HIERARCHICAL PROTOCOL CLASSIFICATION FOR INTERWORKING BETWEEN LTE AND THIRD GENERATION WIRELESS NETWORKS

摘要

A hierarchical protocol classification and signaling method specifies the interworking protocols used to send circuit-switched signaling messages to and from a mobile terminal in a packet-switched network. A set of possible interworking protocols are divided into two more classes that correspond to different types of interworking protocols. Within each class, different versions of the interworking protocol are specified by a revision value. The versions of the interworking protocols within a given class are may be denominated such that the versions with a higher revision value are backward compatible with versions having a lower value. When a circuit services domain message is sent from a sending device to a receiving device, an interworking option specifying the class/revision of the interworking protocol is transmitted along with circuit services domain messages. The interworking option may be inserted into the header of a tunneling packet containing the circuit services domain message.