Service continuity during local breakout in a femtocell

• US 9,119,060 B2
• Filed: 07/15/2014
• Issued: 08/25/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.), AT&T Mobility II LLC (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Liu, Cheng P., Huber, Kurt, Faryar, Alireza, Dowlatkhah, Sangar
• Primary Examiner(s): Blanton, John
• Assistant Examiner(s): LINDENBAUM, ALAN LOUIS
• Application Number:
  US14/332,131
• Publication Number:
  US 20140329531A1
• Time in Patent Office: 406 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/12 Avoiding congestion; Recovering from congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/03 Protocol definition or specification protocol conformance testing H04L1/244
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0226 based on location or mobility handoff or reselection H04W36/00; mobile application services making use of the location of users or terminals H04W4/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0231 based on communication conditions dynamic wireless traffic scheduling definition based on channel quality criteria H04W72/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0268 using specific QoS parameters for wireless networks, e.g. QoS class identifier [QCI] or guaranteed bit rate [GBR] negotiating SLA or negotiating QoS H04W28/24
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0289 Congestion control load shedding arrangements in network planning H04W16/08; performing reselection for handling the traffic H04W36/22; wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0967 Quality of Service [QoS] parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/0022 for transferring data sessions between adjacent core network technologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/24 Accounting or billing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/248 Connectivity information update
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/00 Synchronisation arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 56/001 Synchronization between nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/53 based on regulatory allocation policies
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/045 : using private Base Stations, e.g. femto Base Stations, home Node B
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/12 : Access point controller devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/16 : Gateway arrangements

Abstract

Service continuity is provided when a user equipment (UE), employing local breakout mechanisms at a femto access point (FAP) for a communication session, moves out of the femto coverage area. In particular, a network change detection component can be employed to detect when the UE, attached to the FAP, changes its connection from the femto network to the macro network. Further, an active communication session can exist between the UE and a device/service/application on a local Area network (LAN) connected to a FAP, and/or the Internet, which utilizes local breakout at the FAP. When the UE moves out of the femto network, a context management component can be employed to seamlessly resume the communication session, via the macro network.

Claims

1. A femto access point device, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

in response to determining that a user equipment has communicatively attached to the femto access point device, facilitating a synchronization of data between the user equipment and a device of a local area network coupled to the femto access point device, wherein the synchronization is facilitated without a transmission of the data via a macro network device of a macro network coupled to the femto access point device, and

in response to determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device, interrupting the synchronization and storing context information indicative of an amount of the data that has been transmitted between the user equipment and the device in a data store of the femto access point device, wherein the context information represents a transmitted amount of the data that has been transmitted between the user equipment and the device relative to an entire amount of the data.

2. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the facilitating comprises facilitating the synchronization via a communication path that is determined based on address information associated with the data.

3. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the data comprises a data packet and the facilitating comprises facilitating the synchronization via a communication path that is determined based on characteristic data indicative of a type of the data packet.

4. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the facilitating comprises facilitating the synchronization via a communication path that is determined based on protocol information representing a communication protocol utilized for the synchronization.

5. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the facilitating comprises facilitating the synchronization via a communication path that is determined based on subscriber policy data indicative of a policy associated with the user equipment.

6. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device comprises determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device based on input data received from the user equipment.

7. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device comprises determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device based on historical data associated with the user equipment.

8. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device comprises determining that the user equipment is communicatively detaching from the femto access point device based on location data indicative of a geographical location of the user equipment.

9. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

subsequent to the interrupting, associating, with the context data, session data indicative of a session identifier associated with the synchronization, and wherein the session data is employable to resume the synchronization.

10. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

subsequent to the interrupting, associating with the context data, identifier data indicative of the user equipment, and wherein the identifier data is employable to resume the synchronization.

11. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the facilitating the synchronization comprises facilitating the synchronization based on access data received from an access control data structure of the femto access point device.

12. The femto access point device of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

in response to determining that the user equipment has communicatively attached to a macro access point device, resuming the synchronization based on the context information.

13. A method, comprising:

in response to determining that a user equipment has communicatively coupled to a femto access point device comprising a processor, selecting, by the femto access point device, data that is to be synchronized between the user equipment and a device of a local area network coupled to the femto access point device;

facilitating, by the femto access point device, a synchronization of the data independent of a transmission of the data via a macro network device of a macro network coupled to the femto access point device; and

in response to determining that the user equipment has communicatively decoupled from the femto access point device, interrupting, by the femto access point device, the synchronization and determining, by the femto access point device, context information indicative of an amount of the data that has been transmitted between the user equipment and the device, wherein the context information is indicative of a percentage of the data that has been transmitted between the user equipment and the device.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

in response to determining that the user equipment has communicatively coupled to a macro access point device, resuming, by the femto access point device, the synchronization based on the context information.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining that the user equipment has communicatively decoupled from the femto access point device comprises determining that the user equipment has communicatively decoupled from the femto access point device based on historical data associated with the user equipment.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein the determining that the user equipment has communicatively decoupled from the femto access point device comprises determining that the user equipment has communicatively decoupled from the femto access point device based on location data indicative of a geographical location of the user equipment.

17. A computer-readable storage device comprising executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause a femto access point device comprising a processor to perform operations, comprising:

in response to determining that a user equipment is communicatively coupled to the femto access point device, facilitating a synchronization of data between the user equipment and a device of a local area network coupled to the femto access point device, wherein the synchronization is facilitated without a transmission of the data via a macro network device of a macro network coupled to the femto access point device; and

in response to determining that the user equipment is communicatively decoupling from the femto access point device, interrupting the synchronization and directing, to a network data store, context information indicative of a relative amount of the data that has been transmitted between the user equipment and the device.

18. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

in response to determining that the user equipment has communicatively coupled to a network access point device, resuming the synchronization based on the context information, and wherein the relative amount of the data comprises a percentage of the data that has been transmitted between the user equipment and the device.

19. The computer-readable storage device of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise:

in response to the determining that the user equipment is communicatively coupled to the femto access point device, converting an ongoing circuit-switched call between the user equipment and a destination device to a voice over internet protocol call.

20. The computer-readable storage device of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

directing the voice over internet protocol call to the destination device via a wide area network device coupled to the device of the local area network.