| 摘要 |
The application relates to HeNB GW and its role in handover procedures. Due to the increasing geographic density of small cells, the signalling load to the CN will increase. The application proposes to terminate mobility related signalling for the purposes of in the HeNB GW (14) as opposed to the MME (12) as is conventionally the case, thereby avoiding additional signalling with the core network. However, when the HeNB GW terminates the signalling, the security context is not updated between the MMM and the HeNB GW. In order to mitigate the security risk that this might cause, a number of handovers or 'hops' can beneficially be defined, e.g. by the operator, during which handover signalling will terminate in the small cell gateway. Once this predefined number of 'hops' has been reached, the next HeNB GW routes handover signalling via the core network for the next handover in order to ensure that the security context is updated. |
