Management of wireless control channel

• US 6,545,996 B1
• Filed: 12/10/1998
• Issued: 04/08/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Tu, Ming-Hsu, Strickland, Stephen Gregory, Falco, Steven Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): ZIMMERMAN, BRIAN A
• Application Number:
  US09/209,509
• Time in Patent Office: 1,580 Days
• Field of Search: 370/345, 370/347, 340/7.43, 455/464, 455/515, 455/512, 455/434, 455/458, 455/466
• US Class Current: 370/347
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/00 User notification, e.g. alerting and paging, for incoming communication, change of service or the like
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/569 of the traffic information
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A method that selects one of a plurality of priority schemes for scheduling messages for one of cyclically repeating sets of time slots of a control channel based on at least one of a plurality of characteristics of the state of the control channel. The state of the control channel is all information regarding what has arrived, what is queued, and what has been transmitted. This includes the status of the queues, the messages awaiting transmission, along with their type and the time they have been waiting, the sequence of past transmissions, as well as other information.

Claims

1. A method for scheduling messages on a control channel of a wireless telecommunication system, the control channel having cyclically repeating sets of time slots, the method comprising the steps of:

selecting one of a plurality of priority schemes for scheduling messages for one of the time slots based on at least one of a plurality of characteristics of the state of the control channel; and

scheduling messages for the time slot based on the selected priority scheme.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the state of the control channel comprises a set number of the time slot.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the wireless system having a TDMA air interface;

the cyclically repeating set of time slots being a hyperframe; and

the set number is the hyperframe number.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of selecting one of the plurality of priority schemes for scheduling messages for the time slot based on the set number comprises:

selecting a first priority scheme that assigns a voice page highest priority when the set number is an even number; and

selecting a second priority scheme that assigns an R-DATA SPACH notification highest priority when the set number is an odd number.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the state of the control channel comprises whether there are messages in any of a plurality of packable message queues for the time slot that have been in the packable message queues for the time slot since at least the end of the time slot construction period of a corresponding time slot of a previous set of cyclically repeating sets of time slots.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the packable message queues include a voice page queue and a R-DATA SPACH message queue, and the step of selecting one of a plurality of priority schemes for scheduling messages for the one set of time slots comprises:

selecting a first priority scheme that assigns a voice page highest priority when there is a message in the voice page queue that has been in the voice page queue for the time slot since at least the end of the time slot construction period of the corresponding time slot of a previous set of cyclically repeating sets of time slots; and

selecting a second priority scheme that assigns an R-DATA SPACH notification highest priority when there is a message in the R-DATA SPACH notification queue that has been in the R-DATA SPACH notification queue for the time slot since at least the end of the time slot construction period of the corresponding time slot of a previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the state of the control channel comprises the number of messages in one of a plurality of packable message queues for the time slot.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the state of the control channel comprises the length of time messages have been stored in one of a plurality of packable message queues for the time slot.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the state of the control channel comprises the type of message transmitted in a corresponding time slot of a previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of selecting one of a plurality of priority schemes for scheduling messages for the one set of time slots based on the type of message transmitted in the corresponding time slot of the previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots comprises:

selecting a first priority scheme that assigns a first message type highest priority when a second message type is transmitted in the corresponding time slot of the previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots; and

selecting a second priority scheme that assigns the second message type highest priority when a first message type is transmitted in the corresponding time slot of the previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the step of selecting one of the plurality of priority schemes for scheduling messages for the one set of time slots based on the type of message transmitted in the corresponding time slot of the previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots comprises:

selecting a first priority scheme that assigns a voice page highest priority when an R-DATA SPACH notification is transmitted in the corresponding time slot of the previous set of cyclically repeating sets of time slots; and

selecting a second priority scheme that assigns the R-DATA SPACH notification highest priority when the voice page is transmitted in the corresponding time slot of the previous set of the cyclically repeating sets of time slots.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one characteristic of the state of the control channel comprises the entire state of the wireless system.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the wireless system having a TDMA air interface; and

the cyclically repeating set of time slots being a hyperframe.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein:

each cyclically repeating set of time slots includes at least one time slot reserved for broadcast messages and at least one time slot reserved for control messages.

15. A method for scheduling messages on a control channel of a wireless telecommunication system, wherein the control channel comprises cyclically repeating time slots, the method comprising the steps of:

scheduling a packed airlink message in a time slot of a cyclically repeating set of time slots when there are at least enough of one type of packable messages for the time slot to generate a packed airlink message;

responsive to there being less than the number of any one type of packable messages needed to generate a packed airlink message, and the number of packable messages in any packable message queues since at least the end of the time slot construction period of a corresponding time slot of a previous cyclically repeating set of time slots being zero;

scheduling a non-packable message in the time slot responsive to there being at least one non-packable message;

scheduling an unpacked airlink message in the time slot responsive to there being no non-packable message and there being at least one unpacked airlink message for the time slot;

responsive to there being less than the number of any one type of packable messages needed to generate a packed airlink message, and there being the packable message in any packable message queues since at least the end of the time slot construction period of the corresponding time slot of the previous set of cyclically repeating time slots;

scheduling at least one unpacked airlink message in the time slot.

16. The method of claim 15, the step of scheduling the packed airlink message in the time slot of the cyclically repeating set of time slots comprises:

responsive to the number of packable messages in any packable message queues since at least the end of the time slot construction period of a corresponding time slot of a previous cyclically repeating set of time slots being zero;

scheduling a packed airlink message of a first type in the time slot when there are at least enough of first type packable messages for the time slot to generate the packed airlink message of the first type; and

scheduling a packed airlink message of a second type in the time slot when there are at least enough of second type packable messages for the time slot to generate the packed airlink message of the second type responsive to there being zero packed airlink messages of the first type; and

responsive to there being the packable message in any packable message queues since at least the end of the time slot construction period of the corresponding time slot of a previous cyclically repeating set of time slots;

scheduling a packed airlink message of a second type in the time slot when there are at least enough of second type packable messages for the time slot to generate the packed airlink message of the second type; and

scheduling a packed airlink message of a first type in the time slot when there are at least enough of first type packable messages for the time slot to generate the packed airlink message of the first type responsive to there being zero packed airlink messages of the second type.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein:

the fist type packable message being a voice page message;

the second type packable message being an R-DATA SPACH notification.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein:

the packed airlink messages of the first type comprising of three voice pages;

the packed airlink messages of the second type comprising of two R-DATA SPACH notifications.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the wireless system having a TDMA air interface; and

the cyclically repeating set of time slots being a hyperframe.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein:

each cyclically repeating set of time slots includes at least one time slot reserved for broadcast messages and at least one time slot reserved for non-pages.