HANDLING USER PLANE CONGESTION IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK
First Claim
1. A mobility management entity (MME) comprising:
- a communications module configured to communicate with a plurality of serving gateways (SGWs) and a plurality of packet data network gateways (PGWs) of an evolved packet core for a wireless communications network; and
a management module coupled to the communications module and configured to;
receive, via the communications module, a proactive PGW congestion notification from individual PGWs of the plurality of PGWs indicating a level of congestion for respective PGWs; and
manage access to the PGWs by a user equipment of the wireless communications network based on the received proactive PGW congestion notifications.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Embodiments of the present disclosure describe devices, methods, computer-readable media and systems configurations for handling user plane congestion in a wireless communications network. A packet data network gateway (PGW) and/or a serving gateway (SGW) may proactively transmit a congestion notification to a mobility management entity (MME) including a level of congestion of the PGW and/or SGW. The MME may receive congestion notifications from a plurality of PGWs and/or SGWs. The MME may receive a request for a packet data network (PDN) connection from a user equipment (UE), and may take an action in response to the request based on the reported levels of congestion. The action may include selecting a PGW and/or SGW for the PDN connection, notifying the UE that the PDN connection cannot be established, and/or negotiating with the UE to terminate or modify one or more existing PDN connections in exchange for establishing the new PDN connection.
38 Citations
30 Claims
-
1. A mobility management entity (MME) comprising:
-
a communications module configured to communicate with a plurality of serving gateways (SGWs) and a plurality of packet data network gateways (PGWs) of an evolved packet core for a wireless communications network; and a management module coupled to the communications module and configured to; receive, via the communications module, a proactive PGW congestion notification from individual PGWs of the plurality of PGWs indicating a level of congestion for respective PGWs; and manage access to the PGWs by a user equipment of the wireless communications network based on the received proactive PGW congestion notifications. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
-
-
15. An apparatus comprising:
-
a communications module configured to communicate with an evolved Node B (eNB) over a wireless communications network; and a packet data network (PDN) module configured to; transmit, to a mobility management entity (MME) of the wireless communications network, a request for a new PDN connection; receive, from the MME, a notification giving the UE an option to terminate or modify an existing PDN connection in exchange for establishing the new PDN connection; and send a response to the notification to the MME. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
-
-
24. A packet data network gateway (PGW), comprising:
-
a communications module configured to communicate with a mobility management entity (MME); and a congestion module configured to; determine a level of congestion of the PGW; and proactively report the level of congestion to the MME. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27)
-
-
28. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having instructions, stored thereon, that, when executed cause a computing system to:
-
receive proactive packet data network gateway (PGW) congestion notifications from a plurality of PGWs indicating a level of congestion for the respective PGWs; receive proactive serving gateway (SGW) congestion notification from a plurality of SGWs indicating a level of congestion for the respective SGWs; receive a packet data network (PDN) request from a user equipment (UE) to establish a PDN connection with one of the plurality of PGWs; and take an action in response to the PDN request based on the levels of congestion of the plurality of PGWs and SGWs. - View Dependent Claims (29, 30)
-
Specification