MOBILE TRANSPORT SOLUTION FOR OFFLOADING TO AN ALTERNATE NETWORK

• US 20110058479A1
• Filed: 08/09/2010
• Published: 03/10/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: CHOWDHURY, Kuntal
• Granted Patent: US 8,743,696 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/237
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/04 Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/306 Route determination based on the nature of the carried application
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/22 for handling the traffic

Abstract

This disclosure relates to a system and method for offloading selected data to an alternate communication network. The offloading provides another route for selected packet traffic that can relieve the burden on a mobile operator'"'"'s network, such as the backhaul and core networks. As the proliferation of data rich content and increasingly more capable mobile devices has continued, the amount of data communicated over mobile operator'"'"'s networks has exponentially increased. Upgrading the existing network that was designed for voice calls is not desirable or practical for many mobile operators. This disclosure provides systems and methods for offloading data to the Internet or another IP network to relieve congestion on the mobile operator'"'"'s network.

Claims

1. A gateway comprising:

a first interface that is configured to communicate packets to a packet data network (PDN) for a user equipment;

a second interface that is configured to communicate packets over a backhaul network to the user equipment;

an offload interface that is configured to communicate offloaded packets over an offload network bypassing the backhaul network to communicate with the user equipment;

an offload eligibility determination module that is configured to determine offload eligibility of a packet received from the PDN for the user equipment based on information included in the packet;

a processing module that is configured to perform a lookup using the information included in the packet and modify the packet by adding routing information to the packet upon which routing decisions in the offload network are based.

2. The gateway of claim 1, wherein the processing module includes multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) processing to prepare the packet for transmission on a MPLS based offload network.

3. The gateway of claim 2, wherein the MPLS processing includes label stacking for the label-switched path and forwarding equivalence class (FEC) processing.

4. The gateway of claim 1, wherein the offload eligibility determination module is configured with policy information received from a policy server.

5. The gateway of claim 1, wherein the offload eligibility determination module performs an inspection of the packet header using rules defined by policies on the gateway to determine whether the packet is offload eligible.

6. The gateway of claim 1, wherein the offload eligibility determination module creates a rule for a packet flow to direct packets in the flow to the offload interface when the inspection of a packet header of a packet in the flow by the offload eligibility determination module determines the packet meets the rule and is eligible for offload.

7. The gateway of claim 1, wherein the gateway is provisioned as a packet data network gateway (PGW) in a long term evolution (LTE) network.

8. The gateway of claim 1, wherein the interface to communicate packets over the backhaul network includes an S5 and S8 interface.

9. The gateway of claim 1, further comprising a traffic steering module that is configured to select and provide services to the packet based on subscriber policies.

10. A method comprising:

receiving a packet at a gateway from a packet data network (PDN);

inspecting the packet at an offload eligibility determination module by comparing rules based on policy at the gateway with information included in the packet;

upon determining that the packet is offload eligible, modifying the packet at a processing module to prepare the packet for communication on an offload network;

sending the modified packet onto the offload network for communication to a user equipment; and

sending a non-offload eligible packet over a backhaul network to a radio access network.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the modifying includes label stacking for the label-switched path and forwarding equivalence class (FEC) processing.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein preparing the packet for communication on the offload network includes multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) processing to prepare the packet for transmission on a MPLS based offload network.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising receiving policy information for offload eligibility determination from a policy server.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising creating a rule for a stream of packets to offload the stream of packets after determining from inspecting a packet header that a packet is part of the stream that is eligible for offload.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising directing the packet to an inline service to provide a services on subscriber policies before offloading the packet.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving an offloaded packet from the offload network at the gateway; and

processing the offload packet to create an internet protocol packet for communicating on the packet data network.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the gateway is provisioned as a packet data network gateway (PGW) and includes a S5 interface for communicating over the backhaul network.

18. A method comprising:

receiving a packet from a user equipment;

determining a tunnel endpoint IP address of the packet received from the user equipment;

inspecting the packet to make a determination of whether the packet is offload eligible;

upon determining that the packet is offload eligible, sending the packet onto an offload network; and

sending a non-offload eligible packet over a backhaul network.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising determining whether the packet is offload eligible based on radio bearer ID or radio bearer type.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the offload network is a digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) and a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network.