TCP traffic adaptation in wireless systems

• US 9,661,657 B2
• Filed: 06/25/2014
• Issued: 05/23/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Yu, Yifan, Li, Xiang, Li, Guangjie, Zhang, Xu
• Primary Examiner(s): NGO, RICKY QUOC
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ng, Christine
• Application Number:
  US14/314,397
• Publication Number:
  US 20150146614A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,063 Days
• Field of Search: 370252, 370328, 370338, 370401, 370469
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/2621 using frequency division multiple access [FDMA] H04B7/2615 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0026 Transmission of channel quality indication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1825 Adaptation of specific ARQ protocol parameters according to transmission conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/2607 Cyclic extensions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/25 with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0007 the frequencies being orthogonal, e.g. OFDM(A), DMT
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0032 Distributed allocation, i.e. involving a plurality of allocating devices, each making partial allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0051 of dedicated pilots, i.e. pilots destined for a single user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0073 Allocation arrangements that take into account other cell interferences for intercell interference mitigation or co-ordination in orthogonal multiplex systems H04J11/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0078 Timing of allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/14 Two-way operation using the same type of signal, i.e. duplex
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/1469 using time-sharing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/22 using time-division multiplexing
• 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 69/163 In-band adaptation of TCP data exchange; In-band control procedures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/321 Interlayer communication protocols or service data unit [SDU] definitions; Interfaces between layers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/324 in the data link layer [OSI layer 2], e.g. HDLC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/326 in the transport layer [OSI layer 4] H04L69/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/14 Spectrum sharing arrangements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/24 Cell structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/0205 : at the air interface dynamic wireless traffic scheduling H04W72/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/0069 : in case of dual connectivity, e.g. decoupled uplink/downlink
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/0083 : Determination of parameters used for hand-off, e.g. generation or modification of neighbour cell lists
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/30 : for proactive routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0216 : using a pre-established activity schedule, e.g. traffic indication frame
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0254 : detecting a user operation or a tactile contact or a motion of the device
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/02 : Selection of wireless resources by user or terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0446 : Resources in time domain, e.g. slots or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/0453 : Resources in frequency domain, e.g. a carrier in FDMA
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/21 : in the uplink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards the network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 : in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/51 : based on terminal or device properties
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/04 : Scheduled access hybrid access H04W74/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/27 : Transitions between radio resource control [RRC] states
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/28 : Discontinuous transmission [DTX]; Discontinuous reception [DRX]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/06 : Transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP [Transport Control Protocol] over wireless transmission control protocol/Internet protocol [TCP/IP] or user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 : WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/06 : adapted for operation in multiple networks or having at least two operational modes, e.g. multi-mode terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/10 : adapted for operation in multiple networks, e.g. multi-mode access points
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 : in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Embodiments described herein relate generally to efficient transmission of data over a radio network between a user equipment (“UE”) and a network node. The UE may adapt packets from TCP to a private protocol and transmit those data packets to the network node. The UE may use ARQ data from link layer circuitry to locally generate TCP ACK data for TCP layer circuitry. At the network node, the private-protocol data packets may be adapted to TCP and transmitted to a remote host over the Internet so that the TCP semantic may be maintained between the UE and the remote host. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Claims

1. An apparatus to be included in a user equipment (“

UE”

), the apparatus comprising;

Transmission Control Protocol (“

TCP”

) layer circuitry to generate a plurality of TCP packets intended for transmission to a remote host;

an agent circuitry, coupled with the TCP layer circuitry, to intercept the plurality of TCP packets, to encapsulate data from the plurality of TCP packets into a plurality of data packets according to another protocol, and to provide acknowledgment data to the TCP layer circuitry based on Automatic Repeat Request (“

ARQ”

) data that is based on transmission of the plurality of data packets; and

link layer circuitry, coupled with the agent circuitry, to determine the ARQ data based on the transmission of the plurality of data packets over a network.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the plurality of data packets are to be included in a plurality of Uniform Datagram Protocol (“

UDP”

) datagrams.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:

physical layer circuitry, coupled with the link layer circuitry, to transmit the data packets over the network to a network node.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the link layer circuitry comprises:

Radio Link Control (“

RLC”

) sub-layer circuitry; and

Media Access Control (“

MAC”

) sub-layer circuitry.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the agent circuitry is further to map a respective TCP sequence number associated with a respective TCP packet of the plurality of TCP packets to a protocol data unit (“

PDU”

) sequence number associated with the RLC sub-layer circuitry or the MAC sub-layer circuitry, and further wherein the agent circuitry is to provide acknowledgment data for the respective TCP packet based on ARQ data associated with the PDU sequence number mapped to the respective TCP sequence number.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the agent circuitry is to provide acknowledgment data to the TCP layer circuitry based on ARQ data by generation, at the UE, of a TCP acknowledgment (“

ACK”

) corresponding to at least one TCP packet of the plurality of TCP packets based on ARQ data, associated with transmission of a data packet, received from the RLC sub-layer circuitry or hybrid ARQ (“

HARQ”

) data received from the MAC sub-layer circuitry.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the TCP layer circuitry is to:

receive application data from an application for the transmission to the remote host; and

generate the plurality of TCP packets based on the application data.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein a respective TCP packet of the plurality of TCP packets is to include a source port value and a destination port value, and further wherein the agent circuitry is to calculate a hash value based on the source port value and the destination port value to identify the application at the UE and include the hash value in a header of a respective data packet of the plurality of data packets.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the agent circuitry is to encapsulate the data from the plurality of TCP packets into the plurality of data packets according to the another protocol based at least in part on a compression algorithm.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the agent circuitry is to process a second plurality of data packets that are received according to the another protocol, to adapt the second plurality of processed data packets to a second plurality of TCP packets, and to provide the second plurality of TCP packets to the TCP layer circuitry.

