WO2023096541A1 - Transport-layer and application-layer aware aggregation in control plane - Google Patents

Abstract

A network node in a communications network can determine information associated with a transport layer used for communication between the network node and a communication device in the communications network. The network node can determine radio resources to be used by the communication device for the communication between the network node and the communication device based on the information. The network node can configure the radio resources to be used for the communication between the network node and the communication device.

Description

TRANSPORT-LAYER AND APPLICATION-LAYER AWARE AGGREGATION IN CONTROL PLANE

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present disclosure relates generally to communications, and more particularly to communication methods and related devices and nodes supporting wireless communications.

BACKGROUND

[0002] FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a new radio (“NR”) network (e.g., a 5th Generation (“5G”) network) including a 5G core (“5GC”) network 130, network node 120 (e.g., 5G base station (“gNB”)), multiple communication devices 110 (also referred to as user equipment (“UE”)).

[0003] Transmitting data to the UE using additional carriers either via carrier aggregation, evolved universal terrestrial radio access next generation radio access dual connectivity (“EN-DC”), or other techniques provides the UEs with additional network resources which ensures that the bandwidth allocated to the several UE data-streams is sufficient to ensure the quality of experience (“QoE”) and quality of service (“QoS”) requirements.

[0004] With the expected deployment of NR over mid-band and high-band frequencies, coexistence with long term evolution (“LTE”), and other factors, the opportunities to aggregate radio resources deployed over other cells within the same base station (“BS”) or within the same geographic area has increased considerably. As the number of opportunities grows, the control plane must aggregate additional carrier resources in a way that the allocated resources are utilized by the UE, and the control-plane signaling required to configure and deconfigure such resources are maintained at a minimum.

[0005] Currently, such configurations are controlled either by a blind priority list (e.g., allocate additional carriers by choosing top-down from a priority list for a given primary cell (“PCell”)), or policies that configure additional resources by looking at the 5G QoS identifier (“5QI”)/QoS class identifier (“QCI”) of the different protocol data unit (“PDU”) sessions that the UE might currently have active. It is important to note here that the 5QI/QCI are indicators of the service/QoS that the packets belonging to a certain stream must be provided by the radio environment and do not necessarily consider any of the application logic or information from the transport layer. The most advanced policies currently attempt to compute the expected flow-duration of the UE’s PDU sessions and attempt to either configure or not configure additional carriers for the UE based on the expected lifetime of these sessions. When the predicted lifetime is too short, the UE is not expected to take advantage of the additional carriers assigned, however, when the predicted lifetime is long, the UE can be configured with additional carrier resources. Furthermore, flow-prediction-based policies and 5QI/QCI-based-policies can also be combined to generate hybrid policies that can group the UEs for which there is likely a larger benefit of aggregating more carrier resources, however, there is no guarantee that the UE can take advantage of all the resources or that the RAN utilization is high. [0006] FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a UE 110 served by one cell 222a that can be assigned resources (e.g., from a first base station 220a of several base stations 220a-b) that are also in one or more cells 222a-d on other frequencies using, for example, carrier aggregation (“CA”) or dual connectivity (“DC”). In some examples, cells 222c-d can be associated with a LTE network or a NR network for dual connectivity.

SUMMARY

[0007] According to some embodiments, a method performed by a network node in a communications network is provided. The method can include determining information associated with a transport layer used for communication between the network node and a communication device in the communications network. The method can further include determining radio resources to be used by the communication device for the communication between the network node and the communication device based on the information. The method can further include configuring the radio resources to be used for the communication between the network node and the communication device.

[0008] According to other embodiments, a network node, a computer program, computer program code, and/or a non-transitory computer-readable medium are proved to perform the method above.

[0009] Various embodiments herein, provide one or more of the following technical advantages. In some examples, knowledge about the transport-layer and application-layer status, can allow the configuration to be limited to the air interface carriers that contribute to the data transport, thereby efficiently allocating radio resources in the UE and in the RAN. Radio resources that cannot be leveraged by the UE can instead be assigned to other UEs that can benefit from it or be unused to save power, minimize signaling, and in general improve the network’s utilization and efficiency. Avoiding unnecessary carriers can also save power at the UE.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010] The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate certain non-limiting embodiments of inventive concepts. In the drawings:

[0011] FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a 5^th generation (“5G”) network;

[0012] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a 5G network in which a UE of a first cell can be assigned resources from other cells;

[0013] FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating an example of an overall detection and SCell allocation strategy in accordance with some embodiments;

[0014] FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example of signaling transport layer information when the analysis is performed in the CU-UP in accordance with some embodiments;

[0015] FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating an example of a cloud environment in accordance with some embodiments;

[0016] FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating a communication device in accordance with some embodiments;

[0017] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating a radio access network RAN node (e.g., a base station eNB/gNB) in accordance with some embodiments;

[0018] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating a core network CN node (e.g., an AMF node, an SMF node, etc.) in accordance with some embodiments;

[0019] FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating an example of operations of a network node for allocating radio resources based on information associated with a transport layer in accordance with some embodiments; [0020] FIG. 10 is a flow chart illustrating an example of operations of network node for allocating radio resources based on information associated with a transport layer and information associated with an application layer in accordance with some embodiments;

[0021] FIG. 11 is a block diagram of a communication system in accordance with some embodiments;

[0022] FIG. 12 is a block diagram of a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments

[0023] FIG. 13 is a block diagram of a network node in accordance with some embodiments;

[0024] FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a host computer communicating with a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments;

[0025] FIG. 15 is a block diagram of a virtualization environment in accordance with some embodiments; and

[0026] FIG. 16 is a block diagram of a host computer communicating via a base station with a user equipment over a partially wireless connection in accordance with some embodiments in accordance with some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0027] Some of the embodiments contemplated herein will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Embodiments are provided by way of example to convey the scope of the subject matter to those skilled in the art. , in which examples of embodiments of inventive concepts are shown. Inventive concepts may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein.

Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of present inventive concepts to those skilled in the art. It should also be noted that these embodiments are not mutually exclusive. Components from one embodiment may be tacitly assumed to be present/used in another embodiment.

[0028] While current implementations can help prune out a few situations where the UE cannot take advantage of additional carriers/bandwidth, the implementations are not comprehensive. In several situations, the additionally configured carriers are not used by the UE to the full extent.

[0029] In some examples, the volume of traffic in a particular flow in an upcoming time-window can be independent of the flow lifetime or the total expected flow volume. Counter examples include situations when the transport protocol decreases the number of packets in flight due to congestion, endpoint receive/transmit buffer related events which lead to a drastic decrease/increase in the packets in flight. Obtaining a robust implementation can require considering higher-layer factors (e.g., transport layer or application layer).

[0030] Static predictions of flow characteristics based on observation in the flow’s initial period can be advantageous in activating/deactivating certain network/system features. While allocation of radio resources to a short-lived flow can be performed only once after an initial observation period, the same cannot be said for a long-lived flow. In some examples, radio resource allocation refers to allocation of additional radio resources and network/system features are independent of radio resource allocation. Radio resource allocation in this case must be done dynamically (at least revisited periodically) based on factors corresponding to the flow, and due to external factors in the network such as load, resource sharing (slicing), and user subscription. While using average metrics, such as average expected bitrate of a flow, might be considered applicable in certain situations, several real-world applications keep a flow active (e.g., sending keep-alive packets) although the real data is transmitted in limited time-windows based on application logic, and the skew between the idle and active durations bitrate is several orders of magnitude large.

[0031] Some implementations have also looked at using complementary information available from the QCI/5QI flags available with each PDU session. While understanding the service can be beneficial in identifying the long-term behavior of a flow, the service flag (e.g., which is part of the NR standard) does not aid in identifying the short-term behavior. This is distinct from the service and is dependent on transient network behaviors, therefore, algorithms can certainly benefit from considering QCI/5QI, however, some embodiments proposed herein are orthogonal to the above. [0032] Various embodiments herein do not consider the control loops in other layers of the protocol stack. For example, transmission control protocol (“TCP”) can be very sensitive to the available bandwidth and round-trip time (“RTT”) and a sudden change in either of these can cause a significant degradation in performance. The application logic can also react to the available radio resources in different ways, e.g., bit torrent and other peer-to-peer (“P2P”) services might scale uplink and downlink volumes proportional to the allocated radio resources and video streaming might chose a step up in the video encoding if a bandwidth larger than that encoding is detected as available at the application-layer, thereby changing the flow’s characteristics which are not obviously apparent from the lower-layers.

[0033] In some embodiments, knowledge about the status of the transport layer is added to the input used to decide which additional carriers that shall be configured for a UE. Such knowledge may be the type of protocol used, e.g., TCP or user datagram protocol (“UDP”), or in what state the transport protocol is, such as slow start or congestion avoidance, predictions of the used or predicted scaling in transport window size. With this knowledge a better decision can be taken to configure the most suitable combination of carriers. This new input can be used together with knowledge about a characteristic (e.g., a type) of application, expected application behavior, etc., to select a useful amount but not over allocate radio resources for a UE.

[0034] In additional or alternative embodiments, knowledge about the transportlayer and application-layer status, the configuration can be limited to the air interface carriers that contribute to the data transport, thereby efficiently allocating radio resources in the UE and in the RAN. Radio resources that cannot be leveraged by the UE can instead be assigned to other UEs that can benefit from it or be unused to save power, minimize signaling and in general improve the network’s utilization and efficiency. Avoiding unnecessary carriers will also save power in the UE.

