Application-Based Multi-Band Transmission

• US 20150071239A1
• Filed: 11/18/2014
• Published: 03/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc. (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Zhang, Hongliang, McDiarmid, Mark, Ahmad, Adeel
• Granted Patent: US 10,469,205 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0006 by adapting the transmission format
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0026 Transmission of channel quality indication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/04 using frequency diversity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/003 Arrangements for allocating sub-channels of the transmission path
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/56 based on priority criteria

Abstract

Described herein is a radio access provider configured to communicate with wireless access devices over frequency bands. The radio access provider receives service priorities associated with active applications of the wireless communication devices. Based at least in part on the service priorities, the radio access provider selects blocks or channels from one or more of the frequency bands for a radio communication link for each of at least a subset of the wireless communication devices. The selecting may include selecting block or channels from multiple ones of the frequency bands for the radio communication link for at least one of the subset of the wireless communication devices. The selecting may also be based at least in part on signal quality metrics for the frequency bands, cross-correlations of the frequency bands, or power capacities of the wireless communication devices.

Claims

1. A method implemented by a radio access provider that is configured to communicate with wireless communication devices over frequency bands, the method comprising:

receiving service priorities for the wireless communication devices, the service priorities being associated with active applications of the wireless communication devices; and

selecting blocks or channels from one or more of the frequency bands for a radio communication link for each of at least a subset of the wireless communication devices based at least in part on the service priorities, wherein the selecting includes selecting block or channels from multiple ones of the frequency bands for the radio communication link for at least one of the subset of the wireless communication devices.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting comprises selecting blocks or channels for wireless communication devices of a first service priority before selecting blocks or channels for wireless communication devices of a second service priority.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting comprises, for wireless communication devices of a specific service priority, selecting blocks or channels in order from a wireless communication device with a weakest signal quality metric to a wireless communication device with a strongest signal quality metric.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving signal quality metrics for the wireless communication devices and performing the selecting based at least in part on the signal quality metrics.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting is performed for both downlink and uplink connections with the wireless communication devices.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising receiving indications of available channels of an unlicensed frequency band from the wireless communication devices,

wherein the selecting comprises selecting a channel from the available channels of the unlicensed frequency band for the uplink connection with one of the wireless communication devices.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the service priorities are quality-of-service class identifiers (QCI).

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the QCI for a specific application or QCIs for a specific user of at least one of the wireless communication devices are adjustable based on a service plan of the specific user or based on purchase of a higher QCI or QCIs.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the active applications include at least one of Voice-over-Long-Term-Evolution (VoLTE) calling application, a voice calling application, a video calling application, a video chat application, a video streaming application, a messaging application, an email application, a social networking application, a gaming application, a web browser application, a real-time communication application, or any application that engages in communication with a remote device.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the frequency bands include one or more of a licensed frequency band, an unlicensed frequency band, a semi-licensed frequency band, an overlapped frequency band, a cellular frequency band, an Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) frequency band, a 700 MHz frequency band, an 800 MHz frequency band, a 900 MHz frequency band, a Personal Communication Service (PCS) frequency band, an 1800 MHz frequency band, a 1900 MHz frequency band, a 4.9 GHz frequency band, a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) frequency band, a 2.4 GHz frequency band, a 5.0 GHz frequency band, a 5.8 GHz frequency band, a 3.65 GHz frequency band, an Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) frequency band, a frequency band in a range from 3.1-10.6 GHz, a 3G frequency band, a Wireless Communication Service (WCS) frequency band, a Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS) frequency band, or a WiMax frequency band.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting further comprises coordinating the selecting of the blocks or channels with another radio access provider, each of the radio access provider and the other radio access provider selecting a part of the blocks or channels for a particular wireless communication device.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising repeating the receiving and the selecting for multiple transmission time intervals.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the selecting comprises selecting the blocks or channels based at least in part on cross-correlation, a cost function, transmission scenarios, guaranteed bit rates, or power capacities available to the wireless communication devices.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying a wireless communication device of the subset of the wireless communication devices of the blocks or channels selected for that wireless communication device.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a computing device, cause a radio access provider to perform operations comprising:

