Triggering a signaling event from the data plane

摘要

Some examples of triggering a signaling event in a control plane of a mobile network from a user plane of the mobile network. After it is determined in accordance with a predefined criterion that an error indication should be sent, an error indication may be sent in the user plane, from a location external to a radio access network of the mobile network and external to a core network of the mobile network, to at least one element in the radio access network or the core network, thereby triggering a signaling event. The predefined criterion may include no accessible association between a user identifier or cell identifier and an identifier of a tunnel for tunneling user data packets between the radio access network and the core network. The lack of an accessible association may have negative implications, e.g. for traffic management. The triggered signaling event may include releasing this tunnel.

主权项

1. A signaling event triggering system, comprising:
an association data structure matching tunnel identifiers of monitored transmissions and respective user or cell identifiers; a determiner configured to monitor transmissions passing in tunnels between a first element in a radio access network and a second element in a core network of a mobile network, from an intermediary point between the first and second elements, to determine a tunnel identifier of the transmissions from the monitored transmissions, and to search the association data structure for a user or cell identifier corresponding to the tunnel identifier determined from the monitored transmissions; and an error indication sender, external to the radio access network and to the core network of the mobile network, the sender configured, responsive to a determination that the corresponding user or cell identifier is not available in the association data structure, to send an error indication in a user plane of the mobile network from the intermediary point, between the first element in the radio access network and the second element in the core network, to at least one of the first and second elements, wherein the error indication triggers the first or second element that receives the error indication to initiate a signaling event in a control plane of the mobile network, wherein the error indication is handled by the first or second element receiving the error indication as if the error indication was transmitted by the second or first element, respectively.