[0035] FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating elements of a communication device UE 600 (also referred to as a mobile terminal, a mobile communication terminal, a wireless device, a wireless communication device, a wireless terminal, mobile device, a wireless communication terminal, user equipment, UE, a user equipment node/terminal/device, etc.) configured to provide wireless communication according to embodiments of inventive concepts. (Communication device 600 may be provided, for example, as discussed below with respect to wireless devices UE 1112A, UE 1112B, and wired or wireless devices UE 1112C, UE 1112D of FIG. 11 , UE 1200 of FIG. 12, virtualization hardware 1504 and virtual machines 1508A, 1508B of FIG. 15, and UE 1606 of FIG. 16, all of which should be considered interchangeable in the examples and embodiments described herein and be within the intended scope of this disclosure, unless otherwise noted.) As shown, communication device UE may include an antenna 607 (e.g., corresponding to antenna 1222 of FIG. 12), and transceiver circuitry 601 (also referred to as a transceiver, e.g., corresponding to interface 1212 of FIG. 12 having transmitter 1218 and receiver 1220) including a transmitter and a receiver configured to provide uplink and downlink radio communications with a base station(s) (e.g., corresponding to network node 1110A, 1110B of FIG. 11 , network node 1300 of FIG. 13, and network node 1604 of FIG. 16 also referred to as a RAN node) of a radio access network. Communication device UE may also include processing circuitry 603 (also referred to as a processor, e.g., corresponding to processing circuitry 1202 of FIG. 12, and control system 1512 of FIG. 15) coupled to the transceiver circuitry, and memory circuitry 605 (also referred to as memory, e.g., corresponding to memory 1210 of FIG. 12) coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory circuitry 605 may include computer readable program code that when executed by the processing circuitry 603 causes the processing circuitry to perform operations according to embodiments disclosed herein. According to other embodiments, processing circuitry 603 may be defined to include memory so that separate memory circuitry is not required. Communication device UE may also include an interface (such as a user interface) coupled with processing circuitry 603, and/or communication device UE may be incorporated in a vehicle.

[0036] As discussed herein, operations of communication device UE may be performed by processing circuitry 603 and/or transceiver circuitry 601 . For example, processing circuitry 603 may control transceiver circuitry 601 to transmit communications through transceiver circuitry 601 over a radio interface to a radio access network node (also referred to as a base station) and/or to receive communications through transceiver circuitry 601 from a RAN node over a radio interface. Moreover, modules may be stored in memory circuitry 605, and these modules may provide instructions so that when instructions of a module are executed by processing circuitry 603, processing circuitry 603 performs respective operations (e.g., operations discussed below with respect to Example Embodiments relating to wireless communication devices). According to some embodiments, a communication device UE 600 and/or an element(s)/function(s) thereof may be embodied as a virtual node/nodes and/or a virtual machine/machines.

[0037] FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating elements of a radio access network RAN node 700 (also referred to as a network node, base station, eNodeB/eNB, gNodeB/gNB, etc) of a Radio Access Network (RAN) configured to provide cellular communication according to embodiments of inventive concepts. (RAN node 700 may be provided, for example, as discussed below with respect to network node 1110A, 1110B of FIG. 11 , network node 1300 of FIG. 13, hardware 1504 or virtual machine 1508A, 1508B of FIG. 15, and/or base station 1604 of FIG. 16, all of which should be considered interchangeable in the examples and embodiments described herein and be within the intended scope of this disclosure, unless otherwise noted.) As shown, the RAN node may include transceiver circuitry 701 (also referred to as a transceiver, e.g., corresponding to portions of RF transceiver circuitry 1312 and radio front end circuitry 1318 of FIG. 13) including a transmitter and a receiver configured to provide uplink and downlink radio communications with mobile terminals. The RAN node may include network interface circuitry 707 (also referred to as a network interface, e.g., corresponding to portions of communication interface 1306 of FIG. 13) configured to provide communications with other nodes (e.g., with other base stations) of the RAN and/or core network CN. The network node may also include processing circuitry 703 (also referred to as a processor, e.g., corresponding to processing circuitry 1302 of FIG. 13) coupled to the transceiver circuitry, and memory circuitry 705 (also referred to as memory, e.g., corresponding to memory 1304 of FIG. 13) coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory circuitry 705 may include computer readable program code that when executed by the processing circuitry 703 causes the processing circuitry to perform operations according to embodiments disclosed herein. According to other embodiments, processing circuitry 703 may be defined to include memory so that a separate memory circuitry is not required.

[0038] As discussed herein, operations of the RAN node may be performed by processing circuitry 703, network interface 707, and/or transceiver 701 . For example, processing circuitry 703 may control transceiver 701 to transmit downlink communications through transceiver 701 over a radio interface to one or more mobile terminals UEs and/or to receive uplink communications through transceiver 701 from one or more mobile terminals UEs over a radio interface. Similarly, processing circuitry 703 may control network interface 707 to transmit communications through network interface 707 to one or more other network nodes and/or to receive communications through network interface from one or more other network nodes. Moreover, modules may be stored in memory 705, and these modules may provide instructions so that when instructions of a module are executed by processing circuitry 703, processing circuitry 703 performs respective operations (e.g., operations discussed below with respect to Example Embodiments relating to RAN nodes). According to some embodiments, RAN node 700 and/or an element(s)/function(s) thereof may be embodied as a virtual node/nodes and/or a virtual machine/machines.

[0039] According to some other embodiments, a network node may be implemented as a core network CN node without a transceiver. In such embodiments, transmission to a wireless communication device UE may be initiated by the network node so that transmission to the wireless communication device UE is provided through a network node including a transceiver (e.g., through a base station or RAN node). According to embodiments where the network node is a RAN node including a transceiver, initiating transmission may include transmitting through the transceiver.

[0040] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating elements of a core network (CN) node (e.g., an SMF (session management function) node, an AMF (access and mobility management function) node, etc.) of a communication network configured to provide cellular communication according to embodiments of inventive concepts. (CN node 800 may be provided, for example, as discussed below with respect to core network node 1108 of FIG. 11 , hardware 1504 or virtual machine 1508A, 1508B of FIG. 15, all of which should be considered interchangeable in the examples and embodiments described herein and be within the intended scope of this disclosure, unless otherwise noted) As shown, the CN node may include network interface circuitry 807 configured to provide communications with other nodes of the core network and/or the radio access network RAN. The CN node may also include a processing circuitry 803 (also referred to as a processor,) coupled to the network interface circuitry, and memory circuitry 805 (also referred to as memory) coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory circuitry 805 may include computer readable program code that when executed by the processing circuitry 803 causes the processing circuitry to perform operations according to embodiments disclosed herein. According to other embodiments, processing circuitry 803 may be defined to include memory so that a separate memory circuitry is not required.

[0041] As discussed herein, operations of the CN node may be performed by processing circuitry 803 and/or network interface circuitry 807. For example, processing circuitry 803 may control network interface circuitry 807 to transmit communications through network interface circuitry 807 to one or more other network nodes and/or to receive communications through network interface circuitry from one or more other network nodes. Moreover, modules may be stored in memory 805, and these modules may provide instructions so that when instructions of a module are executed by processing circuitry 803, processing circuitry 803 performs respective operations (e.g., operations discussed below with respect to Example Embodiments relating to core network nodes). According to some embodiments, CN node 800 and/or an element(s)/function(s) thereof may be embodied as a virtual node/nodes and/or a virtual machine/machines.

[0042] Various embodiments described herein include obtaining and computing transport-layer, and application-layer relevant metrics. Computing these metrics can involve machine learning, statistical approaches, deep-packet inspection, and continual monitoring of the UE’s data streams from either the RAN or from the CN. The end result of this computation can be made available at the RAN to compute whether component carriers (“CCs”)/secondary nodes (“SNs”) should be configured for a specific UE that has either recently connected to the current cell, or reconfigure the UE with more/less CC/SN depending on the suggestions. The transport-layer and the different phases of operations in the transport can have a significant impact on a UE being able to take advantage of additionally configured carriers.

[0043] Transport-layer dynamics that impact CC/SN configuration are described below.

[0044] In some examples, TCP has distinct phases of operation (e.g., slow-start and congestion avoidance). In slow-start, the algorithm attempts to increase the number of packets transmitted in every RTT aggressively (in some TCP algorithms, this growth rate per RTT in slow-start is exponential). While in the other phase, congestion avoidance, the algorithm attempts to increase the number of packets carefully (mostly linearly) per RTT. One reason for these two phases is to probe for bandwidth initially in slow-start and then, once the region in which packet losses starts is reached, attempt to stay in the most efficient operating point without packet losses for as long as possible. While the above mentioned behavior is true for the majority of flows seen on the public Internet currently, novel congestion control (e.g., bottleneck bandwidth and round-trip propagation time (“BBR”) and paced chirping) and congestion notification (from other layers such as internet protocol (“IP”) (e.g., electronic communication network (“ECN”) and low latency low loss scalable throughput (“L4S”)) algorithms may not follow this typical behavior.

