NETWORK MANAGEMENT METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR A SHARED RADIO ACCESS NETWORK, RAN, INFRASTRUCTURE

• US 20180227768A1
• Filed: 08/25/2015
• Published: 08/09/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: Nec Laboratories Europe GMBH (NEC Corporation)
• Inventors: Samdanis, Konstantinos, Costa Perez, Xavier
• Granted Patent: US 11,115,828 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/10 Dynamic resource partitioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/14 Spectrum sharing arrangements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/02 Processing of mobility data, e.g. registration information at HLR [Home Location Register] or VLR [Visitor Location Register]; Transfer of mobility data, e.g. between HLR, VLR or external networks

Abstract

A method for performing network management for a shared Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure provided by a mobile network operator includes managing the shared RAN infrastructure by a master operator network manager of the mobile network operator; and allocating, by the master operator network manager upon receiving service requests from one or more tenants, resources to accommodate the service requests. The master operator network manager cooperates with a capacity or resource broker residing inside the network of the mobile network operator that considers information on mobility of a user or a set of users involved in a particular service request for deciding on resource allocations to the particular service request.

Claims

1. A method for performing network management for a shared Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure provided by a mobile network operator, the method comprising:

managing the shared RAN infrastructure by a master operator network manager of the mobile network operator; and

allocating, by the master operator network manager, upon receiving service requests from one or more tenants, resources to accommodate the service requests,

wherein the master operator network manager cooperates with a capacity or resource broker residing inside the network of the mobile network operator that considers information on mobility of a user or a set of users involved in a particular service request for deciding on resource allocations to the particular service request.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the capacity or resource broker selects a set of cells to allocate resources with respect to the particular service request based on current locations of the user or the set of users involved in the particular service request together with information on prior user mobility, and/or based on a user mobility profile.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said the capacity or resource broker selects a set of cells to allocate resources with respect to the particular service request based on the SLA specified for the particular service request and/or a time duration of the particular service request.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the capacity or resource broker implements a forecasting function that performs traffic and/or user mobility forecasting.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the traffic and/or user mobility forecasting is performed by relying on historical and/or current data, by exploiting temporal and/or spatial dependence forecasting models, by using signal processing based techniques, and/or by using recursive updating schemes.

6. The method according to claim 4, wherein the capacity or resource broker selects a set of cells to allocate resources with respect to a service request based on information resulting from said forecasting function.

7. Method according to claim 1, wherein information on a current location of the users or the set of users involved in the particular service request are provided to the capacity or resource broker by user equipment assisted mechanisms or by network based discovery mechanisms.

8. Method according to claim 1, wherein the service requests contain information on a service starting time and/or duration, information on service level agreements, information on current location of users, user mobility related information, parameters for assisting traffic patterns predictability, and/or user mobility profiles.

9. A network management system for a shared Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure provided by a mobile network operator, the network management system comprising:

a master operator network manager of the mobile network operator for managing the shared RAN infrastructure, wherein the master operator network manager is configured to receive service requests from one or more tenants and to allocate resources to accommodate the service requests, and

a capacity or resource broker that is configured to consider information on mobility of a user or a set of users involved in a particular service request for deciding on resource allocations to the particular service request.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein the capacity or resource broker is placed at or is implemented as part of the master operator network manager.

11. The system according to claim 9, wherein the capacity or resource broker is implemented as a logically centralized network function that is composed of functions that reside on the master operator network manager, on the master operator shared RAN domain manager, on shared network elements of the shared RAN infrastructure, on the PCRF, and/or on the MME.

12. The system according to claim 9, wherein the capacity or resource broker implements a user mobility forecasting function.

13. The system according to claim 9, wherein the one or more tenants include mobile virtual network operators and/or application providers.

14. The system according to claim 9, wherein the existing 3GPP Int-N interface between the master operator network manager and the master operator shared RAN domain managers, the existing 3GPP Int-B interface between the master operator shared RAN domain managers and network elements of the shared RAN infrastructure, and/or the existing 3GPP Type 5 interface between the master operator network manager and sharing operator network managers of the tenants are extended to accommodate information contained in the service requests.

15. The system according to claim 9, wherein the Int-N interface between the master operator network manager and the master operator shared RAN domain managers and/or the Int-B interface between the master operator shared RAN domain managers and network elements of the shared RAN infrastructure and/or the Type 5 interface between the master operator network manager and sharing operator network managers of the tenants are configured to accommodate information regarding an OTT application, an OTT session id, a service id, a service provider id, a PLMN id, information on the respective cells that are affected by a service request, information on the resource allocation, on the type of request, resource type, time duration, QoS and/or update information about offloading policies.