Coordination and QoS scheduling

• US 9,706,558 B2
• Filed: 09/13/2013
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vodafone IP Licensing Limited (Vodafone Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: Vodafone IP Licensing Limited (Vodafone Group PLC)
• Inventors: Lioulis, Nikolaos, Law, Alan, Dunkin, Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Kincaid, Lester
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wang, William
• Application Number:
  US14/026,891
• Publication Number:
  US 20140073342A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,397 Days
• 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 64/003 locating network equipment
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/12 Wireless traffic scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/51 based on terminal or device properties
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference

Abstract

A scheduler for a cellular telecommunications network is provided having a first base station corresponding to a first cell and serving a cell area, the scheduler being adapted to: identify mobile devices located at the edge of the cell area; obtain resource usage information of mobile devices located at the edge of neighboring cell areas; and, allocate resource blocks for data transmission based on the location of the mobile devices and the received resource usage information, wherein those data transmissions with a high priority indication and which are for mobile devices located at the edge of the cell area are allocated with a higher priority than those data transmissions with a high priority indication and which are for mobile devices not located at the edge of the cell area. An associated method and computer readable storage medium are also provided.

Claims

1. A cellular telecommunications network having a first base station corresponding to a first cell and serving a cell area, the cellular telecommunications network also having a scheduler that is instantiated at least partially by a physical computer-readable storage medium of the cellular telecommunications network, the scheduler being adapted to:

identify a first device set comprising high priority mobile devices, at least some devices in the first set being high priority cell-edge devices, and at least some devices in the first set being high priority cell-center devices;

identify a second device set comprising low priority mobile devices, at least some devices in the second set being low priority cell-edge devices, and at least some devices in the second set being low priority cell-center devices;

after identifying a plurality of resource blocks that are associated with the first base station, reserve a subset of resource blocks for use by the high and low priority cell-edge devices, whereby resource blocks that are assigned to the high and low priority cell-edge devices are selected only from the subset of resource blocks;

using resource blocks selected only from the reserved subset, conduct a first assignment by assigning a resource block to each high priority cell-edge device;

after the first assignment is complete, conduct a second assignment by assigning an available resource block to each high priority cell-center device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the second assignment are selected from the plurality of resource blocks including the reserved subset of resource blocks;

after the second assignment is complete, conduct a third assignment by assigning an unassigned resource block to each low priority cell-edge device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the third assignment are selected only from the reserved subset; and

after the third assignment is complete, conduct a fourth assignment by assigning a remaining resource block to each low priority cell-center device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the fourth assignment are selected from the plurality of resource blocks including the reserved subset of resource blocks.

2. The cellular telecommunications network of claim 1, wherein the high and low priority cell-edge devices are devices that have associated therewith a high path loss and a low CQI.

3. The cellular telecommunications network of claim 2, wherein a notification is received from each of the high and low priority cell-edge devices, the notification including an indication of CQI, the notification also including a recommendation about which modulation and coding scheme the scheduler should allocate for each corresponding high and low priority cell-edge device, the recommendation being based on an estimate of current radio conditions.

4. The cellular telecommunications network of claim 1, wherein the high priority cell-edge and cell-center devices are devices having a guaranteed bit rate, GBR, requirement.

5. The cellular telecommunications network of claim 1, wherein all resource blocks are assigned using enhanced proportional fair scheduling.

6. The cellular telecommunications network of claim 1, wherein the scheduler also receives resource usage information that comprises a High Interference Indicator and an Overload Indicator in an uplink direction and a Relative Narrowband Transmit Power in a downlink direction.

