OPPORTUNISTIC MTC MESSAGE DELIVERY VIA WAN-TRIGGERED FORWARDING

摘要

Opportunistic wide area network (WAN) connectivity for sensor devices with low transmit power, triggered by base station broadcasts, is disclosed that increases the likelihood of the data messages of the sensor devices reaching the base station. Multiple sensor devices within proximity to each other establish device to device links. When a sensor device successfully connects to the base station, the base station broadcasts an identification of the sensor device as a gateway. This can trigger a multi-hop forwarding scheme where sensor devices that receive the broadcast forward their data messages via the D2D links to other peers until their data messages reach the gateway sensor device. The gateway sensor device forwards data messages it receives to the base station, so that the base station receives data packets from multiple sensor devices via the gateway sensor device.