JP2016149619A - Radio communication system, policy control device, and communication control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To dynamically cope with fluid traffic.SOLUTION: A radio base station 109 or control device (terminal/base station management device 110) transmits identification information for uniquely identifying a radio terminal 101 and information on a position of the radio terminal to a communication quality control policy control device 104. A packet processing gateway 103 measures an amount of data for each connection provided for the radio terminal, and transmits the measured amount of data to the policy control device. The policy control device, on the basis of received identification information and amount of data, identifies a connection in a congestion state; and transmits identification information on the identified connection and a radio terminal for which the connection is provided, to a system selection policy distribution device 105. The policy distribution device selects, on the basis of the information on the position of the radio terminal, a radio base station that uses a second radio communication system and is to be a connection destination of the radio terminal; and transmits information for connecting with the selected radio base station, to the radio terminal.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to a communication control method in a wireless communication system.

  The mobile communication system standardization organization 3GPP is studying the rapid increase in traffic due to the recent access to the Internet by smartphones. 3GPP assumes that it will not be possible to process traffic only with LTE, and is considering to avoid concentration of traffic to LTE by switching from LTE to another access system such as WiFi according to the situation. .

3GPP standard TR23.705 V0.11.0 (Section 6.1.5.2) 3GPP standard TS24.302 V10.7.0 Annex A

  In the technology described in Non-Patent Document 1 described above, congestion detection is performed in units of APNs on the core network side, but traffic offload is not adopted as a congestion avoiding means. In the technique described in Non-Patent Document 2, a PDN connection of a specific APN is statically distributed to non-3GPP Access, but traffic is not dynamically offloaded when congestion is detected.

  That is, ANDSF (Access Network Discovery and Selection Function) defined in 3GPP and IETF statically distributes PDN connections of specific APNs to non-3GPP Access, but does not offload traffic due to congestion detection .

  For this reason, there exists a subject that it cannot respond dynamically to fluid traffic.

  A typical example of the invention disclosed in the present application is as follows. That is, a wireless communication system that communicates with a wireless terminal, wherein the wireless base station communicates with the wireless terminal by a first wireless communication method, a control device that controls the wireless base station, and a gateway device that transfers user data A policy control device that manages a policy applied to communication with the wireless terminal, and a policy distribution device that distributes a policy applied to communication with the wireless terminal, the wireless base station or the control device Transmits identification information for uniquely identifying the wireless terminal and information on the position of the wireless terminal to the policy control device, and the gateway device determines a data amount for each connection provided to the wireless terminal. Measure and transmit the measured data amount to the policy control device, the policy control device receives the received identification information and data amount A connection in a congested state is identified based on the information, and the identification information of the identified connection and the wireless terminal to which the connection is provided is transmitted to the policy distribution device. Based on the information, a radio base station of the second radio communication scheme to be a connection destination of the radio terminal is selected, and information for connecting to the selected radio base station is transmitted to the radio terminal.

  According to the representative embodiment of the present invention, traffic can be offloaded when congestion is detected. Problems, configurations, and effects other than those described above will become apparent from the description of the following embodiments.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the communication system of the Example of this invention. It is a figure which shows the connection between the terminal of a present Example, and a network. It is a figure which shows the connection between the terminal of a present Example, and a network. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the packet processing gateway of a present Example. It is a block diagram which shows the structure of the communication quality control policy control apparatus of a present Example. It is a sequence diagram which shows the connection between each apparatus of a present Example. It is a figure which shows the structure of the table which the communication quality control policy control apparatus of a present Example hold | maintains. It is a figure which shows the structure of the table which the packet processing gateway of a present Example hold | maintains. In a present Example, it is a figure which shows an example of the message format used by the connection sequence which a base station performs with respect to a terminal / base station management apparatus. In this embodiment, it is a diagram showing an example of a message format used in a connection sequence for notifying the communication quality control policy control device of radio access congestion information. In a present Example, it is a figure which shows an example of the message format used by the connection sequence which transmits a base station number and a terminal index to a packet processing gateway. In a present Example, it is a figure which shows an example of the message format used by the connection sequence which notifies DPI to a communication quality control policy control apparatus. In a present Example, it is a figure which shows an example of the message format used by the connection sequence which notifies a terminal policy and PDN connection identification information to a system policy delivery apparatus.