7. A method in a cellular telecommunications network for allocating resource blocks for data transmission to or from mobile devices connected to a first base station, the first base station corresponding to a first cell and serving a cell area, the method comprising:

identifying a first device set comprising high priority mobile devices, at least some devices in the first set being high priority cell-edge devices, and at least some devices in the first set being high priority cell-center devices;

identifying a second device set comprising low priority mobile devices, at least some devices in the second set being low priority cell-edge devices, and at least some devices in the second set being low priority cell-center devices;

after identifying a plurality of resource blocks that are associated with the first base station, reserving a subset of resource blocks for use by the high and low priority cell-edge devices, whereby resource blocks that are assigned to the high and low priority cell-edge devices are selected only from the subset of resource blocks;

using resource blocks selected only from the reserved subset, conducting a first assignment by assigning a resource block to each high priority cell-edge device;

after the first assignment is complete, conducting a second assignment by assigning an available resource block to each high priority cell-center device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the second assignment are selected from the plurality of resource blocks including the reserved subset of resource blocks;

after the second assignment is complete, conducting a third assignment by assigning an unassigned resource block to each low priority cell-edge device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the third assignment are selected only from the reserved subset; and

after the third assignment is complete, conducting a fourth assignment by assigning a remaining resource block to each low priority cell-center device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the fourth assignment are selected from the plurality of resource blocks including the reserved subset of resource blocks.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the high and low priority cell-edge devices are devices that have associated therewith a high path loss and a low CQI.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein a notification is received from each of the high and low priority cell-edge devices, the notification including an indication of CQI, the notification also including a recommendation about which modulation and coding scheme should be allocated for each corresponding high and low priority cell-edge device, the recommendation being based on an estimate of current radio conditions.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the high priority cell-edge and cell-center devices are devices having a guaranteed bit rate, GBR, requirement.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein all resource blocks are assigned using enhanced proportional fair scheduling.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein a scheduler also receives resource usage information that comprises a High Interference Indicator and an Overload Indicator in an uplink direction and a Relative Narrowband Transmit Power in a downlink direction.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which can be executed to perform a method of:

identifying a first device set comprising high priority mobile devices associated with a first base station, at least some devices in the first set being high priority cell-edge devices, and at least some devices in the first set being high priority cell-center devices;

identifying a second device set comprising low priority mobile devices also associated with the first base station, at least some devices in the second set being low priority cell-edge devices, and at least some devices in the second set being low priority cell-center devices;

after identifying a plurality of resource blocks that are associated with the first base station, reserving a subset of resource blocks for use by the high and low priority cell-edge devices, whereby resource blocks that are assigned to the high and low priority cell-edge devices are selected only from the subset of resource blocks;

using resource blocks selected only from the reserved subset, conducting a first assignment by assigning a resource block to each high priority cell-edge device;

after the first assignment is complete, conducting a second assignment by assigning an available resource block to each high priority cell-center device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the second assignment are selected from the plurality of resource blocks including the reserved subset of resource blocks;

after the second assignment is complete, conducting a third assignment by assigning an unassigned resource block to each low priority cell-edge device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the third assignment are selected only from the reserved subset; and

after the third assignment is complete, conducting a fourth assignment by assigning a remaining resource block to each low priority cell-center device, wherein the resource blocks assigned during the fourth assignment are selected from the plurality of resource blocks including the reserved subset of resource blocks.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the high and low priority cell-edge devices are devices that have associated therewith a high path loss and a low CQI.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein a notification is received from each of the high and low priority cell-edge devices, the notification including an indication of CQI, the notification also including a recommendation about which modulation and coding scheme a scheduler should allocate for each corresponding high and low priority cell-edge device, the recommendation being based on an estimate of current radio conditions.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the high priority cell-edge and cell-center devices are devices having a guaranteed bit rate, GBR, requirement.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein all resource blocks are assigned using enhanced proportional fair scheduling.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein a scheduler also receives resource usage information that comprises a High Interference Indicator and an Overload Indicator in an uplink direction and a Relative Narrowband Transmit Power in a downlink direction.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises:

detecting a power transmission level of a base station corresponding to a neighboring cell area; and

upon a condition in which the detected power transmission level of the base station is determined to be above a certain limit, avoid assigning the resource blocks.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises providing a classification for both the first device set of high priority mobile devices and the second device set of low priority mobile devices.