METHOD, SYSTEM AND MEDIA GATEWAY FOR REALIZING MOBILE SWITCH CENTER POOL

• US 20090122743A1
• Filed: 01/20/2009
• Published: 05/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/21/2006
• 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: ZENG, Fudong, ZHANG, Hao, WANG, Bei, LIU, Zhenhua, LUO, Hualin, CUI, Xiaochun, YE, Sihai
• Granted Patent: US 9,924,563 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/312
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/14 Backbone network devices

Abstract

The disclosure provides a method for realizing a Mobile Switch Center (MSC) pool, a system for realizing an MSC pool and a Media Gateway (MGW). The method for realizing an MSC pool includes: connecting with a Base Station Controllers (BSC)/Radio Network Controller (RNC), by a Media Gateway (MGW) through the use of a common signaling point; and upon receipt of a message whose destination signaling point is the common signaling point from the BSC/RNC, determining, by the MGW, a destination MSC server of the message according to ID information carried in the message, and sending the received message to the destination MSC server. According to the present invention, the networking scheme for an MSC pool may be implemented without upgrading any BSC/RNC. The flexibility of the networking scheme for mobile communication systems may be improved, and the traffic load of the subscribers may be shared.

Claims

1. A method for realizing a Mobile Switch Center (MSC) pool, comprising:

connecting a Media Gateway (MGW) through a common signaling point, with a Base Station Controllers (BSC)/Radio Network Controller (RNC); and

upon receipt of a message whose destination signaling point is the common signaling point from the BSC/RNC, determining, by the MGW, a destination MSC server of the message according to Identification (ID) information carried in the message, and sending the received message to the destination MSC server.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the MSC server in the MSC pool establishes a signaling connection with the BSC/RNC through one of the common signaling point and a signaling point different from the common signaling point, and the MGW provides the signaling point different from the common signaling point to connect with the MSC server.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the message is a Layer 3 service request message, and

wherein the determining, by the MGW, the destination MSC server of the message according to the ID information carried in the message, comprises:

parsing, by the MGW, a subscriber ID from the Layer 3 service request message, and determining the destination MSC server of the message according to the subscriber ID.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the subscriber ID is a Temporary Mobile Subscriber ID (TMSI), and

wherein the determining, by the MGW, the destination MSC server of the message according to the subscriber ID, comprises:

extracting, by the MGW, a Network Resource Indication (NRI) from the TMSI, and determining the destination MSC server of the message according to a correspondence relationship between the NRI and an MSC server.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the Layer 3 service request message is a paging response message, and the subscriber ID is an International Mobile Subscriber ID (IMSI), and

wherein the determining, by the MGW, the destination MSC server of the message according to the subscriber ID, comprises:

determining, by the MGW, the destination MSC server of the message according to a temporarily saved correspondence relationship between an IMSI and an MSC server;

or

inquiring, by the MGW, MSC servers in the MSC pool for an MSC server in which the subscriber resides, with the IMSI as the parameter, and using the inquired MSC server as the destination MSC server.

6. The method according to claim 3, wherein the subscriber ID is an IMSI or International Mobile Equipment ID (IMEI);

and wherein the determining, by the MGW, the destination MSC server of the message according to the subscriber ID, comprises;

computing, by the MGW, a value V from the IMSI or IMEI, and

determining the destination MSC server of the message according to a correspondence relationship between the value V and an MSC server.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the message is a non-CR message in SCCP uplink connection oriented messages, and wherein the determining, by the MGW, the destination MSC server of the message according to ID information carried in the message comprises:

parsing, by the MGW, an MSC server ID from a destination SCCP connection number of the non-CR message, and

determining the destination MSC server of the message according to a correspondence relationship between the MSC server ID and an MSC server.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

carrying, by the MSC server, its MSC server ID in an SCCP downlink connection oriented message.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the MSC server ID is carried in a source SCCP connection number of the message.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

upon receipt of a message sent from the MSC server, parsing, by the MGW, an SCCP layer message therein;

if the received message is an SCCP downlink connection oriented message, forwarding the received message to the BSC/RNC directly;

if the received message is an SCCP downlink connectionless message, parsing the Layer 3 message therein; and