  Hereinafter, examples will be described with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a communication system according to the present embodiment.

  The communication system of this embodiment includes a 3GPP radio access network 102, a packet processing gateway 103, a communication quality control policy control device (PCRF) 104, a system selection policy distribution device 105, a non-3GPP radio access network 106, A packet processing gateway 107 for 3GPP wireless access and a 3GPP network 108 are included. The 3GPP radio access network 102 includes a base station 109 and a terminal / base station management device 110. A terminal 101 is connected to the base station 109.

  In the communication system according to the present embodiment, the terminal 101 is connected to the packet processing gateway 103 via the 3GPP radio access network 102 and connected to the 3GPP network 108 to receive an IP network service.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the terminal 101 has a plurality of (for example, three) PDN (Packet Data Network) connections 201 between the terminal 101 and the packet processing gateway 103. A plurality of PDN connections 201 are terminated at the terminal 101 and the packet processing gateway 103.

  The packet processing gateway 103 establishes a plurality of APN (Access Point Name) connections 202 as shown in FIG. 2 for the 3GPP network 108 corresponding to the plurality of PDN connections 201. The terminal 101 uses the data service of APN3 via PDN3.

  The network between the terminal 101 and the 3GPP network 108 is defined between the PDN connection (PDN3) 600 between the terminal 101 and the packet processing gateway 103, and between the packet processing gateway 103 and the 3GPP network, as shown in FIG. , And an APN data service (APN3) 601 provided to the terminal 101.

  In the illustrated example, it is assumed that the terminal 101 has a high usage rate of the data service of the APN 3. As a result, data traffic passing through the PDN connection (PDN3) is increasing.

  The base station 109 is a base station in which the terminal 101 performs 3GPP radio access to the 3GPP radio access network 102. The terminal / base station management apparatus 110 manages the terminal 101 connected to the packet processing gateway 103 via the base station 109 and maintains the base station 109.

  FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating the configuration of the packet processing gateway 103.

  The packet processing gateway 103 includes a DPI unit 401, a table storage unit 402, and a radio access congestion receiving unit 403. The DPI unit 401 observes the internal data of the packet for each PDN connection terminated at the packet processing gateway 103. The operation of each unit of the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 will be described later.

  As shown in FIG. 2, due to the increase in traffic data that the terminal 101 passes through the PDN connection (PDN3), the CPU usage rate at the base station 109 exceeds a predetermined threshold, and the base station 109 Congestion has begun.

  The base station 109 compares the resource usage status of its own device, for example, the processor usage rate and / or the memory usage rate with a predetermined threshold, and detects congestion when the threshold is exceeded. Then, when the base station 109 detects congestion, the terminal connection information of its own device, for example, the number of initial terminal connections existing under the base station 109 when the congestion is detected, the initial sector number of the base station 109, and The terminal index is notified to the terminal / base station management apparatus 110 (602 in FIG. 6).

  FIG. 9 shows an example of a message format used in a connection sequence performed by the base station 109 to the terminal / base station management apparatus 110. In the example shown in FIG. 9, a normal IP packet is used for this connection sequence. The IP header 901 includes packet routing information including an IP packet transmission source IP address and an IP packet destination IP address. Terminal connection information is set in the IP payload 902. The terminal connection information includes an initial base station number 903, an initial terminal connection number 904, an initial sector (cell) number 905, and a terminal index (telephone number) 906.

  The communication quality control policy control device 104 controls the communication quality of the 3GPP radio access network 102 and the 3GPP network 108.

