Enhanced encapsulation mechanism using GRE protocol

• US 20090122802A1
• Filed: 01/13/2009
• Published: 05/14/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Muhanna, Ahmad, El-Beik, Essam, Keith, Kory, Moussa, Hachem, Serrano, Ricardo
• Granted Patent: US 7,742,490 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/145 Payments according to the detected use or quantity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1425 involving dedicated fields in the data packet for billing purposes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• 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 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/32 Involving wireless systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 Optimizing the usage of the radio link, e.g. header compression, information sizing , discarding information system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

Wireless gateway nodes are enabled to support mobile node services, such as content based billing, when a data treatment server is present in the system. Using one of a defined Content Flow Label (CFL), an Application Program Interface (API), and a compression protocol header, content based billing is provided such as by exchanging content and byte count information with the data treatment server.

Claims

1. A method in a data treatment server for providing services in a communications network, the method comprising:

receiving at least one encapsulated data packet having a standard Internet Protocol (IP) header and an untreated payload;

inspecting and classifying for content the at least one encapsulated data packet untreated payload;

treating the at least one encapsulated data packet untreated payload to produce a treated payload;

forwarding the at least one encapsulated treated data packet including the treated payload to a wireless gateway node for transmission to a wireless node; and

providing services based on the inspected and classified content of the untreated payload and the number of bytes in the treated payload.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the data treatment server comprises one of:

a Traffic Protocol Optimizer (TPO) and a load balancer.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the services include at least one of content based billing, pre-paid wireless, and content based routing.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the data packet is encapsulated using Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE).

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the communications network comprises at least one of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the treating the at least one encapsulated data packet payload comprises one of:

optimizing the payload and compressing the payload.

7. A method in a data treatment server for providing services in a communications network, the method comprising:

receiving at least one encapsulated data packet having a standard Internet Protocol (IP) header and a treated payload;

inspecting and classifying the at least one encapsulated data packet treated payload for content and a number of bytes in the transmitted treated payload;

untreating the at least one encapsulated data packet payload to produce an untreated payload;

forwarding the at least one encapsulated data packet that includes the untreated payload to a wireless gateway node for routing to the data packet network; and

providing services based on the inspected and classified content of the untreated payload and the number of bytes in the treated payload.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the data treatment server comprises one of a Traffic Protocol Optimizer (TPO) and a load balancer.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the services include at least one of content based billing, pre-paid wireless, and content based routing.

10. The method of claim 8 wherein the data packet is encapsulated using Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE).

11. The method of claim 8 wherein the communications network comprises at least one of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network.

12. The method of claim 7 wherein treating the at least one encapsulated data packet payload comprises at least one of:

optimizing the payload and compressing the payload.