11. An apparatus to be included in a network node, the apparatus comprising:

a proxy circuitry to process a plurality of received data packets having data for a remote host according to a private protocol and to adapt, or cause to be adapted, the plurality of data packets to a plurality of Transmission Control Protocol (“

TCP”

) packets;

link layer circuitry, coupled to the proxy circuitry, to provide Automatic Repeat Request (“

ARQ”

) data to a user equipment (“

UE”

) based on the plurality of received data packets from the UE according to the private protocol; and

TCP layer circuitry, coupled with the proxy circuitry, to provide the plurality of TCP packets to the remote host.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the private protocol is tunneled in a user datagram protocol (“

UDP”

) and the plurality of received data packets is included in a plurality of UDP datagrams.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the link layer circuitry comprises:

a Radio Link Control (“

RLC”

) sub-layer circuitry; and

a Media Access Control (“

MAC”

) sub-layer circuitry.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the proxy circuitry is to adapt a respective data packet to a respective TCP packet based on extraction of a hash value in a header of the respective data packet, identification of a source port value and a destination port value based on the extracted hash value, and insertion of the source port value and the destination port value into a header of the respective TCP packet.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the proxy circuitry is further to cause a mapping table to be transmitted to another network node based on a handover of the UE to the another network node, the mapping table to map the hash value to the source port value and the destination port value.

16. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the proxy circuitry is to cache data associated with the plurality of TCP packets, to process acknowledgment data associated with the plurality of TCP packets from the remote host, and to cause retransmission of a respective TCP packet if acknowledgment data corresponding to the respective TCP packet is not processed.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the proxy circuitry is to adapt the plurality of data packets to the plurality of TCP packets based on restoration of data included in the plurality of data packets according to a compression algorithm.

18. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the proxy circuitry is to process a plurality of TCP packets, received from the remote host, to adapt the plurality of received TCP packets to a second plurality of data packets according to the private protocol, and to provide the second plurality of data packets to physical layer circuitry for transmission to the UE, and the apparatus further comprising:

the physical layer circuitry, coupled with the link layer circuitry, to transmit the second plurality of data packets to the UE.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the proxy circuitry is to adapt a respective TCP packet of the plurality of received TCP packets to a respective data packet of the second plurality of data packets by extraction of a source port value and a destination port value from a header of the respective TCP packet, calculation of a hash value based on the source port value and the destination port value, and insertion of the calculated hash value into a header of the respective data packet.

20. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the network node is an access node adapted to provide a cell on which the UE is to operate, a serving gateway, or a packet data network gateway.

21. One or more non-transitory computer system-readable media comprising computing device-executable instructions, wherein the instructions, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to:

generate, by a Transmission Control Protocol (“

TCP”

) layer circuitry of the computing device, a plurality of Transmission Control Protocol (“

TCP”

) packets intended for transmission to a remote host;

encapsulate, by an agent circuitry of the computing device, data associated with the plurality of TCP packets into a plurality of data packets according to a private protocol;

determine Automatic Repeat Request (“

ARQ”

) data based on transmission of the plurality of data packets over a network according to the private protocol; and

generate acknowledgment data associated with the plurality of TCP packets based on the ARQ data determined by a link layer circuitry.

22. The one or more non-transitory computer system-readable media of claim 21, wherein the private protocol is tunneled in a user datagram protocol (“

UDP”

).

23. The one or more non-transitory computer system-readable media of claim 21, wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to map a respective TCP sequence number associated with a respective TCP packet of the plurality of TCP packets to a protocol data unit (“

PDU”

) sequence number associated with a Radio Link Control (“

RLC”

) layer or Media Access Control (“

MAC”

) layer.

24. One or more non-transitory computer system-readable media comprising computing device-executable instructions, wherein the instructions, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to:

process a plurality of data packets received from a user equipment (“

UE”

), the plurality of received data packets to be associated with a private protocol and to have data for a remote host;

transmit Automatic Repeat Request (“

ARQ”

) data to a user equipment (“

UE”

) based on the plurality of received data packets from the UE according to the private protocol;

adapt, by a proxy circuitry, the plurality of data packets to a plurality of Transmission Control Protocol (“

TCP”

) packets; and

transmit the plurality of TCP packets to the remote host.

25. The one or more non-transitory computer system-readable media comprising computing device-executable instructions of claim 24, wherein the adaptation, by the proxy circuitry, of the plurality of data packets to the plurality of TCP packets comprises instructions to:

restore data from the plurality of received data packets according to a compression algorithm;

extract a respective hash value from a respective header of a respective received data packet;

identify a respective source port value and a respective destination port value based on the extracted hash value; and

insert the restored data, the respective source port value, and the respective destination port value into a respective header of a respective TCP packet of the plurality of TCP packets.