[0045] In order to interpret the phase at which a connection might be at, at the architectural/algorithmic level, the part of the network where the compute radio resources are implemented computes the slope of number of packets sent/received during UE’s lifetime to work out which phase of TCP operation a client is in. The change in rate of sending/receiving packets can be interpreted to ascertain which phase of operation TCP is in. Whenever a new connection is setup, congestion control algorithms tend to perform an exponential search to identify an initial operating point relatively quickly. This behavior is can be referred to as a slow-start phase. In situations where calculations indicate that the UE is in slow-start, the radio network allocates more carriers to that particular UE (depending on other application metrics). In some examples, the application metrics are used to determine if a connection is carrying a high-bandwidth application. Without this information, all connections will be allocated carriers, which is a behavior that some embodiments described herein are attempting to avoid. Allocating more carriers to the particular UE can facilitate the UE increasing its throughput quickly if the transport and the application have the possibility to send more data. Availability of additional carriers to carry the exponentially increasing load from/to the UE prompts the TCP stream to stay in the probing phase for longer, which can help in achieving a higher instantaneous throughput and under shared bottlenecks, achieving the UE’s bandwidth share sooner. This decision can be dependent on the UE subscription, expected load on the primary cell (“PCell”) and secondary cells (“SCells”), and slicing. In some examples, as novel congestion control and congestion notification procedures are adopted more and more, the node where the compute radio resources are deployed must be updated to perform the detection and the actions to be performed depending on the detected transmission phase must also be revisited. However, the basic rule is to only allocate radio resources when the UE can take advantage of it.

[0046] On the contrary, when it is detected that the UE is in congestion avoidance phase, then aggressively adding more CCs to this UE is not immediately beneficial with stateful transport protocols. For example, most congestion control algorithms in TCP can only increase the number of segments in transmission by a small increment when compared to the previous transmission round that is proportional to the number of segments that have been acknowledged by the receiver. The RAN node controlling the PCell/SCell incrementally adds more CCs only when the previously added CCs are being fully utilized and no further radio resources are available in that set of cells. Signaling full or almost full utilization of radio resources allocated to the UE is performed by dedicated signaling from the node controlling the SCells to the node controlling the PCell (similar to SN status transfer message or the secondary radio access technology (“RAT”) data usage report). By incrementally adding SCells to the UE whenever there is a need for more radio resources, network/resource utilization/bottlenecking is maintained at a minimum. Also, when the RAN detects that the UE has again entered a slow-start phase (this can happen at packet losses or indications of risk packet loss, for example ECN or L4S, indications are encountered), the PCell can aggressively configure additional SCells to quickly ramp-up the UE’s bandwidth share if the other constraints discussed above are satisfied.

[0047] The above-mentioned policies can also be controlled per UE subscription, or the slice that a UE might belong to. A UE that belongs to a higher subscription level or slice has the possibility to be configured more radio resources during the right phases while a UE that has a limited subscription is not allocated additional SCells/resources by default, or when certain network load thresholds are exceeded. Similarly, radio conditions can be considered to decide on which P/SCell resources will be allocated for a particular UE, in general it might be beneficial to allocate most of the radio resources on a cell that can be received well by the UE and might even involve policies that split uplink and downlink across different cells to ensure high UE throughput.

[0048] Application-layer dynamics that impact CC/SN configuration are described below.

[0049] Different applications have different characteristic behaviors that lead to packets being generated in the lower layers with well-defined patterns. For example, when comparing a browsing session to a file transfer protocol (“FTP”) file download, or audio streaming to a navigation application, the behavior of the UE at the transport and network-level is drastically different. Statistical models and machine learning (“ML”) algorithms have been built which can separate different applications by looking at packet-level traces from different applications. This information/estimation about the active application used by the UE can be valuable in deciding when CCs are configured for the UE. Certain applications (e.g., voice calls, email, online text messaging) do not stand to significantly benefit from configuring additional carriers, while other applications such as video streaming and file transfer stand to benefit significantly from smart configuration of additional bandwidth when considering lower layers.

[0050] In some examples, video streaming can be the largest contributor to the number of bits on a network (e.g., over 70%). In a video streaming situation, the current state of the art can be hypertext transfer protocol (“HTTP”)-based Adaptive Streaming (“HAS”), in which a UE downloads HTTP chunks of differing encoding rates from a server. The choice of encoding rate for each chunk is dependent on the historically observed application-layer download rate at the UE. The client attempts to build a playback buffer and stops downloading when the buffer size is larger than a threshold. Downloading resumes when the buffer size is drained below another threshold (this behavior limits the active duration of a streaming flow and follows a ON-OFF pattern). Furthermore, the video encodings are available in granular steps, i.e., 240p, 480p, 720p, 1080p, etc. This means that whenever the available bandwidth to a UE falls between two encoding rates, the UE would prefer to playback at the lower rate without any playback stalls.

[0051] In a situation where the UE is playing a video stream and this information is available at the RAN via analysis of the transport behavior, or target IP analysis (i.e., the destination IP address was traced to a content distribution network (“CDN”) server that runs a specific video streaming service. Studies using such approaches and dedicated databases are already available, although not fully reliable when considering front-end reverse-proxies on CDN-based services, or multiple applications/service that utilize the same CDN), the primary RAN node that the UE connects to (e.g., after a handover (“HO”)) can decide on the number of component carriers to be added to the UE. Rather than configuring several additional CCs to the UE, the RAN node computes the theoretical increase in bandwidth to the UE for every additional component carrier added. Depending on the internal load at the primary carrier that the UE is connected to, and potential load situation at the additional CCs that can be added to the UE, the primary node can solve an optimization formulation that maximizes the QoS expectation from the UE while minimizing the number of CCs that are added to the UE. In general, by leveraging all available information to allocate the required radio resources to the UEs results in improved network utilization. The result of this computation is used in addition to the transport-layer computation to determine if adding additional carriers will really be instantaneously beneficial to the UE. Another important trade-off is the battery usage at the UE in relation to the network utilization/load. Different policies/operating points can be reached depending on the UE/network needs.

[0052] In the video streaming use-case under steady-state (i.e., the UE downloads only a few chunks to increase its buffer over the upper threshold) it is very likely that additional CCs are found to be non-beneficial to the UE as the duration of these downloads is relatively small, and the volume of downloaded data is also comparatively small (when compared to a startup phase for a streaming client). The choice of the requested encoding rate is generally determined based on a smoothed function of historical throughput, or based on the rate of fill, size, and draining rate of the video buffer. In both cases, the network has to ensure that the minimal number of CCs offered to the UE do not significantly decrease its throughput estimate or the accumulated buffer such that the client might request lower encoding rates, i.e. , a certain lower bound on throughput should be guaranteed to a connection that is determined to be video in steady-state.

[0053] Similarly, when the UE is observed to be in the startup phase, then allocating more CCs to the UE that will be removed as long as the UE enters the first DRX phase is beneficial to the UE to increase its buffer size quickly and avoid playback stalls.

[0054] Similar policies can also be reached for other common applications such as web browsing, FTP, audio streaming, etc. For most applications which involve small flows, e.g., chat, browsing, etc., in general addition of further component carriers must be maintained at a minimum. New CCs must be added only when the currently allocated radio resources are observed to be fully utilized by the UE. [0055] For applications such as P2P, FTP, file download, aggressive increase of radio resource allocation is beneficial to the UE (this is dependent on the transport-layer situation). As a baseline however, adding additional radio resources when the currently allocated radio resources are fully utilized is a good indicator of when new radio resources must be allocated.

[0056] Combining application-layer and transport-layer signals for efficient CC/SN configuration is described below.

[0057] The different intricacies of the application-layer and the transport-layer, whose roles are to exchange user behavior and needs from/to a server application and exchange data across machines over a shared medium respectively was discussed above. These components can be put together to make up an entire system that can perform efficient CC/SN configuration management depending on signals interpreted from the transport-layer and the application-layer. It has been shown that machine-learning-based models can be used to infer application-level and transport-level properties from packet headers. The availability of further details either by having dedicated compute radio resources in the network, packet inspection, collection, and communication of observable statistics across the nodes, and a combination of the above, the problem of transport-aware and application-aware CC/SN configuration can be solved as detailed below.

[0058] FIG. 3 illustrates an example of an overall control flow of the different possible decisions made by the algorithm depending on the performed classification. To generalize transport algorithms like TCP and UDP the term ‘stateful transport protocol’ is used.

[0059] At block 310, the UE is handed over to a PCell, or signaling indicates one or more SCell allocation are fully utilized, or UE application/transport detection signals need for more radio resources.

[0060] Based on information associated with a transport protocol being used for communication with the UE, the control flow proceeds to blocks 320, 330, or 340. [0061] The control flow proceeds to block 320 in response to the UE using a stateful transport protocol. Based on a state of the transport protocol, the control flow proceeds to either blocks 322 or 324. The control flow proceeds to block 322 in response to the UE being observed to being in a probing phase. At block 322, the control flow proceeds to blocks 350 or 360 based on information about an application. The control flow proceeds to from block 322 to block 350 in response to a high-bandwidth application being detected. At block 350, the control flow proceeds to block 370. At block 370, the network incrementally allocate secondary cells to satisfy the expected increase in traffic between the UE and the network. The control flow proceeds from block 370 to block 390. At block 390, the network executes allocation of the radio resources, updates allocation models, and re-asses radio resource utilization by the UE. In some examples, the network may release radio resources in response to the UE entering DRX state depending on configured policies or detection of an application termination. In additional or alternative examples, the network may re-asses the radio resource utilization when allocated radio resources on the allocated cells are fully utilized or when sufficient data is available. The control flow proceeds from block 390 back to block 310.

[0062] Returning to block 322, the control flow proceeds to from block 322 to block 360 in response to a low-bandwidth application being detected. At block 360, the control flow proceeds to block 380. At block 380, if the current allocation is fully used, a single SCell resource is added. In some examples, choice of SCell is determined based on load, UE reports, subscription, and priority list of SCells. The control flow proceeds from block 380 to block 390.

