摘要 |
A mobile communications network for communicating data to/from communications devices, the network comprising one or more base stations operable to provide a wireless access interface to communications devices; one or more communications devices operable to communicate packets with the one or more base stations via the wireless access interface; one or more packet gateways operable to transmit user data packets received via the one or more base stations from and/or to the one or more communications devices; and one or more mobility managers operable to send and receive signalling packets for controlling user data communications between communications devices and packet gateways. The one or more mobility managers arc operable, upon reception of a signalling packet from a communications device and comprising user data intended for a destination, to detect that the packet is not associated with any established signalling connection between the one or more mobility managers and this communication device. The one or more mobility managers are operable, responsive to said detection, to transmit the user data comprised in the signalling packet to the destination. Accordingly a short message may be sent (e.g. from a machine type communications (MTC) terminal) in a reduced context or context-less manner in a mobile communications network, thereby reducing the amount of signalling and of context to be required in the network elements.
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