Establishing a route with a level of quality of service in a mobile network

• US 6,798,757 B2
• Filed: 01/11/2001
• Issued: 09/28/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Communication Technologies, Ltd. (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Mizutani, Mika, Miyake, Shigeru
• Primary Examiner(s): CANGIALOSI, SALVATORE A
• Application Number:
  US09/759,115
• Publication Number:
  US 20020126633A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,356 Days
• Field of Search: 370/329, 370/352, 370/360, 370/395.32, 370/395.52, 370/401, 375/134, 455/463, 359/124
• US Class Current: 370/329
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2408 for supporting different services, e.g. a differentiated services [DiffServ] type of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/767 after changing the attachment point, e.g. after hand-off
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/801 Real time traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/805 QOS or priority aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/808 User-type aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/822 Collecting or measuring resource availability data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/824 Applicable to portable or mobile terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/825 Involving tunnels, e.g. MPLS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/826 Involving periods of time
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/02 Communication route or path selection, e.g. power-based or shortest path routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/543 based on requested quality, e.g. QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/12 Setup of transport tunnels

Abstract

A session for a mobile station is established by finding a route and determining the availability of resources on the route. Thereafter, active per-hop behaviors (PHB'"'"'s) are distributed to ports along the route while inactive PHB'"'"'s are distributed to ports near the route. The active and inactive PHB'"'"'s provide information on how to route, transport, and process packets belonging to a session. In one embodiment, each of the PHB'"'"'s indicates a priority level, forwarding port number, rules for discarding packets, rules for sending packets, etc. The packets are transported from one port to another in accordance with the active PHB'"'"'s, thereby guaranteeing a level of quality of service (QoS). When the mobile station moves to a new location and changes the route, inactive PHB'"'"'s are activated on the new route. This not only allows mobile stations to communicate at a certain level of QoS even after a move, but also minimizes the delay resulting from the move.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a session in a mobile network comprising:

finding a route;

determining the availability of resources along the route;

distributing active per-hop behaviors to ports along the route;

distributing inactive per-hop behaviors to ports near the route; and

transporting data on the route in accordance with the active per-hop behaviors.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the route leads to a wireless device.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the mobile network includes a radio access network.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the mobile network includes an Internet Protocol (IP) mobile core network.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the active and inactive per-hop behaviors indicates a priority level.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the active and inactive per-hop behaviors includes forwarding port information.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the active and inactive per-hop behaviors includes a rule for discarding packets.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the active and inactive per-hop behaviors includes a rule for sending packets.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the session is a multimedia session.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the active and inactive per-hop behaviors includes a timer.

11. A mobile network compromising:

a mobile station;

a radio access network coupled to the mobile station; and

a mobile core network comprising;

an edge router coupled to the radio access network;

an interior router coupled to the edge router;

a session server for establishing a session in the mobile core network;

a mobility manager for keeping track of the movement of the mobile station; and

a policy server for allocating and keeping track of resources in the mobile core network, the policy server also including a distributing information database containing information on how active and inactive per-hop behaviors are distributed in the mobile network.

12. The mobile network of claim 11 wherein the mobile station is a cellular phone.

13. The mobile network of claim 11 wherein the edge router and interior router support the Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) protocol.

14. The mobile network of claim 11 wherein the mobile core network is an Internet Protocol (IP) Network.

15. The mobile network of claim 11 wherein the mobile core network further includes a gateway.

16. The mobile network of claim 15 wherein the gateway is coupled to the Internet.

17. A method for moving a mobile station comprising:

moving a mobile station from an old route to a new route;

activating inactive per-hop behaviors on ports along the new route;

deactivating active per-hop behaviors on the old route that are no longer required on the new route;

redirecting traffic from the old route to the new route; and

commencing traffic on the new route.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

determining the availability of resources on the new route prior to commencing traffic.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein the mobile station includes a cellular phone.

20. The method of claim 17 wherein the route leads to the Internet.