[0063] Returning to block 320, the control flow proceeds from block 320 to block 324 in response to the UE being observed in a steady-state phase. The control flow proceeds from block 324 to block 380. [0064] Returning to block 310, the control flow proceeds from block 310 to block 330 if the UE is using a stateless transport protocol. The control flow proceeds from block 330 to block 380.

[0065] Returning to block 310, the control flow proceeds from block 310 to block 340 if there is too little information available about the transport protocol. The control flow proceeds form block 340 to block 342. At block 342, the network continues the existing radio resource allocation or revert to a heuristic SCell assignment. The control flow proceeds from block 342 to block 390.

[0066] Identification of transport-layer conditions is described below.

[0067] Identifying/modelling the per-connection transport-layer dynamics of a UE can be valuable. Information about the service data units (“SDUs”) transmitted to the UE and the details of what was contained in these SDUs are available at the centralized unit user plane (“CU-UP”) and at the distributed unit (“DU”). In cases where certain information is not available at the CU-UP or the DU, the core network can also be a participant in the information collection mechanism. The collected data is summarized via a specialized statistical/ML transport analysis function. The transport analysis function may be located in the CU-UP, centralized unit control plane (“CU-CP”), DU, another node which might integrate all functions of CU-CP, CU-UP, and DU, or in a cloud environment. The following are potential inputs to the algorithm: Per-UE identifier; Per-UE-connection identifier; Lifetime of current UE session/connection; Time-series information of the volume of downloaded/uploaded data in uplink, downlink, and both; Packet inter-arrival times, packet sizes, and idle times if any; Port numbers and IP addresses; Previous radio resource allocation; Previous classification by the radio resource allocation algorithm (protocol and protocol phase); Application-related information (application protocol, real application, 5QI, etc.,); Indications received from congestion notifiers, e.g., ECN if available/used; Additional congestion control protocol indications that might be interpreted (e.g., looking at IP header to see ECN/L4S flags to interpret the protocol), or learned to indicate which congestion control is being used on that particular connection, e.g., Reno, Cubic, BBR, L4S, etc; and Deep-packet inspection-based information from the core network. [0068] Based on the above information, the transport analysis function models/predicts the UE transport protocol, the UE transport protocol phase, and expected traffic from/to the UE during different time-windows in the future.

[0069] FIG. 4 illustrates an example of signaling transport layer information when the analysis is performed in the CU-UP. At block 410, data transmissions are exchanged between the UE 402 and the CU-UP 404. At block 420, the CU-UP 404 performs analysis of transport layer dynamics. At block 430, the CU-UP 404 transmits transport layer information & possible application information to the CU- CP 406. At block 440, the CU-CP 406 decides on additional cell resources for the UE 402. At block 450, if decided, the UE 402 is assigned additional cell resources. [0070] The rate at which the algorithm is triggered can be varied depending on the history of the UE available at the compute node. For example, when dealing with a new UE or a new connection, the benefits are comparatively larger when compared to a UE/session that has already been classified. Further reclassifications/computations can also be triggered/requested by the CU-UP or CU-CP when the UE is close to fully utilizing its current radio resource allocation.

[0071] The CU-CP upon receiving this information stores it in relation to the UE. When decisions are being taken regarding the current UE, the CU-CP’s decision on DC/CA are driven by the outcomes from the prediction framework.

[0072] Radio resource allocation decision at the CU-CP are described below.

[0073] Upon receiving the predictions from the transport analysis function, or other additional indicators from CU-UP, the core network, or other entities, the CU- CP when allocating radio resources to a UE can decide based on information such as: measurement reports from the UE; load information from the g/e-NBs; predictions of load evolution; and predictions about UE transport-/application-layer status

[0074] By combining the received information and the different modes of operation, the CU-CP can allocate/de-allocate/make no change on the primary and secondary carriers allocated to UEs.

[0075] FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a cloud environment implementation of some embodiments described herein. In this example, a centralized environment 510 includes a CU-UP 404 and a CU-CP 406 that are communicatively coupled to each other. Each of the CU-UP 404 and CU-CP 406 can be communicatively coupled with distributed nodes 510 (here illustrated as including DU 504 and DU 506). The distributed nodes 520 can include wireless transceivers for communicating with the UE 402. In additional or alternative examples, one or more of the functions and/or hardware of the CU-UP and/or the CU-CP may be distributed among multiple nodes.

[0076] In some embodiments, indicators based on statistics and predictions from the transport-layer are included in the configuration of additional carriers (both CA and DC). This can be used in addition to other knowledge (e.g., knowledge of characteristics of the application and length of previous sessions). By carefully making different decisions based on different situations a UE might be in (both at the application level and at the transport), significantly improved CC/SN configuration can be achieved that increases the overall network utilization and minimizes unnecessary radio resource reservation and signaling load.

[0077] In the description that follows, while the network node may be any of the CU-UP 404, CU-CP 406, DU 504, RAN node 700, CN node 800, network node 1110A, 1110B, 1300, 1604, hardware 1504, or virtual machine 1508A, 1508B, the RAN node 700 shall be used to describe the functionality of the operations of the network node. Operations of the RAN node 700 (implemented using the structure of FIG. 7) will now be discussed with reference to the flow charts of FIGS. 9-10 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 705 of FIG. 7, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective RAN node processing circuitry 703, processing circuitry 703 performs respective operations of the flow charts.

[0078] FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating an example of operations of a network node in a communications network for allocating radio resources based on information associated with a transport layer. In some embodiments, the operations can form a loop that can allow for radio resource reallocation in response to different triggers (e.g., reaching blocks 370, 380, or 390 in FIG. 3). [0079] At block 910, processing circuitry 703 determines information associated with a transport layer. In some embodiments, the transport layer is used for communication between the network node and a communication device in the communications network. In some examples, the information includes at least one of: an indication of a type of protocol being used (e.g., a stateful transport protocol or a stateless transport protocol); and an indication of a state of the transport protocol (e.g., a slow start phase and a congestion avoidance phase). In additional or alternative examples, stateful transport protocols can include a transmission control protocol or a user datagram protocol.

[0080] At block 950, processing circuitry 703 determines radio resources to be used by a communication device based on the information. In some embodiments, the radio resources include a radio carrier that can be assigned by carrier aggregation, dual connectivity, multi-connectivity, or multi-technology connectivity (sometimes referred to as multi-radio access technologies (“RATs”), for example, 4G+5G or 5G+WiFi). In some examples, part of a radio carrier can be assigned via bandwidth parts. In additional or alternative embodiments, the radio resources include at least one of a co-existing radio resource; a co-existing frequency resource; a co-deployed radio resource; and a co-deployed frequency resource. In additional or alternative embodiments, embodiments, the radio resources include one or more component carriers associated with one or more secondary nodes. In additional or alternative embodiments, determining the radio resources includes preventing overallocation or under allocation of the radio resources for the communication device based on the information.

[0081] In some embodiments, the type of the transport protocol includes a stateless transport protocol. Determining the radio resources includes determining whether a current allocation of radio resources is fully utilized. Responsive to determining that the current allocation is fully utilized the current allocation can be increased by one radio resource; or responsive to determining that the current allocation is not fully utilized, the current allocation of radio resources can be used. [0082] In alternative embodiments, the type of the transport protocol can be a stateful transport protocol.

[0083] In some examples, the state of the transport protocol is the slow start phase. Determining the radio resources includes determining to increase a number of radio resources being used for the communication between the network node and the communication device based on the transport protocol being in the slow start phase. [0084] In additional or alternative examples, the state of the transport protocol is the congestion avoidance phase. Determining the radio resources includes, determining to only increase a number of radio resources being used for the communication between the network node and the communication device in response to determining that a utilization of the radio resources by the communication device is above a threshold value.

[0085] In alternative embodiments, there is too little information to determine the type of the transport protocol. Determining the radio resource includes determining the radio resources based on an existing allocation or using a heuristic assignment.

[0086] At block 960, processing circuitry 703 configures the radio resources to be used for communication between the network node and the communication device. In some embodiments, configuring the radio resources includes at least one of: configuring the communication device to use a specific amount of radio resources or a specific type of radio resource for the communication with the network node; and reconfiguring the communication device with more or less radio resources for the communication with the network node.

[0087] At block 970, processing circuitry 703 communicates, via transceiver 701 , data with the communication device using the radio resources.

[0088] In some embodiments, the communications network includes a 5^th generation network and the network node includes at least one of: a core network node; a radio access network node; a centralized unit control plane; and a distributed unit.

[0089] In additional or alternative embodiments, the information associated with the transport layer is first information. FIG. 10 is a flow chart illustrating an example of operations of network node for allocating radio resources based on additional information.

[0090] At block 1020, processing circuitry 703 determines second information associated with an application layer. In some examples, the second information includes at least one of: an indication of a characteristic of application (e.g., a high- bandwidth application or a low-bandwidth application) associated with the communication between the network node and the communication device; and an indication of an expected behavior of the application. [0091] At block 1030, processing circuitry 703 determines third information associated with the communication device. In some examples, the third information includes an indication of a subscription associated with the communication device.

[0092] At block 1040, processing circuitry 703 determines fourth information associated with the communications network. In some examples, the fourth information includes at least one of: an indication of an expected load on a primary cell associated with the network node; an indication of an expected load on one or more secondary cells associated with the network node; and an indication of a slicing configuration associated with the communications network.

[0093] At block 1050, processing circuitry 703 determines the radio resources based on the first information, the second information, the third information, and/or the fourth information.

[0094] Various operations from the flow charts of FIGS. 9-10 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of network nodes and related methods. For example, block 970 of FIG. 9 and blocks 1020, 1030, 1040, and 1050 may be optional.

