Providing services at a communication network edge

摘要

As the proliferation of data rich content and increasingly more capable mobile devices has continued, the amount of data communicated over mobile operator's networks has increased. Upgrading the existing network that was designed for voice calls is not desirable or practical for many mobile operators. This disclosure relates to a mobility edge gateway that resides on the edge of the core network and can provide one or more services such as call localization, offloading of traffic, session management, and content streaming. The call localization involves identifying calls that can be maintained at the edge of the network and bridging the calls at the mobility edge gateway to bypass the core network. The offloading involves identifying traffic and offloading the traffic to the Internet or another network to bypass the core network. These services can relieve congestion on the core network of mobile operator's networks.

主权项

1. A gateway comprising:
one or more interfaces configured to provide packet communication with a user equipment, a packet core network, and an Internet, wherein the one or more interfaces are further configured to communicate with a home gateway in the packet core; a processor, in communication with the one or more interfaces, configured to inspect a control plane message received from the home gateway, wherein inspection of the control plane message comprises using an analyzer to determine offload eligibility of traffic corresponding to the received control plane message and call localization eligibility of traffic corresponding to the received control plane message, wherein the traffic corresponding to the received control plane message is identified as eligible to be offloaded from the packet core network to the Internet to bypass the packet core network upon determining that one or more trigger conditions is satisfied; wherein the traffic corresponding to the received control plane message is identified as eligible for call localization within the home gateway upon determining that a source device and a destination device of the traffic are serviced by a same radio access network; a network address translation functionality that is configured to modify packets associated with the traffic corresponding to the received control plane message such that the packets are routed through the Internet, bypassing the packet core network; and a call localization functionality that is configured to change information of packets associated with traffic selected for call localization to localize the traffic at the gateway.