Mobility plane architecture for telecommunications system

摘要

In a telecommunications system (20) a transport network (26) for connecting a wireless access network (22) to a backbone network (24), an example embodiment of an overlay mobile network (40) comprises a point-to-multipoint tunnel having tunnel segments formed in a tree topology and being configured to direct traffic to a mobile node (30). The overlay mobile network (40) further comprises mobility aware routers (44) of the transport network (40), the mobility aware routers (44) serving as nodes of the tree topology of the tunnel and being configured to perform mobility functions such as mobility routing and layer 3 (L3) address assignment. These mobility functions interact in a mobility control and management plane.

主权项

1. A method of operating a telecommunications system comprising a transport network arranged between a wireless access network and a backbone network, the method comprises:
providing an overlay mobile network through the transport network, the overlay mobile network comprising a point-to-multipoint tunnel having tunnel segments formed in a tree topology, the point-to multipoint tunnel connecting mobility aware routers, the mobility aware routers being located in the transport network between the backbone network and one or more access points of the wireless access network; using the mobility aware routers of the transport network as nodes of the tree topology; and, selecting at least one of the mobility aware routers as a first ingress mobility aware router to direct traffic to a mobile node based on updated network topology information distributed to the mobility aware routers by routing protocols, wherein a first ingress mobility aware router is configured to install a route to the mobile node and to instruct a second ingress mobility aware router to redirect traffic, received by the second ingress mobility aware router but directed to the mobile node, to the first ingress mobility aware router, and wherein the first and second ingress mobility aware routers are connected to the backbone network and cooperate with one another to direct traffic to the mobile node.