[0095] FIG. 11 shows an example of a communication system 1100 in accordance with some embodiments.

[0096] In the example, the communication system 1100 includes a telecommunication network 1102 that includes an access network 1104, such as a radio access network (RAN), and a core network 1106, which includes one or more core network nodes 1108. The access network 1104 includes one or more access network nodes, such as network nodes 1110a and 1110b (one or more of which may be generally referred to as network nodes 1110), or any other similar 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) access node or non-3GPP access point. The network nodes 1110 facilitate direct or indirect connection of user equipment (UE), such as by connecting UEs 1112a, 1112b, 1112c, and 1112d (one or more of which may be generally referred to as UEs 1112) to the core network 1106 over one or more wireless connections.

[0097] Example wireless communications over a wireless connection include transmitting and/or receiving wireless signals using electromagnetic waves(e.g., radio waves, infrared waves) and/or other types of signals suitable for conveying information without the use of wires, cables, or other material conductors.

Moreover, in different embodiments, the communication system 1100 may include any number of wired or wireless networks, network nodes, UEs, and/or any other components or systems that may facilitate or participate in the communication of data and/or signals whether via wired or wireless connections. The communication system 1100 may include and/or interface with any type of communication, telecommunication, data, cellular, radio network, and/or other similar type of system.

[0098] The UEs 1112 may be any of a wide variety of communication devices, including wireless devices arranged, configured, and/or operable to communicate wirelessly with the network nodes 1110 and other communication devices. Similarly, the network nodes 1110 are arranged, capable, configured, and/or operable to communicate directly or indirectly with the UEs 1112 and/or with other network nodes or equipment in the telecommunication network 1102 to enable and/or provide network access, such as wireless network access, and/or to perform other functions, such as administration in the telecommunication network 1102. [0099] In the depicted example, the core network 1106 connects the network nodes 1110 to one or more hosts, such as host 1116. These connections may be direct or indirect via one or more intermediary networks or devices. In other examples, network nodes may be directly coupled to hosts. The core network 1106 includes one more core network nodes (e.g., core network node 1108) that are structured with hardware and software components. Features of these components may be substantially similar to those described with respect to the UEs, network nodes, and/or hosts, such that the descriptions thereof are generally applicable to the corresponding components of the core network node 1108. Example core network nodes (e.g., EPC or 5GC) include functions of one or more of a Mobile Switching Center (MSC), Mobility Management Entity (MME), Home Subscriber Server (HSS), Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF), Session Management Function (SMF), Authentication Server Function (AUSF), Subscription Identifier De-concealing function (SIDF), Unified Data Management (UDM), Security Edge Protection Proxy (SEPP), Network Exposure Function (NEF), and/or a User Plane Function (UPF). [0100] The host 1116 may be under the ownership or control of a service provider other than an operator or provider of the access network 1104 and/or the telecommunication network 1102, and may be operated by the service provider or on behalf of the service provider. The host 1116 may host a variety of applications to provide one or more service. Examples of such applications include live and prerecorded audio/video content, data collection services such as retrieving and compiling data on various ambient conditions detected by a plurality of UEs, analytics functionality, social media, functions for controlling or otherwise interacting with remote devices, functions for an alarm and surveillance center, or any other such function performed by a server.

[0101 ] As a whole, the communication system 1100 of FIG. 11 enables connectivity between the UEs, network nodes, and hosts. In that sense, the communication system may be configured to operate according to predefined rules or procedures, such as specific standards that include, but are not limited to: Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM); Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS); Long Term Evolution (LTE), and/or other suitable 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G standards, or any applicable future generation standard (e.g., 6G); wireless local area network (WLAN) standards, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards (WiFi); and/or any other appropriate wireless communication standard, such as the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), Bluetooth, Z-Wave, Near Field Communication (NFC) ZigBee, LiFi, and/or any low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) standards such as LoRa and Sigfox.

[0102] In some examples, the telecommunication network 1102 is a cellular network that implements 3GPP standardized features. Accordingly, the telecommunications network 1102 may support network slicing to provide different logical networks to different devices that are connected to the telecommunication network 1102. For example, the telecommunications network 1102 may provide Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC) services to some UEs, while providing Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) services to other UEs, and/or Massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC)ZMassive loT services to yet further UEs. [0103] In some examples, the UEs 1112 are configured to transmit and/or receive information without direct human interaction. For instance, a UE may be designed to transmit information to the access network 1104 on a predetermined schedule, when triggered by an internal or external event, or in response to requests from the access network 1104. Additionally, a UE may be configured for operating in single- or multi-RAT or multi-standard mode. For example, a UE may operate with any one or combination of Wi-Fi, NR (New Radio) and LTE, i.e. being configured for multi-radio dual connectivity (MR-DC), such as E-UTRAN (Evolved- UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) New Radio - Dual Connectivity (EN-DC). [0104] In the example, the hub 1114 communicates with the access network 1104 to facilitate indirect communication between one or more UEs (e.g., UE 1112c and/or 1112d) and network nodes (e.g., network node 1110b). In some examples, the hub 1114 may be a controller, router, content source and analytics, or any of the other communication devices described herein regarding UEs. For example, the hub 1114 may be a broadband router enabling access to the core network 1106 for the UEs. As another example, the hub 1114 may be a controller that sends commands or instructions to one or more actuators in the UEs. Commands or instructions may be received from the UEs, network nodes 1110, or by executable code, script, process, or other instructions in the hub 1114. As another example, the hub 1114 may be a data collector that acts as temporary storage for UE data and, in some embodiments, may perform analysis or other processing of the data. As another example, the hub 1114 may be a content source. For example, for a UE that is a VR headset, display, loudspeaker or other media delivery device, the hub 1114 may retrieve VR assets, video, audio, or other media or data related to sensory information via a network node, which the hub 1114 then provides to the UE either directly, after performing local processing, and/or after adding additional local content. In still another example, the hub 1114 acts as a proxy server or orchestrator for the UEs, in particular in if one or more of the UEs are low energy loT devices.

[0105] The hub 1114 may have a constant/persistent or intermittent connection to the network node 1110b. The hub 1114 may also allow for a different communication scheme and/or schedule between the hub 1114 and UEs (e.g., UE 1112c and/or 1112d), and between the hub 1114 and the core network 1106. In other examples, the hub 1114 is connected to the core network 1106 and/or one or more UEs via a wired connection. Moreover, the hub 1114 may be configured to connect to an M2M service provider over the access network 1104 and/or to another UE over a direct connection. In some scenarios, UEs may establish a wireless connection with the network nodes 1110 while still connected via the hub 1114 via a wired or wireless connection. In some embodiments, the hub 1114 may be a dedicated hub - that is, a hub whose primary function is to route communications to/from the UEs from/to the network node 1110b. In other embodiments, the hub 1114 may be a non-dedicated hub - that is, a device which is capable of operating to route communications between the UEs and network node 1110b, but which is additionally capable of operating as a communication start and/or end point for certain data channels.

[0106] FIG. 12 shows a UE 1200 in accordance with some embodiments. As used herein, a UE refers to a device capable, configured, arranged and/or operable to communicate wirelessly with network nodes and/or other UEs. Examples of a UE include, but are not limited to, a smart phone, mobile phone, cell phone, voice over IP (VoIP) phone, wireless local loop phone, desktop computer, personal digital assistant (PDA), wireless cameras, gaming console or device, music storage device, playback appliance, wearable terminal device, wireless endpoint, mobile station, tablet, laptop, laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), laptop-mounted equipment (LME), smart device, wireless customer-premise equipment (CPE), vehicle-mounted or vehicle embedded/integrated wireless device, etc. Other examples include any UE identified by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), including a narrow band internet of things (NB-loT) UE, a machine type communication (MTC) UE, and/or an enhanced MTC (eMTC) UE.

[0107] A UE may support device-to-device (D2D) communication, for example by implementing a 3GPP standard for sidelink communication, Dedicated Short- Range Communication (DSRC), vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), or vehicle-to-everything (V2X). In other examples, a UE may not necessarily have a user in the sense of a human user who owns and/or operates the relevant device. Instead, a UE may represent a device that is intended for sale to, or operation by, a human user but which may not, or which may not initially, be associated with a specific human user (e.g., a smart sprinkler controller). Alternatively, a UE may represent a device that is not intended for sale to, or operation by, an end user but which may be associated with or operated for the benefit of a user (e.g., a smart power meter).

[0108] The UE 1200 includes processing circuitry 1202 that is operatively coupled via a bus 1204 to an input/output interface 1206, a power source 1208, a memory 1210, a communication interface 1212, and/or any other component, or any combination thereof. Certain UEs may utilize all or a subset of the components shown in FIG. 12. The level of integration between the components may vary from one UE to another UE. Further, certain UEs may contain multiple instances of a component, such as multiple processors, memories, transceivers, transmitters, receivers, etc.

[0109] The processing circuitry 1202 is configured to process instructions and data and may be configured to implement any sequential state machine operative to execute instructions stored as machine-readable computer programs in the memory 1210. The processing circuitry 1202 may be implemented as one or more hardware-implemented state machines (e.g., in discrete logic, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc.); programmable logic together with appropriate firmware; one or more stored computer programs, general-purpose processors, such as a microprocessor or digital signal processor (DSP), together with appropriate software; or any combination of the above. For example, the processing circuitry 1202 may include multiple central processing units (CPUs).

