined physical traffic channels (44, 46) approaches the aggregate or sum of the individual channel throughput capacities.

Claims

1. A method of communicating between a mobile station having a plurality of wireless access terminals and a wireless network, comprising:

transmitting a first portion of a communication between the mobile station and the wireless network on a first physical traffic channel associated with a first one of the wireless access terminals; and

transmitting a second portion of the communication on a second physical traffic channel associated with a second one of the wireless access terminals.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising providing an indication with the transmission of each of the first and second portions of the communication that indicates a relationship between the portions.

3. The method of claim 1, comprising providing an identification of a protocol used for the transmissions, a fragmentation indication and a sequence identifier with the transmission of each of the portions of the communication.

4. The method of claim 1, comprising using a multilink PPP protocol for associating the first and second portions of the communication.

5. The method of claim 1, comprising simultaneously transmitting the first and second portions of the communication on each of the physical traffic channels.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the physical traffic channels has a throughput and comprising achieving an aggregate transmission throughput for the communication over the first and second physical traffic channels that corresponds to a sum of the physical traffic channel throughputs.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising directing the communication to a single termination point in the wireless network.

8. The method of claim 1, comprising using a single address for the mobile station such that the single address corresponds to an entire plurality of links associated with the wireless access terminals.

9. The method of claim 1, comprising using a first communication protocol over the first physical traffic channel and a second communication protocol over the second physical traffic channel.

10. The method of claim 1, comprising combining the first and second physical traffic channels into a single logical channel.

11. A method of communicating between a mobile station having a plurality of wireless access terminals and a wireless network, comprising:

receiving a first portion of a communication between the mobile station and the wireless network on a first physical traffic channels associated with a first one of the wireless access terminals; and

receiving a second portion of the communication on a second physical traffic channel associated with a second one of the wireless access terminals.

12. The method of claim 11, comprising arranging the received first and second portions into an intended sequence for the communication.

13. The method of claim 12, comprising using an identifier associated with each of the first and second received portions for determining how to arrange the received portions into the intended sequence.

14. The method of claim 12, comprising

using a multilink PPP protocol for arranging the received first and second portions into the intended sequence.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein each of the physical traffic channels has a throughput and comprising achieving an aggregate transmission throughput for the communication over the first and second physical traffic channels that corresponds to a sum of the physical traffic channel throughputs.

16. The method of claim 11, comprising directing the communication to a single termination point in the wireless network.

17. The method of claim 11, comprising assigning a single address to the mobile station such that the single address corresponds to an entire plurality of links associated with the wireless access terminals.

18. The method of claim 11, comprising using a first communication protocol over the first physical traffic channel and a second communication protocol over the second physical traffic channel.

19. The method of claim 11, comprising establishing a corresponding R-P session for each of the physical traffic channels.

20. A mobile station comprising:

a plurality of wireless access terminals for communicating on a corresponding plurality of physical traffic channels such that the mobile station communicates a first portion of a communication using a first one of the wireless access terminals and a first one of the physical traffic channels and at least one other portion of the communication using a second one of the wireless access terminals and a second one of the physical traffic channels.