Control and data plane solutions for carrier-aggregation based WLAN offload

摘要

Systems and methods for controlling data traffic offload to a WLAN (e.g., a Wi-Fi network) from a WWAN (e.g., a 4G LTE network) are generally disclosed herein. One embodiment includes data traffic offload techniques managed by a Radio Resource Control (RRC) in a networked device including offloading data at the IP, PDCP, RLC, or MAC layers; another embodiment includes data traffic offload techniques managed by a MAC Scheduler with RRC control. Configurations for multimode user equipment (UE) and multimode base stations are also described herein, including configurations for implementing a Multiple Radio Access Technology (Multi-RAT) aggregation function to offload data from a WWAN to a WLAN and transmit the data via the WLAN using a Layer 2 transport.

主权项

1. A method performed by an evolved Node B (eNB) for offloading data flows from a primary network to a secondary network, the method comprising:
providing an aggregation function configured to transfer data between a primary network interface and a secondary network interface, wherein the secondary network interface is operably coupled to a Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) transceiver, and wherein the secondary network is a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) operating according to a standard from the IEEE 802.11 standards family; offloading data from a primary data flow within the primary network interface based on network condition measurements in the primary network, by transferring the data to a secondary data flow within the secondary network interface using the aggregation function, wherein offloading data is controlled by signaling received from a Radio Resource Control (RRC) protocol layer in the primary network interface, and wherein offloading data occurs at a user plane layer of the primary network interface; and tunneling the data from a Layer 2 level of the primary network interface, via the secondary data flow over the secondary network, using the secondary network interface; wherein the tunneled data is identifiable as offloaded from the primary network.