receiving service priorities for wireless communication devices, the service priorities being associated with active applications of the wireless communication devices;

receiving, for each of the wireless communication devices, signal quality metrics for one or more frequency bands available to the wireless communication device; and

selecting blocks or channels from the one or more available frequency bands for a radio communication link for each of at least a subset of the wireless communication devices based at least in part on the service priorities and the signal quality metrics, wherein the selecting includes;

selecting block or channels for ones of the subset of the wireless communication device with the highest service priority first, and

for the ones of the subset of the wireless communication device with the highest service priority, selecting block or channels for a wireless communication device with a worst signal quality metric first.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the signal quality metrics include at least one of a channel quality indicator (CQI), a rank indicator (RI), a pre-coding matrix indicator (PMI), a noise level, an interference level, a received signal strength indication (RSSI) level, a spectral integrity, a data throughput rate, a bit-error rate (BER), a symbol-error rate (SER), a block-error rate (BLER), a frame-error rate (FER), a mean-square error (MSE), a signal-to-noise rating, a noise-plus-interference level, or a signal-to-noise-plus-interference rating.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein at least one of the signal quality metrics is specific to a block of a frequency band of the one or more frequency bands, a channel of a frequency band of the one or more frequency bands, or a frequency band of the one or more frequency bands.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein at least one of the signal quality metrics is an average or medium of multiple signal quality metrics of the one or more frequency bands available to one of the wireless communication devices.

19. A radio access provider comprising:

a processor;

one or more radio transceivers coupled to the processor and configured to send and receive transmissions over multiple frequency bands; and

a scheduler component configured to be operated by the processor to perform operations including;

receiving through the one or more radio transceivers identification of a plurality of frequency bands of the multiple frequency bands available to a wireless communication device, and

selecting blocks or channels from the plurality of frequency bands for a radio communication link for the wireless communication device, wherein the selecting is based at least in part on cross-correlation of at least two of the plurality of frequency bands or of blocks or channels from at least two of the plurality of frequency bands.

20. The radio access provider of claim 19,

wherein the scheduler component receives, through the one or more radio transceivers, reference signals for at least two of the plurality of frequency bands or reference signals for the blocks or channels from the at least two of the plurality of frequency bands, and

wherein the scheduler component utilizes the reference signals to perform the cross-correlation.

21. The radio access provider of claim 19, wherein the scheduler component is further configured to cross-correlate between two closest blocks from the at least two of the plurality of frequency bands or between two largest separated blocks from the at least two of the plurality of frequency bands.

22. The radio access provider of claim 19, wherein the one or more radio transceivers comprise multiple radio antennas and the scheduler component is further configured to cross-correlate between a first block, channel, or frequency band accessed via a first of the multiple radio antennas with a corresponding second block, channel or frequency band accessed via a second of the multiple radio antennas.

23. The radio access provider of claim 19, wherein the one or more radio transceivers comprise a single radio antenna to send and receive the transmissions over the multiple frequency bands or multiple radio antennas to send and receive the transmissions over the multiple frequency bands.

24. The radio access provider of claim 19, further comprising a lookup table of calculated cross-correlation scores and associated block, channel, or frequency band pairs.

25. A method implemented by a wireless communication device that is configured to transmit over multiple frequency bands, the method comprising:

determining, based on signal quality metrics of the multiple frequency bands, a plurality of the multiple frequency bands that are available to the wireless communication device;

determining a power demand for transmission via each frequency band of the plurality of the multiple frequency bands;

determining a power metric indicative of power available to the wireless communication device;

selecting a subset of the plurality of the multiple frequency bands based at least in part on the respective power demands and the power metric; and

informing a radio access provider of the subset of the plurality of the multiple frequency bands.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein different subsets of the plurality of the multiple frequency bands are selected over time based on changes to the power metric.

27. The method of claim 25, further comprising receiving, from the radio access provider, the power demands for transmission via corresponding ones of the plurality of the multiple frequency bands.

28. The method of claim 25, wherein the selecting comprises determining multiple alternative subsets of the plurality of the multiple frequency bands and the informing comprises informing the radio access provider of the multiple alternative subsets.