if the Layer 3 message is a paging message and its subscriber ID is an IMSI, saving, by the MGW, a correspondence relationship between the IMSI and the MSC server temporarily, and forwarding the received message to the BSC/RNC.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein before the MGW determines the destination MSC server of the message according to the ID information carried in the message, the method further comprises:

determining, by the MGW, whether a BSC/RNC corresponding to a source signaling point carried in the message is a BSC/RNC which needs to enable an MSC server select function;

determining the destination MSC server of the message according to the ID information carried in the message if the BSC/RNC corresponding to the source signaling point carried in the message is a BSC/RNC which needs to enable the MSC server select function; and

forwarding the received message to a respective MSC server directly according to an SCCP layer routing function if the BSC/RNC corresponding to the source signaling point carried in the message is not a BSC/RNC which needs to enable the MSC server select function.

12. The method according to claim 2, wherein when the MSC server in the MSC pool establishes a signaling connection with the BSC/RNC through a signaling point different from the common signaling point, the method further comprises the following step before the MGW sends the received message to the destination MSC server:

modifying, by the MGW, the destination signaling point carried in the received message, as the signaling point of the destination MSC server.

13. The method according to claim 2, wherein when the MSC server in the MSC pool establishes a signaling connection with the BSC/RNC through a signaling point different from the common signaling point, the method further comprises the following step before the MGW sends the message from the MSC server to the BSC/RNC:

modifying the source signaling point carried in the message, as the common signaling point.

14. A system for realizing a Mobile Switch Center (MSC) pool, comprising:

Base Station Controllers (BSCs)/Radio Network Controllers (RNCs);

one or more Media Gateways (MGWs), connected to a BSC/RNC via a common signaling point; and

one or more MSC servers having a full interconnection with the BSCs/RNCs via the MGWs,

wherein each of the one or more MGWs is configured to;

(1) receive a message from a BSC/RNC, (2) upon receipt of a message whose destination signaling point is the common signaling point, determine a destination MSC server of the message according to ID information carried in the message, and (3) send the received message to the destination MSC server.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein the MSC server establishes a signaling connection with the BSC/RNC through the use of one of the common signaling point and a signaling point different from the common signaling point, and the MGW provides the signaling point different from the common signaling point to connect with the MSC server.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein when the MSC server establishes a signaling connection with the BSC/RNC through the signaling point different from the common signaling point, the MGW is further configured to modify the destination signaling point carried in a message whose destination signaling point is the common signaling point, as the signaling point of the destination MSC server.

17. The system according to claim 15, wherein the MGW is further configured to:

receive a message from the MSC server;

modify the source signaling point carried in the message from the MSC server, as the common signaling point, when the MSC server establishes a signaling connection with the BSC/RNC through the use of a signaling point different from the common signaling point; and

send the modified message to the BSC/RNC.

18. A Media Gateway (MGW), comprising a message reception unit and a message distribution unit, wherein:

the message reception unit is configured to receive a message from a Base Station Controller (BSC)/Radio Network Controller (RNC), and send the received message to the message distribution unit; and

the message distribution unit is configured to receive a message whose destination signaling point is a common signaling point, determine a destination MSC server of the message according to ID information carried in the message, and send the received message to the destination MSC server.

19. The MGW according to claim 18, wherein the message distribution unit is further configured to modify the destination signaling point carried in the message whose destination signaling point is the common signaling point, as the signaling point of the destination MSC server.

20. The MGW according to claim 18, wherein:

the message reception unit is further configured to receive a message from the MSC server, and send the received message to the message distribution unit; and

the message distribution unit is further configured to modify a source signaling point carried in the message received from the MSC server, as the common signaling point, and send the modified message to the BSC/RNC.

21. A computer readable medium storing computer executable program codes, the computer executable program codes including instructions executed by a digital processor to

(a) receive a message from a Base Station controller (BSC)/Radio Network Controller (RNC) and send the received message to a message distribution unit, and

(b) receive a message whose destination signaling point is a common signaling point, determine a destination MSC server of the message according to ID information carried in the message, and send the received message to the destination MSC server.