Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W24/00—Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
  • H04W24/02—Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W36/00—Hand-off or reselection arrangements
  • H04W36/24—Reselection being triggered by specific parameters
  • H04W36/26—Reselection being triggered by specific parameters by agreed or negotiated communication parameters
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04W—WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
  • H04W36/00—Hand-off or reselection arrangements
  • H04W36/16—Performing reselection for specific purposes
  • H04W36/22—Performing reselection for specific purposes for handling the traffic

Definitions

• the invention relates to cellular telecommunications systems* in particular to the assignment of eel! configuration parameters by a network element,
• One mobile terminal is handed over from one cell to another according to the handover parameter settings in combinatio with the actual radio link conditions from the serving ceil in comparison to neighbor candidate cells.
• the handover configuration settings controlled how early or how late th mobiles are handed over from one cell to another. :
• the invention provides for a network, .element of a cellular telecommunications sys- tern, a method of assigning a set of Glass-specific cell configuration parameters for a user service request, and a computer readable storage medium in the independent claims. Embodiments are given in the dependent claims,
• a difficulty with state of the art systems is that there is currently no solution for doing service type specific load balancin between LTE cells because there is currently only one single set of handover configuration settings for one ceil (Time To Trigger TTT, Handover Margin HOM and the measurement filter coefficient) and one single "cell Individual offset” (CIO) or Offset Get! index-number (GGn) towards each neighbor defined in 3GPP LTE.
• These handover settings apply to all users, i.e. in- dependent of the service of the users.
• Embodiments of the invention may address this problems by providing for a network element which assigns a classification to a user service request. A set of class specific cell configuration parameters are then assigned to be used for the provision of the telecommunications service.
• Embodiments of the invention may comprise several parts which provide the necessary functionality for service class dependent load balancing and the signaling requirements to allow its powerful self organization, i.e. on a semi-static time scale.
• LTE Long Term Evolution
• service class dependent load balancing LTE and other mobile telecommunication systems
• LTE Long Term Evolution
• this set of requirements corresponds to a typical kind of application, e.g. voice telephony, video streaming, internet-surfing, etc.
• the system has the possibility to initiate a handover to a neighbor earlier or later in order to carry out load balancing for distinct, well suited services or to exclude non or less suited services from load balancing.
• the system can assign a particular type of users and/or services to the desired cell.
• the type of users may refer to a user classification or a user profile.
• embodiments of the invention may have mechanisms to control how to assign users best and selectively, i.e. depending on certain service classes, to the best suited ce!ii and to arrange the users in the border area in such a way that the system can achieve the optimal benefit.
• the required functionality of some embodiments of the invention i.e. the signalling information exchange, which may be needed to allo the system, to find out which service class dependent user assignment shall be achieved for the optimal system performance.
• Handover parameter settings can be be coordinated between two neighboring cells. I.e. when one of the two cells initiates a handover earlier then the other ceil could keep their mobiles longer before starting the handover procedure to the first cell.. If there may be no coordination, between the two cells, then the following unwanted effects occur: If both ceils initiate to hand over their mobiles earlier, then the mobile users tend to ping-pong between the two cells. Each cell tends to send away their mobiles in the common border area. If both cells keep their mobiles longer, then both cells can to invest unnecessarily a Wegger amount of radio resources (because a more robust coding is may be needed for theInventger basestatton to mobile distance). Both of those effects reduce the system performance and are not desired,
• the decision entity may require the relevant cell load information of those cells, between which it decides how to arrange the resources in an optimal way, i.e. by setting the handover parameters.
• This particular cell load information may be exchanged via signaling interfaces, as it is currently specified in 3GPP, but there only for cell-global load information values, It does not distinguish any separate values.
• This invention proposes to exchange more detailed cell load information, i.e. service class dependent ones, as outlined below.
• the cells may have information about the current handover paramete settings in those neighboring cells with which the handover settings are coordinated, in centralized O&M scenarios, the information is provided and set via the central G&M system.
• the trend goes towards distributed decisions, decentralized inside the basestations, and for this fully distributed approach the information is exchanged directly betwee the basesations.
• This information exchange could be achieved e.g. via dedicated information about which handover settings are used. It may also be possible to take a kind of command or negotiation which orders or tnggers the neighboring cell to configure certain handover settings when there is a predefined behavior on this command, like that the receiving cell can overtake the commanded settings.
