CONVEYING DEVICE-DEPENDENT CONTEXT IN A NETWORK ADDRESS

• US 20160142308A1
• Filed: 11/17/2015
• Published: 05/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: GAGE, William Anthony, CALLARD, Aaron
• Granted Patent: US 10,511,525 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/604 Address structures or formats
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/622 Layer-2 addresses, e.g. medium access control [MAC] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2101/659 Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/74 Address processing for routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/18 End to end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5007 Internet protocol [IP] addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5092 by self-assignment, e.g. picking addresses at random and testing if they are already in use
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup

Abstract

A method for conveying context information that governs packets flowing in at least a first direction between at least one wireless device and a corresponding node communicating with the device comprises an embedder node populating a context portion, of a header of a packet for flow in a second reverse direction, that, once populated with context information that governs packet flow in the first direction, is imparted in the packet flow along the network in either the first or second direction and is conveyed in both directions, an unpacker node retrieving the context information from the context portion of a packet flowing in the first direction, and a configurer node applying the retrieved information to govern packet flow in the first direction therefrom. The embedder, unpacker and/or configurer nodes can be the same.

Claims

1. A method of routing uplink packets from a user equipment (UE), the method comprising:

receiving an uplink packet from the UE;

modifying the received packet in accordance with information associated with context information associated with the UE; and

transmitting the modified packet towards a destination.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving an uplink packet includes receiving the uplink packet directly from the UE.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving an uplink packet includes receiving the uplink packet over an air interface.

4. The method of claim 1 further including the step of determining Radio Access Network (RAN) context information associated with the UE prior to modifying the received packet.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein modifying the received packet includes modifying the received packet to store information associated with the context information.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein modifying the received packet includes storing information associated with the context information in a header of the received packet.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein modifying the received packet includes storing information associated with the context information in a source address field of the received packet.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the source address field stores an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address associated with the UE, and the step of modifying includes storing the context information in the IPv6 address of the UE.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the source address field stores an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address associated with the UE, and the step of modifying includes storing an index value, determined in accordance with the context information, in the IPv6 address of the UE.

10. A network node for routing uplink packets from a user equipment (UE), comprising:

a UE interface for receiving packets from the UE;

a network interface for transmitting packets to destination addresses;

a memory for storing instructions; and

a processor, operatively connected to the UE interface, the network interface and the memory, that upon execution of instructions stored in the memory causes the node to;

modify a packet, received over the UE interface, in accordance with information associated with context information associated with the UE; and

transmit the modified packet over the network interface towards a destination.

11. The node of claim 10 wherein the node is a network access point.

12. The node of claim 10 wherein the node is an Evolved NodeB (eNodeB).

13. The node of claim 10 wherein the UE interface is an air interface for receiving packets from the UE over a wireless link.

14. A method of routing a downlink packet addressed to a UE, the method comprising:

receiving a downlink packet addressed to a UE;

determining, in accordance with the received downlink packet, context information associated with the UE; and

transmitting the received packet towards the UE in accordance with the extracted context information.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein the step of determining includes extracting information stored a packet header of the received packet.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the extracted information is the context information.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein the extracted information is an index, and the step of determining further includes the step of determining context information associated with the UE in accordance with the extracted index.

18. The method of claim 14 wherein the step of determining includes extracting information from an address associated with the UE in the received downlink packet.

19. A network node for routing downlink packets addressed to a User Equipment (UE), comprising:

a UE interface for transmitting packets towards the UE;

a network interface for receiving packets addressed to the UE;

a memory for storing instructions; and

a processor, operatively connected to the UE interface, the network interface and the memory, that upon execution of the instruction stored in the memory causes the node to;

determine context information associated with the UE in accordance with information extracted from a packet received over the network interface; and

transmit the received packet over the UE interface in accordance with the determined context information.

20. The network node of claim 19 wherein the node is a network access point.

21. The network node of claim 19 wherein the node is an Evolved NodeB (eNodeB).

22. The network node of claim 19 wherein the UE interface is an air interface for transmitting packets to the UE over a wireless link.

23. The network node of claim 22 wherein the context information is Radio Access Network (RAN) context information associated with the wireless link.