Congestion measurement and reporting for real-time delay-sensitive applications

摘要

Embodiments describe mechanisms for an eNB, possibly assisted by a UE, to detect and possibly alleviate user plane congestion. In some embodiments, the eNB implements UE assisted packet dropping, where the UE requests the eNB drop packets in a sub-QCI that meet designated criteria, such as exceeding a sub-QCI delay threshold. Other embodiments, detect periods of congestion and send congestion indication to the core network when the congestion period exceeds a threshold or when the user experience is degraded. Some embodiments implement both sets of functionality.

主权项

1. An enhanced node B (eNB) comprising hardware processing circuitry comprising:
congestion detection processing circuitry configured to:
identify a Quality of Service Class Identifier (QCI) delay for each of a plurality of downlink packets;determine whether the QCI delay for each of the plurality of downlink packets exceeds a delay threshold;determine a start of a congestion period responsive to a start criteria;determine an end of the congestion period responsive to a number of consecutive downlink packets that do not exceed the delay threshold reaching a second count threshold;determine a length of the congestion period; andsend a congestion indication message to a core network when the length of the congestion period exceeds a first length threshold; and sub-quality of service class identifier (sub-QCI) packet dropping processing circuitry configured to:
receive, from a user equipment (UE), a first message to initiate sub-QCI packet dropping, the first message comprising a sub-QCI for a QCI;identify a sub-QCI packet dropping delay threshold for the sub-QCI;test whether a packet belonging to the sub-QCI exceeds the sub-QCI delay threshold; andresponsive to the packet belonging to the sub-QCI exceeding the delay threshold, make a decision whether to drop the packet belonging to the sub-QCI.