[0110] In the example, the input/output interface 1206 may be configured to provide an interface or interfaces to an input device, output device, or one or more input and/or output devices. Examples of an output device include a speaker, a sound card, a video card, a display, a monitor, a printer, an actuator, an emitter, a smartcard, another output device, or any combination thereof. An input device may allow a user to capture information into the UE 1200. Examples of an input device include a touch-sensitive or presence-sensitive display, a camera (e.g., a digital camera, a digital video camera, a web camera, etc.), a microphone, a sensor, a mouse, a trackball, a directional pad, a trackpad, a scroll wheel, a smartcard, and the like. The presence-sensitive display may include a capacitive or resistive touch sensor to sense input from a user. A sensor may be, for instance, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a tilt sensor, a force sensor, a magnetometer, an optical sensor, a proximity sensor, a biometric sensor, etc., or any combination thereof. An output device may use the same type of interface port as an input device. For example, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port may be used to provide an input device and an output device.

[0111] In some embodiments, the power source 1208 is structured as a battery or battery pack. Other types of power sources, such as an external power source (e.g., an electricity outlet), photovoltaic device, or power cell, may be used. The power source 1208 may further include power circuitry for delivering power from the power source 1208 itself, and/or an external power source, to the various parts of the UE 1200 via input circuitry or an interface such as an electrical power cable. Delivering power may be, for example, for charging of the power source 1208. Power circuitry may perform any formatting, converting, or other modification to the power from the power source 1208 to make the power suitable for the respective components of the UE 1200 to which power is supplied.

[0112] The memory 1210 may be or be configured to include memory such as random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), programmable readonly memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), magnetic disks, optical disks, hard disks, removable cartridges, flash drives, and so forth. In one example, the memory 1210 includes one or more application programs 1214, such as an operating system, web browser application, a widget, gadget engine, or other application, and corresponding data 1216. The memory 1210 may store, for use by the UE 1200, any of a variety of various operating systems or combinations of operating systems.

[0113] The memory 1210 may be configured to include a number of physical drive units, such as redundant array of independent disks (RAID), flash memory, USB flash drive, external hard disk drive, thumb drive, pen drive, key drive, high- density digital versatile disc (HD-DVD) optical disc drive, internal hard disk drive, Blu-Ray optical disc drive, holographic digital data storage (HDDS) optical disc drive, external mini-dual in-line memory module (DIMM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), external micro-DIMM SDRAM, smartcard memory such as tamper resistant module in the form of a universal integrated circuit card (IIICC) including one or more subscriber identity modules (SIMs), such as a USIM and/or ISIM, other memory, or any combination thereof. The IIICC may for example be an embedded IIICC (eU ICC), integrated IIICC (illlCC) or a removable IIICC commonly known as ‘SIM card.’ The memory 1210 may allow the UE 1200 to access instructions, application programs and the like, stored on transitory or non-transitory memory media, to off-load data, or to upload data. An article of manufacture, such as one utilizing a communication system may be tangibly embodied as or in the memory 1210, which may be or comprise a device- readable storage medium.

[0114] The processing circuitry 1202 may be configured to communicate with an access network or other network using the communication interface 1212. The communication interface 1212 may comprise one or more communication subsystems and may include or be communicatively coupled to an antenna 1222. The communication interface 1212 may include one or more transceivers used to communicate, such as by communicating with one or more remote transceivers of another device capable of wireless communication (e.g., another UE or a network node in an access network). Each transceiver may include a transmitter 1218 and/or a receiver 1220 appropriate to provide network communications (e.g., optical, electrical, frequency allocations, and so forth). Moreover, the transmitter 1218 and receiver 1220 may be coupled to one or more antennas (e.g., antenna 1222) and may share circuit components, software or firmware, or alternatively be implemented separately.

[0115] In the illustrated embodiment, communication functions of the communication interface 1212 may include cellular communication, Wi-Fi communication, LPWAN communication, data communication, voice communication, multimedia communication, short-range communications such as Bluetooth, near-field communication, location-based communication such as the use of the global positioning system (GPS) to determine a location, another like communication function, or any combination thereof. Communications may be implemented in according to one or more communication protocols and/or standards, such as IEEE 802.11 , Code Division Multiplexing Access (CDMA), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), GSM, LTE, New Radio (NR), UMTS, WiMax, Ethernet, transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), synchronous optical networking (SONET), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), QUIC, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and so forth.

[0116] Regardless of the type of sensor, a UE may provide an output of data captured by its sensors, through its communication interface 1212, via a wireless connection to a network node. Data captured by sensors of a UE can be communicated through a wireless connection to a network node via another UE. The output may be periodic (e.g., once every 15 minutes if it reports the sensed temperature), random (e.g., to even out the load from reporting from several sensors), in response to a triggering event (e.g., when moisture is detected an alert is sent), in response to a request (e.g., a user initiated request), or a continuous stream (e.g., a live video feed of a patient).

[0117] As another example, a UE comprises an actuator, a motor, or a switch, related to a communication interface configured to receive wireless input from a network node via a wireless connection. In response to the received wireless input the states of the actuator, the motor, or the switch may change. For example, the UE may comprise a motor that adjusts the control surfaces or rotors of a drone in flight according to the received input or to a robotic arm performing a medical procedure according to the received input.

[0118] A UE, when in the form of an Internet of Things (loT) device, may be a device for use in one or more application domains, these domains comprising, but not limited to, city wearable technology, extended industrial application and healthcare. Non-limiting examples of such an loT device are a device which is or which is embedded in: a connected refrigerator or freezer, a TV, a connected lighting device, an electricity meter, a robot vacuum cleaner, a voice controlled smart speaker, a home security camera, a motion detector, a thermostat, a smoke detector, a door/window sensor, a flood/moisture sensor, an electrical door lock, a connected doorbell, an air conditioning system like a heat pump, an autonomous vehicle, a surveillance system, a weather monitoring device, a vehicle parking monitoring device, an electric vehicle charging station, a smart watch, a fitness tracker, a head-mounted display for Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR), a wearable for tactile augmentation or sensory enhancement, a water sprinkler, an animal- or item-tracking device, a sensor for monitoring a plant or animal, an industrial robot, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), and any kind of medical device, like a heart rate monitor or a remote controlled surgical robot. A UE in the form of an loT device comprises circuitry and/or software in dependence of the intended application of the loT device in addition to other components as described in relation to the UE 1200 shown in FIG. 12.

[0119] As yet another specific example, in an loT scenario, a UE may represent a machine or other device that performs monitoring and/or measurements, and transmits the results of such monitoring and/or measurements to another UE and/or a network node. The UE may in this case be an M2M device, which may in a 3GPP context be referred to as an MTC device. As one particular example, the UE may implement the 3GPP NB-loT standard. In other scenarios, a UE may represent a vehicle, such as a car, a bus, a truck, a ship and an airplane, or other equipment that is capable of monitoring and/or reporting on its operational status or other functions associated with its operation.

[0120] In practice, any number of UEs may be used together with respect to a single use case. For example, a first UE might be or be integrated in a drone and provide the drone’s speed information (obtained through a speed sensor) to a second UE that is a remote controller operating the drone. When the user makes changes from the remote controller, the first UE may adjust the throttle on the drone (e.g. by controlling an actuator) to increase or decrease the drone’s speed. The first and/or the second UE can also include more than one of the functionalities described above. For example, a UE might comprise the sensor and the actuator, and handle communication of data for both the speed sensor and the actuators.

[0121] FIG. 13 shows a network node 1300 in accordance with some embodiments. As used herein, network node refers to equipment capable, configured, arranged and/or operable to communicate directly or indirectly with a UE and/or with other network nodes or equipment, in a telecommunication network. Examples of network nodes include, but are not limited to, access points (APs) (e.g., radio access points), base stations (BSs) (e.g., radio base stations, Node Bs, evolved Node Bs (eNBs) and NR NodeBs (gNBs)).

[0122] Base stations may be categorized based on the amount of coverage they provide (or, stated differently, their transmit power level) and so, depending on the provided amount of coverage, may be referred to as femto base stations, pico base stations, micro base stations, or macro base stations. A base station may be a relay node or a relay donor node controlling a relay. A network node may also include one or more (or all) parts of a distributed radio base station such as centralized digital units and/or remote radio units (RRUs), sometimes referred to as Remote Radio Heads (RRHs). Such remote radio units may or may not be integrated with an antenna as an antenna integrated radio. Parts of a distributed radio base station may also be referred to as nodes in a distributed antenna system (DAS).

[0123] Other examples of network nodes include multiple transmission point (multi-TRP) 5G access nodes, multi-standard radio (MSR) equipment such as MSR BSs, network controllers such as radio network controllers (RNCs) or base station controllers (BSCs), base transceiver stations (BTSs), transmission points, transmission nodes, multi-cell/multicast coordination entities (MCEs), Operation and Maintenance (O&M) nodes, Operations Support System (OSS) nodes, SelfOrganizing Network (SON) nodes, positioning nodes (e.g., Evolved Serving Mobile Location Centers (E-SMLCs)), and/or Minimization of Drive Tests (MDTs).