  The terminal / base station management apparatus 110 manages the terminal 101 located under the base station 109 based on the terminal connection information received from the base station 109, and determines that the congestion control is necessary, The communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 is notified (603 in FIG. 6).

  FIG. 10 shows an example of a message format used in the connection sequence for notifying the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 of the radio access congestion information. In the example shown in FIG. 10, a normal IP packet is used for this connection sequence. The IP header 1001 includes packet routing information including an IP packet transmission source IP address and an IP packet destination IP address. Radio access congestion information is set in the IP payload 1002. The radio access congestion information includes a congestion control activation time base station number 1003, a congestion control activation time terminal connection number 1004, a congestion control activation time sector (cell) number 1005, and a terminal index (telephone number) 1006.

  The communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 uses the radio access congestion information transmitting / receiving unit (501 in FIG. 5) to transmit the radio access congestion information received from the terminal / base station management apparatus 110 to the congestion monitoring base station number of the base station 109 and the terminal 101. The base station number and the terminal index are transmitted to the packet processing gateway 103 (604 in FIG. 6).

  FIG. 11 shows an example of a message format used in the connection sequence for transmitting the base station number and the terminal index to the packet processing gateway 103. In the example shown in FIG. 11, a normal IP packet is used. The IP header 1101 includes packet routing information including an IP packet transmission source IP address and an IP packet destination IP address. Radio access congestion information is set in the IP payload 1102. The radio access congestion information includes a congestion monitoring base station number 1103, a congestion monitoring terminal connection number 1104, a congestion monitoring sector (cell) number 1105, and a congestion monitoring terminal index (telephone number) 1106.

  The table storage unit 505 of the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 holds a table used in the conversion process by the radio access congestion information transmission / reception unit 501.

  As shown in FIG. 7, the table stored in the table storage unit 505 of the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 is a table that can identify the terminal 101 by using the terminal index 701 as an index according to the radio access congestion information, and the terminal identification information 702, terminal location 703, QoS information 704, PDN connection identification information 705, APN identification information 706, communication information 707 for each PDN, threshold information 708, and the like are stored.

  The terminal identification information 702 is identification information for uniquely identifying the terminal 101, and for example, IMSI can be used. The terminal position 703 is a cell number, a telephone number, or the like where the congested terminal is located. The QoS information 704 is the priority of the service of the terminal. The communication information 707 is a static value such as a packet flow rate (bps) for each PDN. The threshold information 708 is a static reference value for determining that there is congestion.

  The radio access congestion receiving unit 403 of the packet processing gateway 103 transfers the congestion monitoring base station number and the congestion monitoring terminal index received from the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 to the DPI unit 401.

  The DPI unit 401 monitors the communication status of data traffic passing through each of the three PDN connections 201 provided by the terminal 101 illustrated in FIG. In this example, as described above, the data traffic passing through the PDN connection (PDN3) is increasing. The DPI unit 401 monitors the communication status of the PDN connection 201, and notifies the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 at a predetermined timing (for example, periodically) as a DPI as a monitoring result (605 in FIG. 6).

  FIG. 12 shows an example of a message format used in the connection sequence for notifying the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 of DPI. In the example shown in FIG. 12, a normal IP packet is used. The IP header 1201 includes packet routing information including an IP packet transmission source IP address and an IP packet destination IP address. In the IP payload 1202, DPI is set. The DPI includes a congestion monitoring PDN number 1203, a congestion monitoring APN number 1204, periodic monitoring type information 1205, a congestion monitoring terminal index (telephone number) 1206 in FIG. 12, and communication information 1207.

  In the sequence diagram of FIG. 6, sequences 601 to 605 can utilize the congestion detection technique using UPCON.

  The table storage unit 402 of the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 holds a table used for monitoring processing by the DPI unit 401.

