Enhanced encapsulation mechanism using GRE protocol

• US 7,742,490 B2
• Filed: 01/13/2009
• Issued: 06/22/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Serrano, Ricardo, Muhann, Ahmad, Moussa, Hachem, El-Beik, Essam, Keith, Kory
• Primary Examiner(s): Sheikh, Ayaz R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Moutaouakil, Mounir
• Application Number:
  US12/353,058
• Publication Number:
  US 20090122802A1
• Time in Patent Office: 525 Days
• Field of Search: 455405-408, 370465-467, 370/395.52, 370/474, 379/114.03, 379/114.1, 37911421-11502, 379/121.03
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/145 Payments according to the detected use or quantity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/14 Charging , metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1425 involving dedicated fields in the data packet for billing purposes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/04 Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/32 Involving wireless systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/06 Optimizing the usage of the radio link, e.g. header compression, information sizing , discarding information system modifying transmission characteristic according to link quality by modifying frame length H04L1/0007; dynamic adaptation of the packet size for flow control or congestion control H04L47/365
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing

Abstract

Wireless gateway nodes are enabled to support mobile node services, such as content based billing, when a data treatment server is present in the system. Using one of a defined Content Flow Label (CFL), an Application Program Interface (API), and a compression protocol header, content based billing is provided such as by exchanging content and byte count information with the data treatment server.

Claims

1. A method in a data treatment server for providing services in a communications network, the method comprising:

receiving, by the data treatment server, at least one encapsulated data packet having a standard Internet Protocol (IP) header and a treated payload;

converting, by the data treatment server, the treated payload of the at least one encapsulated data packet to an untreated payload to permit inspection and classification of payload content;

forwarding, to a wireless gateway node, the at least one encapsulated data packet including the untreated payload to produce inspected and classified content of the untreated payload;

receiving, by the data treatment server, the at least one encapsulated data packet including the untreated payload with inspected and classified content;

treating the at least one encapsulated data packet including the untreated payload to produce another treated payload;

forwarding, to the wireless gateway node, the at least one encapsulated treated data packet including the another treated payload for transmission to a wireless node; and

providing the services based on the inspected and classified content of the untreated payload and the number of bytes in the another treated payload.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the data treatment server comprises one of:

a Traffic Protocol Optimizer (TPO) and a load balancer.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the services include at least one of content based billing, pre-paid wireless, and content based routing.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one encapsulated data packet is encapsulated using Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE).

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the communications network comprises at least one of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the treating the at least one encapsulated data packet payload comprises one of:

optimizing the payload and compressing the payload.

7. A data treatment server to provide services in a communications network functions to:

receive at least one encapsulated data packet having a standard Internet Protocol (IP) header and a treated payload;

convert the treated payload of the at least one encapsulated data packet to an untreated payload;

forward, to a wireless gateway node, the at least one encapsulated data packet including the untreated payload to produce inspected and classified content of the untreated payload;

receive the at least one encapsulated data packet including the untreated payload with inspected and classified content;

treat the at least one encapsulated data packet including the untreated payload to produce another treated payload;

forward the at least one encapsulated treated data packet including the another treated payload to the wireless gateway node for transmission to a wireless node; and

provide the services based on the inspected and classified content of the untreated payload and the number of bytes in the another treated payload.

8. The data treatment server of claim 7 further comprises at least one of:

a Traffic Protocol Optimizer (TPO) and a load balancer.

9. The data treatment server of claim 7 wherein the services include at least one of content based billing, pre-paid wireless, and content based routing.

10. The data treatment server of claim 7 wherein the at least one encapsulated data packet is encapsulated using Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE).

11. The data treatment server of claim 7 wherein the communications network comprises at least one of a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network.

12. The data treatment server of claim 7 wherein to treat the at least one encapsulated data packet payload comprises at least one of:

optimizing the payload and compressing the payload.