[0124] The network node 1300 includes a processing circuitry 1302, a memory 1304, a communication interface 1306, and a power source 1308. The network node 1300 may be composed of multiple physically separate components (e.g., a NodeB component and a RNC component, or a BTS component and a BSC component, etc.), which may each have their own respective components. In certain scenarios in which the network node 1300 comprises multiple separate components (e.g., BTS and BSC components), one or more of the separate components may be shared among several network nodes. For example, a single RNC may control multiple NodeBs. In such a scenario, each unique NodeB and RNC pair, may in some instances be considered a single separate network node. In some embodiments, the network node 1300 may be configured to support multiple radio access technologies (RATs). In such embodiments, some components may be duplicated (e.g., separate memory 1304 for different RATs) and some components may be reused (e.g., a same antenna 1310 may be shared by different RATs). The network node 1300 may also include multiple sets of the various illustrated components for different wireless technologies integrated into network node 1300, for example GSM, WCDMA, LTE, NR, WiFi, Zigbee, Z-wave, LoRaWAN, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) or Bluetooth wireless technologies. These wireless technologies may be integrated into the same or different chip or set of chips and other components within network node 1300. [0125] The processing circuitry 1302 may comprise a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application-specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, software and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction with other network node 1300 components, such as the memory 1304, to provide network node 1300 functionality.

[0126] In some embodiments, the processing circuitry 1302 includes a system on a chip (SOC). In some embodiments, the processing circuitry 1302 includes one or more of radio frequency (RF) transceiver circuitry 1312 and baseband processing circuitry 1314. In some embodiments, the radio frequency (RF) transceiver circuitry 1312 and the baseband processing circuitry 1314 may be on separate chips (or sets of chips), boards, or units, such as radio units and digital units. In alternative embodiments, part or all of RF transceiver circuitry 1312 and baseband processing circuitry 1314 may be on the same chip or set of chips, boards, or units.

[0127] The memory 1304 may comprise any form of volatile or non-volatile computer-readable memory including, without limitation, persistent storage, solid- state memory, remotely mounted memory, magnetic media, optical media, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), mass storage media (for example, a hard disk), removable storage media (for example, a flash drive, a Compact Disk (CD) or a Digital Video Disk (DVD)), and/or any other volatile or nonvolatile, non-transitory device-readable and/or computer-executable memory devices that store information, data, and/or instructions that may be used by the processing circuitry 1302. The memory 1304 may store any suitable instructions, data, or information, including a computer program, software, an application including one or more of logic, rules, code, tables, and/or other instructions capable of being executed by the processing circuitry 1302 and utilized by the network node 1300. The memory 1304 may be used to store any calculations made by the processing circuitry 1302 and/or any data received via the communication interface 1306. In some embodiments, the processing circuitry 1302 and memory 1304 is integrated.

[0128] The communication interface 1306 is used in wired or wireless communication of signaling and/or data between a network node, access network, and/or UE. As illustrated, the communication interface 1306 comprises port(s)/terminal(s) 1316 to send and receive data, for example to and from a network over a wired connection. The communication interface 1306 also includes radio front-end circuitry 1318 that may be coupled to, or in certain embodiments a part of, the antenna 1310. Radio front-end circuitry 1318 comprises filters 1320 and amplifiers 1322. The radio front-end circuitry 1318 may be connected to an antenna 1310 and processing circuitry 1302. The radio front-end circuitry may be configured to condition signals communicated between antenna 1310 and processing circuitry 1302. The radio front-end circuitry 1318 may receive digital data that is to be sent out to other network nodes or UEs via a wireless connection. The radio front-end circuitry 1318 may convert the digital data into a radio signal having the appropriate channel and bandwidth parameters using a combination of filters 1320 and/or amplifiers 1322. The radio signal may then be transmitted via the antenna 1310. Similarly, when receiving data, the antenna 1310 may collect radio signals which are then converted into digital data by the radio front-end circuitry 1318. The digital data may be passed to the processing circuitry 1302. In other embodiments, the communication interface may comprise different components and/or different combinations of components.

[0129] In certain alternative embodiments, the network node 1300 does not include separate radio front-end circuitry 1318, instead, the processing circuitry 1302 includes radio front-end circuitry and is connected to the antenna 1310. Similarly, in some embodiments, all or some of the RF transceiver circuitry 1312 is part of the communication interface 1306. In still other embodiments, the communication interface 1306 includes one or more ports or terminals 1316, the radio front-end circuitry 1318, and the RF transceiver circuitry 1312, as part of a radio unit (not shown), and the communication interface 1306 communicates with the baseband processing circuitry 1314, which is part of a digital unit (not shown). [0130] The antenna 1310 may include one or more antennas, or antenna arrays, configured to send and/or receive wireless signals. The antenna 1310 may be coupled to the radio front-end circuitry 1318 and may be any type of antenna capable of transmitting and receiving data and/or signals wirelessly. In certain embodiments, the antenna 1310 is separate from the network node 1300 and connectable to the network node 1300 through an interface or port.

[0131] The antenna 1310, communication interface 1306, and/or the processing circuitry 1302 may be configured to perform any receiving operations and/or certain obtaining operations described herein as being performed by the network node. Any information, data and/or signals may be received from a UE, another network node and/or any other network equipment. Similarly, the antenna 1310, the communication interface 1306, and/or the processing circuitry 1302 may be configured to perform any transmitting operations described herein as being performed by the network node. Any information, data and/or signals may be transmitted to a UE, another network node and/or any other network equipment. [0132] The power source 1308 provides power to the various components of network node 1300 in a form suitable for the respective components (e.g., at a voltage and current level needed for each respective component). The power source 1308 may further comprise, or be coupled to, power management circuitry to supply the components of the network node 1300 with power for performing the functionality described herein. For example, the network node 1300 may be connectable to an external power source (e.g., the power grid, an electricity outlet) via an input circuitry or interface such as an electrical cable, whereby the external power source supplies power to power circuitry of the power source 1308. As a further example, the power source 1308 may comprise a source of power in the form of a battery or battery pack which is connected to, or integrated in, power circuitry. The battery may provide backup power should the external power source fail.

[0133] Embodiments of the network node 1300 may include additional components beyond those shown in FIG. 13 for providing certain aspects of the network node’s functionality, including any of the functionality described herein and/or any functionality necessary to support the subject matter described herein. For example, the network node 1300 may include user interface equipment to allow input of information into the network node 1300 and to allow output of information from the network node 1300. This may allow a user to perform diagnostic, maintenance, repair, and other administrative functions for the network node 1300. [0134] FIG. 14 is a block diagram of a host 1400, which may be an embodiment of the host 1116 of FIG. 11 , in accordance with various aspects described herein. As used herein, the host 1400 may be or comprise various combinations hardware and/or software, including a standalone server, a blade server, a cloud- implemented server, a distributed server, a virtual machine, container, or processing resources in a server farm. The host 1400 may provide one or more services to one or more UEs.

[0135] The host 1400 includes processing circuitry 1402 that is operatively coupled via a bus 1404 to an input/output interface 1406, a network interface 1408, a power source 1410, and a memory 1412. Other components may be included in other embodiments. Features of these components may be substantially similar to those described with respect to the devices of previous figures, such as FIGS. 12- 13, such that the descriptions thereof are generally applicable to the corresponding components of host 1400.

[0136] The memory 1412 may include one or more computer programs including one or more host application programs 1414 and data 1416, which may include user data, e.g., data generated by a UE for the host 1400 or data generated by the host 1400 for a UE. Embodiments of the host 1400 may utilize only a subset or all of the components shown. The host application programs 1414 may be implemented in a container-based architecture and may provide support for video codecs (e.g., Versatile Video Coding (WC), High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), Advanced Video Coding (AVC), MPEG, VP9) and audio codecs (e.g., FLAC, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), MPEG, G.711 ), including transcoding for multiple different classes, types, or implementations of UEs (e.g., handsets, desktop computers, wearable display systems, heads-up display systems). The host application programs 1414 may also provide for user authentication and licensing checks and may periodically report health, routes, and content availability to a central node, such as a device in or on the edge of a core network. Accordingly, the host 1400 may select and/or indicate a different host for over-the-top services for a UE. The host application programs 1414 may support various protocols, such as the HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) protocol, Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH), etc.

[0137] FIG. 15 is a block diagram illustrating a virtualization environment 1500 in which functions implemented by some embodiments may be virtualized. In the present context, virtualizing means creating virtual versions of apparatuses or devices which may include virtualizing hardware platforms, storage devices and networking resources. As used herein, virtualization can be applied to any device described herein, or components thereof, and relates to an implementation in which at least a portion of the functionality is implemented as one or more virtual components. Some or all of the functions described herein may be implemented as virtual components executed by one or more virtual machines (VMs) implemented in one or more virtual environments 1500 hosted by one or more of hardware nodes, such as a hardware computing device that operates as a network node, UE, core network node, or host. Further, in embodiments in which the virtual node does not require radio connectivity (e.g., a core network node or host), then the node may be entirely virtualized.

[0138] Applications 1502 (which may alternatively be called software instances, virtual appliances, network functions, virtual nodes, virtual network functions, etc.) are run in the virtualization environment 1500 to implement some of the features, functions, and/or benefits of some of the embodiments disclosed herein.

[0139] Hardware 1504 includes processing circuitry, memory that stores software and/or instructions executable by hardware processing circuitry, and/or other hardware devices as described herein, such as a network interface, input/output interface, and so forth. Software may be executed by the processing circuitry to instantiate one or more virtualization layers 1506 (also referred to as hypervisors or virtual machine monitors (VMMs)), provide VMs 1508a and 1508b (one or more of which may be generally referred to as VMs 1508), and/or perform any of the functions, features and/or benefits described in relation with some embodiments described herein. The virtualization layer 1506 may present a virtual operating platform that appears like networking hardware to the VMs 1508.

[0140] The VMs 1508 comprise virtual processing, virtual memory, virtual networking or interface and virtual storage, and may be run by a corresponding virtualization layer 1506. Different embodiments of the instance of a virtual appliance 1502 may be implemented on one or more of VMs 1508, and the implementations may be made in different ways. Virtualization of the hardware is in some contexts referred to as network function virtualization (NFV). NFV may be used to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard high volume server hardware, physical switches, and physical storage, which can be located in data centers, and customer premise equipment.