• the exchanged information i.e. the cell load Informatio and the information/command about particular handover settings
• the exchanged information may carry indivJd- ual information for those service classes which are treated separately.
• This detailed information exchang about the load and settings of different service classes allows managing service class dependent load balancing.
• an intelligent self organizing network (SON) algorithm has then the information basis to find those handover parameters for each service class which achieve the maximal benefit, like to maximize the user Quality of Service and to optimize the system resource usage.
• the invention provides for a network element of a cellular telecommunications system
• a network element as used herein encompasses a computing device attached to a network of the cellular telecommunications system.
• the network element is adapted for communicating wit other components of the cellular telecommunications system.
• the network element comprises a classification means for assigning a classification to a user service request for a telecommunications service of the cellular telecommunications system.
• the network element further comprises an assigning means for assigning a set of class-specific cell configuration parameters that are to be used for the provision of the telecommunica- ttons service.
• the assignment of the class-specific ceil configuration parameters may depend upon the classification.
• the user service request may be for one of a variety of different services. For instance the user service request may request voice s web browsing, streaming video, a video gaming service, voice over IP or a video call.
• the classification may also encompass a user eiass or a user classification of the service request. In other words, users may have different priories assigned to them for different classifications of services, This allows different user classes or user classifications to be tailored to specific needs.
• a user class for businesses may specify a high priority or level of service for voice communications and a low level of priority for web browsing.
• a retail customer could be assigned a user class which give a high priorty to online games and internet surfing but a lower priority to voice communications. For the retail customer occasionally loosing voice communications may be acceptable, but for business customers it may not.
• This classification could also be used for classifying a user service request.
• the cell configuration parameters as used herein encompasses parameters which are produced to control the interaction of a user equipment with a cellular telecommunications cell and/or to control the interaction between two cellular communica- tions ceils. This is advantageous because instead of a single set of cell configuration parameters being used for all user equipment attached to the cellular telecommunications system the cell configuration parameters are assigned to a user service request depending upon its classification. In some embodiments, the cell configuration parameters are assigned to groups of user service requests. This may al!ow the more efficient allocation of bandwidth by a specific ce!l. For example, if several users are downloading interne! data with their user equipment their downloading of data may be delayed slightly without a noticeable effect in their level of quality of service.
• the classification is assigned at least partially according to a service class of the user service request.
• the user service re- quest is assigned according to the type of usage that is requested in the user service request,
• a 'service class' as use herein encompasses a classification of the type of data exchanged between a user equipment and the cellular telecommunications system.
• the classification is assigned at least partially according to a user class assigned to the user service request.
• the use class is associated with a user profile. For instance an operator of a cellular telecommunications system could sell contracts for usage of the system which have different levels or guarantees of service. For instance there could be gold, silver and bronze users of the cellular telecommunications system.
• there could be different user classes assigned to the different service classes For instance one could pay for a higher servic class of voice and specify a lower user class for services which are used infrequently or not used at all. Assigning a classification at least partially to the user class also has the benefit when the network is extremely busy.
• the network element further comprises a message receiving means for receiving a load message from a ceil. If the network element Is incorporated into the cell for instance as part of a base station or a node B then the message receiving means may be implemented via software where a message is passed from one software module to another. In other embodiments the network element is a distinct computing device which may in some embodiments receive a message via the cellular telecommunications system's internal network.
• the load message could be a conventional load message which summarizes the total toad on the cell or the load message could comprise the cell load classified by service class and/or user classes and/or information related to user equipment related measurement reporting events.
• the load message is descriptive of the usage of the cell
• the load message is descriptive of the cell configuration parameters of the cell, in some embodiments, the cell configuration parameters of the cell could be class specific cell configuration parameters. In other embodiments the cell configuration parameters of the cell are not class specific.
• the load message comprises the cell load classified by service classes and/or user classes.
• the load message may simply contain a table or array which provides the cell usage by various service classes and/or user classes. In some embodiments, this could be a two or three-dimensional table or array.
• the network element further comprises a modification means for modifying trie set of class-specific ceil configuration parameters using th load message.
• a modification means for modifying trie set of class-specific ceil configuration parameters using th load message.
• the ceil configuration parameters can be adjusted for any or all of the other users connected to the cellular telecommunications system.
• This embodiment is particularly advantageous because modifying the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters allows load balancing with the cell and its neighbors.
• Both the message receiving means and the modification means may in some embodiments be implemented as software.