  As shown in FIG. 8, the table held in the table storage unit 402 of the packet processing gateway 103 is searched by the terminal index 801, and the PDN connection identification information 802, the APN identification information 803, the periodic monitoring type 804, and the communication Information 805 is stored.

  The periodic monitoring type 804 is a monitoring cycle or the like. The communication information 805 is a real-time observation value such as a packet flow rate (bps) for each PDN.

  The DPI unit 401 periodically monitors the data traffic passing through each PDN connection provided to the terminal 101 in accordance with the conditions stored in the periodic monitoring type 804, and the monitoring result (packet flow rate value, etc.) Is recorded in the communication information 805 in real time.

  FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104.

  The communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 includes a radio access congestion information transmission / reception unit 501, a DPI reception unit 502, a policy control unit 503, a DPI transmission unit 504, and a table storage unit 505.

  The radio access congestion information transmitting / receiving unit 501 receives the radio access congestion information transmitted from the terminal / base station management apparatus 110 and transmits the base station number and the terminal identification number to the packet processing gateway 103. The DPI receiving unit 502 receives DPI from the packet processing gateway 103. Also, the DPI receiving unit 502 transfers the DPI received from the packet processing gateway 103 to the policy control unit 503 and inquires whether to perform policy control. Then, the DPI receiving unit 502 refers to the QoS information and the packet flow rate held in the table storage unit 505, and sends DPI based on a policy such as threshold information to the DPI transmitting unit 504.

  The policy control unit 503 selects the DPI received from the packet processing gateway 103 in the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 based on the policy stored in the table storage unit 505, and transmits the DPI to be transmitted to the system selection policy distribution apparatus 105. decide. Based on the DPI received from the DPI receiving unit 502, the DPI transmitting unit 504 obtains the terminal index of the terminal 101 in the congested state and the PDN connection identification information in the congested state in the 3GPP radio access network 102 based on the system selection policy. The data is transmitted to the distribution apparatus 105 (606 in FIG. 6).

  FIG. 13 shows an example of a message format used in the connection sequence for notifying the system selection policy distribution apparatus 105 of the terminal index and PDN connection identification information. In the example shown in FIG. 13, a normal IP packet is used. The IP header 1301 includes packet routing information including an IP packet transmission source IP address and an IP packet destination IP address. In the IP payload 1302, a terminal index 1303 in a congestion state and PDN connection identification information 1304 in a congestion state are set.

  The system selection policy distribution apparatus 105 is an apparatus that provides the terminal 101 with information for connecting to a non-3GPP radio access network. Specifically, the system selection policy distribution apparatus 105 refers to the system selection policy held by the system selection policy distribution apparatus 105 based on the congestion state terminal index and the PDN connection number received from the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104. For example, in the case of a wireless LAN for selecting a PDN number (PDN3) that is congested in the terminal 101 and the non-3GPP radio access network 106, the terminal 101 is referred to by referring to the location information of the terminal 101. A wireless LAN access point to which 101 can connect is selected, and the SSID of the selected access point is transmitted to the terminal 101 (607 in FIG. 6).

  Based on the wireless LAN SSID received from the system selection policy distribution apparatus 105, the terminal 101 requests connection of the PDN connection (PDN3) in a congested state to the non-3GPP wireless access network 106 (for example, wireless LAN). (608 in FIG. 6).

  The non-3GPP radio access network 106 is connected to a packet processing gateway 107 for non-3GPP radio access. The non-3GPP wireless access packet processing GW 107 is connected to the packet processing gateway 103 (609, 610, 611, and 612 in FIG. 6).

  As shown in FIG. 2, the packet processing gateway 103 terminates the three PDN connections 201, and as shown in FIG. 3, the termination destination of the PDN connection (PDN3) is switched to the packet processing GW 107 for non-3GPP radio access. However, the packet processing gateway 103 can continue to provide the data service of the APN 3 provided before the switching, and can continue to provide it to the terminal 101 via the PDN connection after the switching (613 in FIG. 6).

