Method and system for load balancing and QoS provisioning in a controlled broadband access sharing system

摘要

For providing a new and improved approach to load balancing the invention proposes a method for load balancing in a network access system (20) with a number of access devices (110, 120, 130) each of which is connected to a network (500) and allows network access to communication devices connectable to said access devices (110, 120, 130), wherein at least a subset of said number of access devices (110, 120, 130) are wirelessly interconnected, with the steps of sending a request from a communication device (204) to a first access device (130) of said number of access devices (110, 120, 130) for initiating a data flow between said communication device (204) and a destination node connected to said network (500), and determining a congestion state of the connection between the first access device (130) and the network (500). If congestion is detected, a second access device (120) is selected from said number of access devices (110, 120, 130) depending on the quality of the respective wireless connection with the first access device (130), and a data flow between the communication device (204) and the destination node is established, such that data originating from the communication device (204) is transmitted from the first access device (130) via the second access device (140) to the network (500) and data received from the network (500) is transmitted from the second access device (140) via the first access device (130) to the communication device (204). The invention further proposes an access device, a network server and a network access system adapted for performing the inventive method.