• the message receiving means may also be implemented as a hardware component. In some embodiments the message receiving means may allow the network element to communicate with an interna! or external network of the cellular tele comm u n i cation s system .
• the message receiving means is adapted for receiving an neighboring cell load message descriptive of the usage of cells neighboring the cell.
• the wording 'cells neighboring the cell as used here may refer to cells which are physically adjacent to each other, to celis which are within a predefined geographi- ca! distance between each other, cells which are in a predefined neighborhood, or are connected by a communications network. In other words it is not necessary for cells to have overlapping service regions for cells to be considered " to be neighboring. In managing a cellular communication network it may be beneficial to consider not just the load of not just cells which have overlapping service regions but also cells which In the same region or neighborhood.
• the neighboring ceil may be any cell able to exchange messages with the network eiement.
• the neighboring cell may be a cell which may have a network connection to the. network eiement.
• the neighboring cell load message comprises the ceil load of the cells neighboring the eel! cutztfied by the user classes.
• the network element further comprises a load balancing means for load balancing the base station using the load message and the neighboring cell load message.
• the load balancing means uses load of the ceil and an neighboring celi to balance the load between the two cells.
• the cells may comprise information about the current handover parameter settings in those neighboring cells with which the handover settings are coordinated.
• the message receiving means is adapted for receiving updated load messages and updated neighboring cell load messages.
• the modification means is further adapted for dynamically updating the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters using the updated load messages and the updated neighboring cell load messages.
• the network element further comprises a user equipment messaging means adapted lor exchanging messages with a user equipment which originated the user service request.
• the user equipment messaging means is a component of the network element.
• the user equipment messaging means is further adapted for transmitting the ci ass-specific ceil configuration parameters to the user equipment.
• the user equipment messaging means is further adapted for receiving a handover request from the user equipment.
• the network element further comprises a handover means for initiating a handover of the user equipment from the cell to a neighboring cell where the handover request is received. This embodiment is particularly advantageous because the user equipment could be responsible for making handover decisions in some embodiments.
• the user equipment makes handover requests, but the class-specific cell configuration parameters are used at least as a partial criterion for deciding when a handover re- quest is made. This allows for improved management of connections between user equipment and the cellular telecommunications system.
• the network element further comprises a cell boundary modification means for modifying cell boundaries for the user equipment using the usage message and the neighboring ceil usage message.
• the change In the cell boundary is a measure of the geographical region serviced by a cell.
• the cell boundaries may be defined indirectly: the ceil boundaries may be defined by handover parameters and/or the inter-cell interference coordination parameters and/or the transmission power.
• the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters may comprise the handover parameters and/or the inter-ceil interference coordination parameters and/or the transmission power in this embodiment.
• the cell boundaries may be different for different classifications of user service requests. For example, services such as voice may be given to a geographical region closer to the ceil so that it is less likely that there are errors in transmission or reception when using the cellular telecommunications system.
• User requests for low priority services such as downloading data from the internet may be given lower priority by making the geographical region serviced by the cell larger. For such serviees it is not eriticaS if there are occasionally failures.. For example, in the case of a guaranteed fixed data rate such failures may be the blocking of the service or the dropping of a call . in another embodiment the user profile specifies a minimum quality of service.
• the minimum quality of service could be a guarantee for a certain data transfer rate, In other embodiments the minimum quality of service couid be a guarantee of a maxi- mum number of failures in data transfer for a specified time period. For instance a gold level service may specify that there s a low probability of voice service being dropped.
• the network element further comprises a quality of service guarantee means for guaranteeing the quality of service for par- ticuiar classification of user equipment by adjusting the set of class-specific ceil configuration parameters.
• the quality of service guarantee means is implemented as a software module.
• I anothe embodiment the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters com- prise load balancing parameters.
• set of class-specific DCi configuration parameters comprise handover parameters.
• set of class-specific cell configuration parameters comprise inter-cell-inferference-coordination parameters.
• the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters comprise ceil transmission power parameters.
• the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters comprise measurement configuration parameters.
• the network element is a base station. In another embodiment the network element Is a cell. In another embodiment the network element is a sector.
• the network element is a neighboring base station.
• the network element is an adjacent base station.
• the adjacent base station need not be geographically adjacent to the base station. It does not need to be a direct neighbor.
• the network element is a node B. in another embodiment the network element is an enhanced node B. in another embodiment the network element is a cellular communications system.
