RADIO RESOURCE CONTROL (RRC) PROTOCOL FOR CELL SELECTION AND TRAFFIC STEERING FOR INTEGRATED WLAN/3GPP RADIO ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES

摘要

An integrated WLAN/WWAN Radio Access Technology (RAT) architecture is described in which signaling used to control the integration of the WLAN/WWAN architecture is performed over the Radio Resource Control (RRC) plane. The integrated architecture may allow for User Equipment (UE) assistance in cell selection and traffic steering. In particular, UE-assisted RRC signaling is described for managing inter-RAT session transfers and secondary cell (SCell) selection.

主权项

1. User Equipment (UE) comprising:
a first component to connect to a Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) using licensed frequency spectrum; a second component to connect to a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) using unlicensed frequency spectrum; and processing circuitry to:
receive, from the WWAN, assistance information including policies that relate to selection of secondary communication cells that are formed over the WLAN;select a particular secondary communication cell based on the assistance information and based on information specific to the UE;transmit an indication of the selected particular secondary communication cell, the indication being transmitted via radio resource control (RRC) layer signaling, to an evolved NodeB (eNB) associated with the WWAN;receive acknowledgement, from the eNB, of the selected particular secondary communication cell; androute traffic over the secondary communication cell based on the reception of the acknowledgement.