Selective Support and Establishment of Emergency Services in Home Cells

• US 20110171924A1
• Filed: 01/12/2010
• Published: 07/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Hole, David Philip, Islam, M. Khaledul, Fong, Mo-Han, Wijayanathan, Maiyuran, Kim, Young Ae, Carpenter, Paul Marcus, Wirtanen, Jeffrey William, Faccin, Stefano M., Dwyer, Johanna L.
• Application Number:
  US12/686,244
• Publication Number:
  US 20110171924A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/404.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/18 Selecting a network or a communication service
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/50 for emergency connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/045 using private Base Stations, e.g. femto Base Stations, home Node B

Abstract

A UE including one or more processors configured to cause the UE to reselect to a macro cell responsive to the UE placing an emergency call when the UE is in a femtocell, or when the UE is camped on a femtocell.

Claims

1. A user equipment (UE), comprising:

one or more processors configured to cause the UE to reselect to a macro cell responsive to the UE placing an emergency call when the UE is in a femtoceil, or when the UE is camped on a femtocell.

2. The UE of claim 1 wherein the processor is further configured to cause the UE to reselect by using the access stratum (AS) layer.

3. The UE of claim 1 wherein a mobility management entity (MME) in the UE passes a request to initiate the emergency call to a radio resource control (RRC) layer in the UE and wherein the RRC layer performs reselection.

4. The UE of claim 1 wherein reselection is performed according to a reselection algorithm wherein a signal quality of a serving cell is considered to be below a threshold comprising S_serving<

Thresh_serving.

5. A method for initiating an emergency call in a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:

initiating a mobile originating call by requesting a connection indicating a purpose of making an emergency call;

determining that the request is for an emergency call and further determining that the UE is camped on a femtocell;

initiating reselection to a different, non-femtocell; and

performing a connection establishment procedure.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein initiating reselection is performed according to a reselection algorithm wherein a signal quality of a serving cell is considered to be below a threshold comprising S_serving<

Thresh_serving.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the serving cell is known to be on a frequency dedicated to one of a femtocell, and wherein the UE avoids intra-frequency reselection and behaves as if no priority is assigned for the frequency.

8. The method of claim 5 wherein reselection is to a public land mobile network (PLMN) different than the PLMN to which the femtocell is connected.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the UE is camped in femtocell cell in a mode where autonomous reselection is not permitted.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising;

releasing an ongoing connection prior to performing reselection.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

transmitting to a network component a target cell and an indication that handover is requested.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

the processor further causing the UE to tune to a broadcast channel of a non-serving cell and to receive broadcast system information.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

responsive to receiving from the non-serving cell an indication that the non-serving cell reliably supports emergency calls, transmitting to the serving cell a message indicating at least one of;

sufficient identity information to allow the serving cell to initiate handover preparation towards the non-serving cell;

measurement information; and

an indication that handover is required for an emergency call.

14. The method of claim 5 further comprising dropping services other than the emergency call.

15. The method of claim 5 wherein when an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) application requests an emergency bearer, triggering a reselection to a macro cell.

16. The method of claim 5 wherein when an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) application attempts to generate the emergency call, establishing an emergency bearer to support internet protocol traffic for the IMS emergency call.

17. The method of claim 5 wherein a memory management entity (MME) is aware of femtocell connectivity.

18. The method of claim 5 further comprising receiving a set of public land mobile network (PLMN) identifiers (IDs) identifying those femtocells in which the UE may establish an emergency call, and wherein reselecting further comprises only reselecting towards cells in the set.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the set is received in the form of a device management object.

20. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

building a local list of which public land mobile networks have closed subscriber group emergency support.

21. A user equipment (UE), comprising:

one or more processors configured to receive an indication that a femtocell is congested and, responsive to receiving the indication, determine whether to place an emergency call on the femtocell.

22. The UE of claim 21 wherein the processor is further configured to avoid placing the emergency call if the indication is that the femtocell is congested.

23. The UE of claim 21 wherein the indication is received from the femtocell, and wherein the UE is further configured to determine whether the UE should camp in a cell with limited emergency services or whether the UE should reselect to another cell.

24. The UE of claim 21 wherein the indication is received in the form of an emergency call services indicator (ECSI).

25. The UE of claim 21 wherein the indication is received in a form independent of emergency call support, and wherein the indication is provided at one of an access stratum (AS) level and a non-access stratum (WAS) level.

26. The UE of claim 21 wherein the indication is received in a form independent of emergency call support, and wherein the indication is provided in a field of a system information block (SIB) received at the UE.

27. The UE of claim 21 wherein the indication is in the form of an emergency call being dropped when the femtocell is the serving device, and wherein the processor is further configured, in response to the dropped emergency call, to cause the UE to reselect to another cell.

28. A method, implemented in a user equipment (UE), for determining whether to place an emergency call, the method comprising:

receiving an indication that a femtocell is congested; and

responsive to receiving the indication, determining whether to place an emergency call on the femtocell.

29. The method of claim 28 further comprising:

avoiding placing the emergency call if the indication is that the femtocell is congested.

30. The method of claim 28 wherein the indication is received from the femtocell, and wherein the method further comprises:

determining whether the UE should camp in a cell with limited emergency services or whether the UE should reselect to another cell.

31. The method of claim 28 wherein the indication is received in the form of an emergency call services indicator (ECSI).

32. The method of claim 28 wherein the indication is received in a form independent of emergency call support, and wherein the method further comprises:

providing the indication at one of an access stratum (AS) level and a non-access stratum (NAS) level.

33. The method of claim 28 wherein the indication is received in a form independent of emergency call support, and wherein the method further comprises:

providing the indication in a field of a system information block (SIB) received at the UE.

34. The UE of claim 28 wherein the indication is in the form of an emergency call being dropped when the femtocell is the serving device, and wherein the method further comprises:

in response to the dropped emergency call, causing the UE to reselect to another cell.