• the network element is a network management entity.
• the term 'network management entity 1 encompasses any computing device which serves to manage or controi at least a portion of a cellular communications system.
• the network element is a radio network controller
• the network element is a computer integrated into the eellu- lar telecommunications system.
• the network element is a remote computer network to the cellular telecommunications system.
• the invention provides for a method of assigning a set of class- specific cell configuration parameters for a user service request for a telecommunications service from a ceil of a cellular telecommunications system. The method comprises th ste of assigning a classification to the user service request The method further comprises the step of assigning a set of class-specific eel! configuration , _
• the assignment of the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters depends upon the classification. The advantages of this have been previously discussed. In another embodiment the classification is assigned at least partially according to a service class of the user service request. The advantage of this has also been previously discussed.
• the classification is assigned at least partially according to a user class assigned to the user service request.
• the invention provides for a computer-readable storage medium storing machine readable instructions for execution by a processor of a network element of a cellular telecommunications system.
• Execution of the machine readable instructions causes the network element to perform the step of assigning a classification to a user service request for a telecommunication service from the cellular telecommunications system.
• the instructions further cause the network element to assign a set of class-specific cell configuration parameters that are to be used for the provision of the telecommunications service.
• the assignment of the class-specific cell configuration parameters depends upon the classification. The advantages of this have been previously discussed.
• a computer-readable storage medium as used herein is any storage medium which may store instructions which are executable by a processor of a computing device.
• Th computer-readable storage medium may be a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium.
• the eomputer-readabie storage medium may also be a tangible computer readable medium.
• a computer-readable storage medium may also be able to store data which is able to be accessed by the proees- sor of the computing device.
• An example of a computer-readable storage medium include, but are not limited to: a floppy disk, a magnetic hard disk drive, a solid state hard disk, flash memory, a USB thumb drive, Random Access Memory (RAM) memory, Read Only Memory (ROM ⁇ memory, an optical disk, a magnetQ-opticai disk, and the register file of the processor. Examples of optical disks inciude Com- 14
• CD pact Disks
• DVD Digital Versatile Disks
• CD-ROM compact disc-read only memory
• CD-RW Compact Disc-read only memory
• DVD-RW Digital Versatile Disks
• the term computer readable-storage medium also refers to various types of recording media capable of being accessed by the computer device via a network or communication link. For example a data may be retrieved over a modem, over the internet, or over a local area network.
• Computer memory is an example of a computer-readable storage medium.
• Computer memory is any memory which is directly accessible to a processor. Examples of computer memor include, but are not limited to: RA memory, registers, and register files,
• a processor as used herein is an electronic component which is able to execute a program or machine executable instruction.
• References to the computing device comprising "a processor” should be interpreted as possibly containing more than one processor.
• the term computing device should also be interpreted to possibly refer to a collection or network of computing devices each comprising a processor. Many programs have their instructions performed by multiple processors that may be within the same computing device or which may even distributed: across multiple computing device.
• Fig. 1 shows a block diagram which illustrates a method according to an embodiment of th invention
• Fig. 2 shows a block diagram which illustrates a method according to a further embodiment of the invention
• Fig. 3 illustrates a cellular telecommunications system
• Fig. 4 illustrates two cells dividing service to user equipment according to an embodiment of the invention.
• Fig, 5 shows an example of a transmissio of a message between two neighboring base stations.
• Fig. 1 shows a block diagram which illustrates a method according to an embodiment of the invention
• a classification is assigned to a user service request.
• ste 102 a set of class-specific cell configuration parameters is assigned using the classification.
• Fig. 2 shows a block diagram which illustrates a further embodiment of a method according to the invention
• fn step 2Q0 a ciassifscation is assigned to a user service request.
• a set of elass-speeific cell configuration parameters is assigned using the classification .
• ste 204 a load message descriptive of the usage of the cell is received.
• the set of class-specific cell configuration parameters is modified using the load message, in this embodiment the service request is assigned a peu!ar class-specific cell configuration parameter. However, the parameters are modified using the current usage of the cell.
• the load message is describes as being descriptive of the usage of the cell in alternative embodiments, the load message is descriptive of the usage of the celS and/or the cell configuration parameters of the cell.
• Fig, 3 illustrates a cellular telecommunications system. In the middle of the drawing is shown ceil one 302. Surrounding cell one 302 are cells two through seven 304, 306, 308, 3 0, 312, 314. Cells two through seven are adjacent to cell one 302 and are neighboring cells. Within each cell is a node B 316, The node B may also be a base station in some embodiments.