  In this embodiment, after the PDN connection is switched, the terminal 101 terminates the three PDN connections terminated at the packet processing gateway 103 before switching, and after switching, as shown in FIGS. 3 and 6, PDN1 and PDN2 Terminates at the packet processing gateway 103, and PDN3 terminates at the non-3GPP radio access packet processing GW 107.

  As described above, by switching the data traffic passing through the PDN connection 201 congested in the 3GPP radio access network 102 to the non-3GPP radio access network 106, the congestion state occurring in the 3GPP radio access network 102 is alleviated. be able to.

  In the sequence diagram of FIG. 6, sequences 607 to 613 can utilize a system selection technique using ANDSF.

  As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, the base station 109 or the terminal / base station management apparatus 110 uses the terminal quality for uniquely identifying the terminal 101 and the position information of the terminal 101 as the communication quality control policy. The packet processing gateway 103 measures the amount of data for each connection provided to the terminal 101, transmits the measured amount of data to the communication quality control policy control device 104, and performs communication quality control policy control. The device 104 identifies a congested connection based on the received terminal index and data amount, and transmits the identified connection and the terminal index of the terminal 101 to which the connection is provided to the system selection policy distribution device 105. The system selection policy distribution apparatus 105 is connected to the terminal 101. Based on the position information, a wireless base station of another scheme (WiFi) to which the terminal 101 is connected is selected, and information (SSID) for connecting to the selected wireless base station is transmitted to the terminal 101. Traffic can be offloaded upon detection, and dynamic traffic can be handled dynamically.

  That is, in the traffic offload by the ANDSF of the prior art, it is possible to statically distribute a PDN connection of a specific APN to non-3GPP Access. However, according to the present embodiment, wireless communication not implemented by ANDSF is also possible. Congestion control can be dynamically performed in response to congestion detection at the cell level of the access network.

  Further, the communication quality control policy control apparatus 104 determines whether the connection is in a congested state by comparing the threshold value determined for each connection with the data amount for each connection, so that the PDN connection of a specific APN is determined. Congestion can be detected and the traffic of the PDN connection of a specific APN can be offloaded.

  In addition, the communication quality control policy control device 104 has a table that stores the terminal index of the terminal 101, the data amount for each connection, and the threshold value determined for each connection, and thus detects congestion of the PDN connection of a specific APN. And can offload the traffic of a PDN connection of a particular APN.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and includes various modifications and equivalent configurations within the scope of the appended claims. For example, the above-described embodiments have been described in detail for easy understanding of the present invention, and the present invention is not necessarily limited to those having all the configurations described. A part of the configuration of one embodiment may be replaced with the configuration of another embodiment. Moreover, you may add the structure of another Example to the structure of a certain Example. In addition, for a part of the configuration of each embodiment, another configuration may be added, deleted, or replaced.

  In addition, each of the above-described configurations, functions, processing units, processing means, etc. may be realized in hardware by designing a part or all of them, for example, with an integrated circuit, and the processor realizes each function. It may be realized by software by interpreting and executing the program to be executed.

  Information such as programs, tables, and files that realize each function can be stored in a storage device such as a memory, a hard disk, or an SSD (Solid State Drive), or a recording medium such as an IC card, an SD card, or a DVD.

  Further, the control lines and the information lines are those that are considered necessary for the explanation, and not all the control lines and the information lines that are necessary for the mounting are shown. In practice, it can be considered that almost all the components are connected to each other.

