PERFORMANCE DIAGNOSIS OF WIRELESS EQUIPMENT AND A WIRELESS NETWORK OVER OUT-OF-BAND COMMUNICATION

• US 20150195719A1
• Filed: 03/18/2015
• Published: 07/09/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Rahman, Moshiur
• Granted Patent: US 9,572,049 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/005 of common pilots, i.e. pilots destined for multiple users or terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/27 Transitions between radio resource control [RRC] states
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/12 Access point controller devices

Abstract

Performance issues of wireless equipment (WE) or a wireless network are diagnosed through an alternative communication channel enabled by an alternative wireless network available to the WE. A service platform (SP) probes performance condition of the WE through a mobility control node (MCN) and, in response to a fault condition, collects data related to operation of the WE. Based at least on part of the data, the SP diagnoses the fault condition and related performance issue(s). To probe performance, the SP requests the MCN to collect data related to performance metric(s) of the WE. The alternative communication channel is established, and such data is collected therefrom, in response to low-grade connectivity amongst the MCN and the WE. The SP notifies the WE of at least the fault condition through the MCN or, in case of network fault condition, via the alternative communication channel.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

facilitating a transmission of performance metric data associated with a user equipment to a network device; and

receiving, from the network device, performance fault data determined based on the performance metric data, wherein the performance fault data is received via an out-of-band communication network in response to the performance fault data having been determined to represent a defined performance fault.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving signaling data from a mobility control node device of an in-band communication network, and wherein the performance metric data is determined based on the signaling data.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the signaling data comprises directive data indicative of a directive to determine load data associated with the processor.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the signaling data comprises directive data indicative of a directive to determine queued traffic data.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein the signaling data comprises pilot signal data that is utilized to determine the performance metric data.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the performance metric data comprises a cyclic redundancy check value.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein the receiving the signaling data comprises receiving the signaling data during an establishment of a radio resource connection between the mobility control node device and the user equipment.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the facilitating comprises facilitating the transmission via a mobility control node device of an in-band communication network.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

facilitating a presentation of the performance fault data via the user equipment.

10. A method, comprising:

transmitting, by a user equipment comprising a processor, performance metric data associated with the user equipment; and

receiving, by the user equipment, based on the performance metric data, performance fault data from a network device, wherein the receiving comprises;

in response to the performance fault data being determined to represent a defined performance fault associated with an in-band communication channel, receiving the performance fault data via an out-of-band communication channel.

11. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

rendering, by the user equipment, the performance fault data.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving, by the user equipment, request data from a radio network controller device, wherein the request data is indicative of a request to determine the performance metric data.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the receiving the request data comprises receiving a radio resource connection setup message.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

determining, by the user equipment, the performance metric data based on an analysis of pilot signal data.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the pilot signal data is associated with a pilot signal received from the radio network controller device.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the performance metric data comprises information indicative of a cyclic redundancy check value.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause a system comprising a processor to perform operations, comprising:

as a function of directing performance metric data to a service platform device of an in-band communication network, receiving, from the service platform device, performance fault data, wherein the performance fault data is received via a first network device of the in-band communication network in response to the performance fault data being determined to represent a first performance fault associated with user equipment, and wherein the performance fault data is received via a second network device of an out-of-band communication network in response to the performance fault data being determined to represent a second performance fault associated with the in-band communication network.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the determining comprises determining the performance metric data based on pilot signal data associated with a pilot signal received from a mobility control node device of the in-band communication network.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the performance metric data comprises cyclic redundancy check error data.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

facilitating a display of the performance fault data.