• a variet of user equipments 318, 320 Shown are user equipment with a first user class 318 and user equipmen with a second user slab 320. These two different types of user equipment may represent different classes of user equipment which could be for instance users who , r .
• the first and second user equipment may also represent different classes of service. For instance some users may be using voice and others may be using internet connection. In examining this figure it can be seen that the user equipment is not distributed evenly throughout the cellular telecommunications system 300.
• the cellular telecommunications system 300 also comprises a network 322, Network 322 can be seen as linking the node Bs 316 via connections 324 to the network 322.
• a network element 326 is connected to the network 322 using a network interface 325.
• the network element 326 comprises a processor 328.
• Connected to the processor 328 is a memory 330.
• the memory 330 is an exampie of a computer-readable storage medium.
• the memory 330 may contain a user service request 332 which was received f rom one of the node Bs 316.
• the memory 330 may also contain class-specific ceil configuration parameters 334 which may be sent to a node B 316.
• the memory also contains various software modules.
• the memory 330 is shown as containing a classification module 336 which is an implementation of a classification means.
• the memory 330 is aiso shown as containing an assigning module 338 which is an implementation or embodiment of an assigning means, The memory 330 may also be used to store load messages 340.
• the memory is shown to further contain a modification module 342.
• the modification module 342 is an implementatio or embodiment of a modification means.
• the memory 330 is shown as further containing a neighboring cell load message 343.
• the memory 330 is shown as further containing a handover module 344.
• the handover module 344 i an implementation or embodiment of a handover means.
• the memory 330 is shown as further containing a user equipment message module 345.
• the user equipment message module 346 is an implementation or embodiment of a user equipment messaging means.
• the memory 330 is shown as further containing a cell boundary modification module 346.
• the eel! boundary modification module 346 is an imple- mentation or embodiment of a cell boundary modification means.
• the memory 330 is shown as further containing a qualit of service guarantee module 348.
• the quality of service guarantee module 348 is an implementation or embodiment of a quality of service guarantee means. ,
• the network element 326 may also be implemented into one of the node Bs 316.
• the network element 326 may also be on an external network which is eonneGted to the network 322 shown in Fig. 3.
• Fig. 4 shows a detail of cell one 302 and cell two 304 from Fig. 3.
• the node B or base station of cell one is labeled 416.
• the base station or node B of eel! 2 304 is labeled 416 ⁇
• the first user equipment 318 could be a user equipment for a mobile user with a very high data rate requirement.
• the second user equipment 320 may represent a mobile user or mobile users with lo data rate requirement To maintain uninterrupted service to the first user equipment 318 the flrst user equipment 318 is assigned to the base station 416 of cell one, 302.
• the second user equipments 320 are assigned to the base station 416' of ceil two, 304.
• Ceil one 302 has a single user which requires e.g. a high-definition video streaming service with a very large data rate, while there are many other users with small data rate services (voice, web browsing) which are about uniformly distributed in that area.
• Fig. 5 shows an example of service class dependent load balancing for a self- organizing network.
• cells one 302 and ceils .two 304 are shown again, The base station of ceil one is again labeled 416 and the base station of cell two is again labeled 416'.
• cell one sends a message 552 to cell two. This may be via the X2 interface. Alternatively the message may also be sent via the core network, using the S1 connection, a network cable, an Ethernet, or a radio link, i this embodiment there may be a network element in both deli one and cell two and each base station 416, 416' contains the ciassification and assigning means.
• the message 552 may contain such information as a cell load for service class 1 and a cell load for service class 2.
• the message 552 may also send handover configurations for a first service class and a handover configuration for a sec- ond service class.
• the message 552 may send service class specific configuration parameters.
• the base station of cell two, 416' may then use the message 552 to modify the set of class-specific cell configuratio parameters.
• Fig, 5 is intended to illustrate two different types of communications possible be- tween neighboring base stations.
• One is unidirectional communications and the other is bidirectional communications.
• unidirectional communications the message 552 is sent from cell one 302 to cell two 304
• bidirectional communications the message 552 is first sent from cell one 302 to cell two 304.
• Cell two 304 then responds to cell one 302 with a response or acknowledgment message.
• the re ⁇ sponse of ceil two 304 with a response of acknowledgement message is not shown in Fig. 5.

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