EXTENT OF OUT-OF-SEQUENCE INDICATION FOR MULTI-CONNECTIVITY

• US 20180227206A1
• Filed: 08/21/2015
• Published: 08/09/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/21/2015
• Status: Active Application

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: BEDEKAR, Anand
• Application Number:
  US15/749,310
• Publication Number:
  US 20180227206A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0847 Transmission error
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0894 Packet rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/24 Multipath
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/245 Link aggregation, e.g. trunking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/122 by diverting traffic away from congested entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/28 in relation to timing considerations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/283 in response to processing delays, e.g. caused by jitter or round trip time [RTT]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/34 ensuring sequence integrity, e.g. using sequence numbers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0284 detecting congestion or overload during communication monitoring arrangements H04L43/00

Abstract

Embodiments concern indication of extent of out-of-sequencing for multi-connectivity. While receiving control plane or user plane packets from multi-connectivity legs, a specific user-plane packet may be determined to be an out-of-sequence packet if the packet is received too early or too late. The receiver may keep a per-leg counter of number of out-of-sequence packets and a total count of packet received. An indication message may be sent to indicate multi-connectivity legs which are generating early or late packets. The sender then may adjust its data flow partitioning policy across multi-connectivity legs until the percentage or fraction of out-of-sequence packets is below a desired threshold.

Claims

1-40. -40. (canceled)

41. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to;

determine whether a packet is out-of-sequence relative to packets from at least one multi-connectivity leg based on sequence numbers of packets received from a sender;

record a measure of the out-of-sequence packet and a measure of the received packets for the at least one multi-connectivity leg; and

transmit an out-of-sequence indication message to the sender.

42. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the out-of-sequence packet is determined based on at least one of an early arrival of the packet and a late arrival of the packet during a resequencing of the received packets.

43. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the indication message indicates a percentage or fraction of the measure of the out-of-sequence packets relative to the measure of the received packets for at least one multi-connectivity leg.

44. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the indication message indicates a rank ordering of the multi-connectivity legs according to the measure of out-of-sequence packets.

45. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the indication message is sent over at least one multi-connectivity leg by at least one of radio resource control signaling and in-band signaling.

46. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the recorded measure of the out-of-sequence packets is a number of bytes corresponding to out-of-order packets.

47. The apparatus according to claim 41, wherein the transmitting further comprises:

transmit the out-of-sequence indication message to the sender based on a timer or at least one threshold.

48. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to;

receive an indication message which indicates out-of-sequencing for at least one multi-connectivity leg from a receiver; and

adjust a flow partition policy of at least one of the at least one multi-connectivity leg based on the indication message.

49. The apparatus according to claim 48, wherein the adjusting flow partition policy further comprises:

reduce an amount of traffic for a multi-connectivity leg which has high out-of-sequencing based on the received indication message.

50. The apparatus according to claim 48, wherein the at least one memory and computer program instructions are further configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to:

configure out-of-sequence parameters which comprise at least one of a threshold of extent of out-of-sequencing to use for each service flow, when to activate out-of-sequence indication messaging and whether to activate out-of-sequence indication messaging; and

transmit the out-of-sequence parameters to the receiver.

51. The apparatus according to claim 48, wherein the indication message indicates a percentage or fraction of the measure of the out-of-sequence packets relative to the measure of the received packets for at least one multi-connectivity leg.

52. The apparatus according to claim 48, wherein the indication message indicates a rank ordering of the multi-connectivity legs according to the measure of out-of-sequence packets.

53. The apparatus according to claim 48, wherein the indication message is sent over at least one multi-connectivity leg by at least one of radio resource control signaling and in-band signaling.

54. A method for indicating an extent of out-of-sequencing for multi-connectivity, the method comprising:

determining whether a packet is out-of-sequence relative to packets from at least one multi-connectivity leg based on sequence numbers of packets received from a sender;

recording a measure of the out-of-sequence packet and a measure of the received packets for the at least one multi-connectivity leg; and

transmitting an out-of-sequence indication message to the sender.

55. The method according to claim 54, wherein the out-of-sequence packet is determined based on at least one of an early arrival of the packet and a late arrival of the packet during a resequencing of the received packets.

56. The method according to claim 54, wherein the indication message indicates a percentage or fraction of the measure of the out-of-sequence packets relative to the measure of the received packets for at least one multi-connectivity leg.

57. The method according to claim 54, wherein the indication message indicates a rank ordering of the multi-connectivity legs according to the measure of out-of-sequence packets.

58. The method according to claim 54, wherein the indication message is sent over at least one multi-connectivity leg by at least one of radio resource control signaling and in-band signaling.

59. The method according to claim 54, wherein the recorded measure of the out-of-sequence packets is a number of bytes corresponding to out-of-order packets.

60. The method according to claim 54, wherein the transmitting further comprises:

transmitting the out-of-sequence indication message to the sender based on a timer or at least one threshold.