FEMTOCELL LOCAL BREAKOUT MANAGEMENT SERVICES

• US 20160007225A1
• Filed: 09/17/2015
• Published: 01/07/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2008
• 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.), AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Liu, Cheng P., Faryar, Alireza Farid, Huber, Kurt, Fowler, Henry Jackson Jr., Streijl, Robert C.
• Granted Patent: US 10,638,352 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/03 Protocol definition or specification protocol conformance testing H04L1/244
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• 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 28/0226 based on location or mobility handoff or reselection H04W36/00; mobile application services making use of the location of users or terminals H04W4/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0231 based on communication conditions dynamic wireless traffic scheduling definition based on channel quality criteria H04W72/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0268 using specific QoS parameters for wireless networks, e.g. QoS class identifier [QCI] or guaranteed bit rate [GBR] negotiating SLA or negotiating QoS H04W28/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0289 Congestion control load shedding arrangements in network planning H04W16/08; performing reselection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0967 Quality of Service [QoS] parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/0022 for transferring data sessions between adjacent core network technologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/248 Connectivity information update
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/00 Synchronisation arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/001 Synchronization between nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/53 based on regulatory allocation policies
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/045 : using private Base Stations, e.g. femto Base Stations, home Node B
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/12 : Access point controller devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 : Gateway arrangements

Abstract

Management services are provided during local breakout at a femto access point (FAP). In an aspect, the FAP facilitates policy management and employs a policy component to perform an analysis and enforce a set of policies for dynamically selecting an optimal route for traffic received at the FAP based on a decision-making process. Typically, the set of policies can specify different routes based on various factors, such as, but not limited to, type of traffic, current and/or future network resource availability, current time, day and/or date, location of the FAP, location of a UE sending/receiving the traffic, a lowest cost route, and/or route based on cost-benefit, etc. Further, a monitoring component is employed to observe the route employed by that traffic, which can be utilized by various services, such as, billing, Quality of Service, security management, address management, failure management and/or provisioning.

Claims

1. A femto access point device, comprising:

a processor; and

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

determining route data indicative of a route selected from a group of routes comprising;

a first route that directs communication data, received from a user equipment, to a network device of a local area network coupled to the femto access point device via a backhaul link that is coupled to the femto access point device, and

a second route that does not employ the backhaul link to direct the communication data to the network device, and

during directing the communication data via the route, facilitating a mapping of first quality of service class data, assigned to the communication data, to second quality of service class data that is employed by the network device.

2. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises determining the route data based on policy data indicative of a policy that reduces network congestion caused by data packets that are associated with the first quality of service class data.

3. The femto access point device of claim 2, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving the policy data from a provisioning device coupled to the femto access point device via the backhaul link.

4. The femto access point device of claim 3, wherein the receiving comprises receiving the policy data during provisioning of the femto access point device.

5. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

modifying a packet data protocol context data structure associated with a connection between the user equipment and a support node device of a communication network that is coupled to the femto access point device.

6. The femto access point device of claim 5, wherein the packet data protocol context data structure is a first packet data protocol context data structure, the connection is a first connection, and the operations further comprise:

initializing a second packet data protocol context data structure associated with a second connection between the femto access point device and the support node device.

7. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

facilitating a translation of a first network address associated with the user equipment to a second network address associated with the local area network.

8. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the facilitating of the mapping comprises facilitating the mapping based on mapping information stored in a data store of the femto access point device.

9. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

during the directing, determining fault condition data indicative of a fault condition associated with routing of the communication data.

10. The femto access point device of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise:

directing, to another network device, alarm data associated with the fault condition.

11. The femto access point device of claim 9, wherein the fault condition data represents a domain name system failure.

12. A method, comprising:

selecting, by a femto access point device comprising a processor, a route from a first route and a second route, wherein the first route directs communication data, received from a user equipment coupled to the femto access point device, to a device of a local area network coupled to the femto access point device via a backhaul link coupled to the femto access point device, and the second route does not direct the communication data via the backhaul link; and

facilitating, by the femto access point device, a conversion of first quality of service class data associated with the communication data, to second quality of service class data that is employed by the device.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

directing, by the femto access point device, the communication data and the second quality of service class data to the device via the route.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the selecting comprises selecting the route based on policy data indicative of a policy that reduces network congestion caused by data packets associated with the first quality of service class data.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

determining, by the femto access point device, alarm data indicative of a fault condition associated with the directing.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the determining comprises determining domain name system failure data.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

facilitating, by the femto access point device, a transmission of the alarm data to a network device via the backhaul link.

18. A machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

determining first quality of service class data associated with communication data, received from a user equipment coupled to a femto access point device;

facilitating a conversion of the first quality of service class data of the communication data, to second quality of service class data that is employable by a device of a local area network coupled to the femto access point device; and

directing the communication data and the second quality of service class data to the device via a route that is selected from routes comprising a first route that directs the communication data via a backhaul link coupled to the femto access point device and a second route that does not direct the communication data via the backhaul link.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the route is selected from the routes based on policy data received from a provisioning device coupled to the femto access point device via the backhaul link.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the facilitating the conversion comprises facilitating the conversion based on mapping information stored in a data store of the femto access point device.