101 terminal 102 3GPP radio access network 103 packet processing gateway 104 communication quality control policy control device (PCRF)
105 System selection policy distribution device (ANDSF)
106 non-3GPP radio access network 107 non-3GPP radio access packet processing gateway 108 3GPP network 109 base station 110 terminal / base station management apparatus 201 PDN connection 202 APN data service 401 DPI unit 402 table storage unit 403 radio access congestion reception unit 501 radio Access congestion information transmission / reception unit 502 DPI reception unit 503 Policy control unit 504 DPI transmission unit 505 Table storage unit

Claims (9)

A wireless communication system for communicating with a wireless terminal,
Policy applied to communication between the wireless terminal, a wireless base station that communicates with the wireless terminal by a first wireless communication method, a control device that controls the wireless base station, a gateway device that transfers user data, and the wireless terminal A policy control device for managing, and a policy distribution device for distributing a policy applied to communication with the wireless terminal;
The radio base station or the control device transmits identification information for uniquely identifying the radio terminal and information on the location of the radio terminal to the policy control device,
The gateway device measures a data amount for each connection provided to the wireless terminal, and transmits the measured data amount to the policy control device;
The policy control device identifies a congested connection based on the received identification information and data amount, and transmits the identified connection and identification information of a wireless terminal to which the connection is provided to the policy distribution device. And
The policy distribution device is configured to select a wireless base station of a second wireless communication system to be a connection destination of the wireless terminal based on the position information of the wireless terminal, and to connect to the selected wireless base station A wireless communication system, wherein information is transmitted to the wireless terminal. The wireless communication system according to claim 1,
The wireless communication system, wherein the policy control device determines whether the connection is in a congested state by comparing a threshold value determined for each connection with the data amount. The wireless communication system according to claim 1 or 2,
The policy control apparatus stores the wireless terminal identification information, the data amount for each connection, and a threshold value determined for each connection in association with each other. A policy control device for managing a policy applied to communication with a wireless terminal,
A wireless communication system that communicates with the wireless terminal transfers user data, the policy control device, a wireless base station that communicates with the wireless terminal by a first wireless communication method, a control device that controls the wireless base station, and And a policy distribution device that distributes a policy applied to communication with the wireless terminal,
The policy control device includes:
Receiving identification information for uniquely identifying the wireless terminal and information on the position of the wireless terminal from the wireless base station or the control device;
Receiving from the gateway device the amount of data measured for each connection provided to the wireless terminal;
A connection in a congested state is identified based on the received identification information and data amount, and the identification information of the identified connection and the wireless terminal to which the connection is provided is sent to the wireless base station of the second wireless communication system In order to transmit the information for connection to the said radio | wireless terminal, it transmits to the said policy delivery apparatus, The policy control apparatus characterized by the above-mentioned. The policy control device according to claim 4,
A policy control apparatus characterized by determining whether the connection is in a congested state by comparing a threshold value determined for each connection with the data amount. The policy control device according to claim 4 or 5,
The policy control device, wherein the wireless terminal identification information, the data amount for each connection, and a threshold value determined for each connection are stored in association with each other. A communication control method executed in a wireless communication system,
The wireless communication system is used for communication between a wireless base station that communicates with a wireless terminal using a first wireless communication method, a control device that controls the wireless base station, a gateway device that transfers user data, and the wireless terminal. A policy control device that manages a policy to be applied; and a policy distribution device that distributes a policy applied to communication with the wireless terminal;
The method
The wireless base station or the control device transmits identification information for uniquely identifying the wireless terminal and information on the position of the wireless terminal to the policy control device,
The gateway device measures a data amount for each connection provided to the wireless terminal, and transmits the measured data amount to the policy control device;
The policy control device identifies a congested connection based on the received identification information and data amount, and transmits the identified connection and the identification information of the wireless terminal to which the connection is provided to the policy distribution device. And
The policy distribution apparatus selects a wireless base station of a second wireless communication method to which the wireless terminal is connected based on the position information of the wireless terminal, and connects to the selected wireless base station A communication control method comprising transmitting information to the wireless terminal. The communication control method according to claim 7,
The policy control apparatus determines whether the connection is in a congested state by comparing a threshold value determined for each connection with the data amount. The communication control method according to claim 7 or 8,
The policy control apparatus stores the identification information of the wireless terminal, the data amount for each connection, and a threshold value determined for each connection in association with each other.

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