[0141 ] In the context of NFV, a VM 1508 may be a software implementation of a physical machine that runs programs as if they were executing on a physical, nonvirtualized machine. Each of the VMs 1508, and that part of hardware 1504 that executes that VM, be it hardware dedicated to that VM and/or hardware shared by that VM with others of the VMs, forms separate virtual network elements. Still in the context of NFV, a virtual network function is responsible for handling specific network functions that run in one or more VMs 1508 on top of the hardware 1504 and corresponds to the application 1502.

[0142] Hardware 1504 may be implemented in a standalone network node with generic or specific components. Hardware 1504 may implement some functions via virtualization. Alternatively, hardware 1504 may be part of a larger cluster of hardware (e.g. such as in a data center or CPE) where many hardware nodes work together and are managed via management and orchestration 1510, which, among others, oversees lifecycle management of applications 1502. In some embodiments, hardware 1504 is coupled to one or more radio units that each include one or more transmitters and one or more receivers that may be coupled to one or more antennas. Radio units may communicate directly with other hardware nodes via one or more appropriate network interfaces and may be used in combination with the virtual components to provide a virtual node with radio capabilities, such as a radio access node or a base station. In some embodiments, some signaling can be provided with the use of a control system 1512 which may alternatively be used for communication between hardware nodes and radio units. [0143] FIG. 16 shows a communication diagram of a host 1602 communicating via a network node 1604 with a UE 1606 over a partially wireless connection in accordance with some embodiments. Example implementations, in accordance with various embodiments, of the UE (such as a UE 1112a of FIG. 11 and/or UE 1200 of FIG. 12), network node (such as network node 1110a of FIG. 11 and/or network node 1300 of FIG. 13), and host (such as host 1116 of FIG. 11 and/or host 1400 of FIG. 14) discussed in the preceding paragraphs will now be described with reference to FIG. 16.

[0144] Like host 1400, embodiments of host 1602 include hardware, such as a communication interface, processing circuitry, and memory. The host 1602 also includes software, which is stored in or accessible by the host 1602 and executable by the processing circuitry. The software includes a host application that may be operable to provide a service to a remote user, such as the UE 1606 connecting via an over-the-top (OTT) connection 1650 extending between the UE 1606 and host 1602. In providing the service to the remote user, a host application may provide user data which is transmitted using the OTT connection 1650.

[0145] The network node 1604 includes hardware enabling it to communicate with the host 1602 and UE 1606. The connection 1660 may be direct or pass through a core network (like core network 1106 of FIG. 11 ) and/or one or more other intermediate networks, such as one or more public, private, or hosted networks. For example, an intermediate network may be a backbone network or the Internet.

[0146] The UE 1606 includes hardware and software, which is stored in or accessible by UE 1606 and executable by the UE’s processing circuitry. The software includes a client application, such as a web browser or operator-specific “app” that may be operable to provide a service to a human or non-human user via UE 1606 with the support of the host 1602. In the host 1602, an executing host application may communicate with the executing client application via the OTT connection 1650 terminating at the UE 1606 and host 1602. In providing the service to the user, the UE's client application may receive request data from the host's host application and provide user data in response to the request data. The OTT connection 1650 may transfer both the request data and the user data. The UE's client application may interact with the user to generate the user data that it provides to the host application through the OTT connection 1650.

[0147] The OTT connection 1650 may extend via a connection 1660 between the host 1602 and the network node 1604 and via a wireless connection 1670 between the network node 1604 and the UE 1606 to provide the connection between the host 1602 and the UE 1606. The connection 1660 and wireless connection 1670, over which the OTT connection 1650 may be provided, have been drawn abstractly to illustrate the communication between the host 1602 and the UE 1606 via the network node 1604, without explicit reference to any intermediary devices and the precise routing of messages via these devices.

[0148] As an example of transmitting data via the OTT connection 1650, in step 1608, the host 1602 provides user data, which may be performed by executing a host application. In some embodiments, the user data is associated with a particular human user interacting with the UE 1606. In other embodiments, the user data is associated with a UE 1606 that shares data with the host 1602 without explicit human interaction. In step 1610, the host 1602 initiates a transmission carrying the user data towards the UE 1606. The host 1602 may initiate the transmission responsive to a request transmitted by the UE 1606. The request may be caused by human interaction with the UE 1606 or by operation of the client application executing on the UE 1606. The transmission may pass via the network node 1604, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. Accordingly, in step 1612, the network node 1604 transmits to the UE 1606 the user data that was carried in the transmission that the host 1602 initiated, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. In step 1614, the UE 1606 receives the user data carried in the transmission, which may be performed by a client application executed on the UE 1606 associated with the host application executed by the host 1602.

[0149] In some examples, the UE 1606 executes a client application which provides user data to the host 1602. The user data may be provided in reaction or response to the data received from the host 1602. Accordingly, in step 1616, the UE 1606 may provide user data, which may be performed by executing the client application. In providing the user data, the client application may further consider user input received from the user via an input/output interface of the UE 1606. Regardless of the specific manner in which the user data was provided, the UE 1606 initiates, in step 1618, transmission of the user data towards the host 1602 via the network node 1604. In step 1620, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure, the network node 1604 receives user data from the UE 1606 and initiates transmission of the received user data towards the host 1602. In step 1622, the host 1602 receives the user data carried in the transmission initiated by the UE 1606.

[0150] One or more of the various embodiments improve the performance of OTT services provided to the UE 1606 using the OTT connection 1650, in which the wireless connection 1670 forms the last segment. More precisely, the teachings of these embodiments may improve the performance of centralized beamforming in a massive D-MIMO system without suffering from an exploding fronthaul load associated with a large number of RUs connecting to the BBU in a cascaded topology and thereby provide benefits such as reducing both the deployment costs (due to the reduced number or length of required fibers) and the system complexity (due to the reduced number of required BBU ports) compared with the star topology.

[0151] In an example scenario, factory status information may be collected and analyzed by the host 1602. As another example, the host 1602 may process audio and video data which may have been retrieved from a UE for use in creating maps. As another example, the host 1602 may collect and analyze real-time data to assist in controlling vehicle congestion (e.g., controlling traffic lights). As another example, the host 1602 may store surveillance video uploaded by a UE. As another example, the host 1602 may store or control access to media content such as video, audio, VR or AR which it can broadcast, multicast or unicast to UEs. As other examples, the host 1602 may be used for energy pricing, remote control of non-time critical electrical load to balance power generation needs, location services, presentation services (such as compiling diagrams etc. from data collected from remote devices), or any other function of collecting, retrieving, storing, analyzing and/or transmitting data.

[0152] In some examples, a measurement procedure may be provided for the purpose of monitoring data rate, latency and other factors on which the one or more embodiments improve. There may further be an optional network functionality for reconfiguring the OTT connection 1650 between the host 1602 and UE 1606, in response to variations in the measurement results. The measurement procedure and/or the network functionality for reconfiguring the OTT connection may be implemented in software and hardware of the host 1602 and/or UE 1606. In some embodiments, sensors (not shown) may be deployed in or in association with other devices through which the OTT connection 1650 passes; the sensors may participate in the measurement procedure by supplying values of the monitored quantities exemplified above, or supplying values of other physical quantities from which software may compute or estimate the monitored quantities. The reconfiguring of the OTT connection 1650 may include message format, retransmission settings, preferred routing etc.; the reconfiguring need not directly alter the operation of the network node 1604. Such procedures and functionalities may be known and practiced in the art. In certain embodiments, measurements may involve proprietary UE signaling that facilitates measurements of throughput, propagation times, latency and the like, by the host 1602. The measurements may be implemented in that software causes messages to be transmitted, in particular empty or ‘dummy’ messages, using the OTT connection 1650 while monitoring propagation times, errors, etc.

[0153] Although the computing devices described herein (e.g., UEs, network nodes, hosts) may include the illustrated combination of hardware components, other embodiments may comprise computing devices with different combinations of components. It is to be understood that these computing devices may comprise any suitable combination of hardware and/or software needed to perform the tasks, features, functions and methods disclosed herein. Determining, calculating, obtaining or similar operations described herein may be performed by processing circuitry, which may process information by, for example, converting the obtained information into other information, comparing the obtained information or converted information to information stored in the network node, and/or performing one or more operations based on the obtained information or converted information, and as a result of said processing making a determination. Moreover, while components are depicted as single boxes located within a larger box, or nested within multiple boxes, in practice, computing devices may comprise multiple different physical components that make up a single illustrated component, and functionality may be partitioned between separate components. For example, a communication interface may be configured to include any of the components described herein, and/or the functionality of the components may be partitioned between the processing circuitry and the communication interface. In another example, non-computationally intensive functions of any of such components may be implemented in software or firmware and computationally intensive functions may be implemented in hardware. [0154] In certain embodiments, some or all of the functionality described herein may be provided by processing circuitry executing instructions stored on in memory, which in certain embodiments may be a computer program product in the form of a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. In alternative embodiments, some or all of the functionality may be provided by the processing circuitry without executing instructions stored on a separate or discrete device- readable storage medium, such as in a hard-wired manner. In any of those particular embodiments, whether executing instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium or not, the processing circuitry can be configured to perform the described functionality. The benefits provided by such functionality are not limited to the processing circuitry alone or to other components of the computing device, but are enjoyed by the computing device as a whole, and/or by end users and a wireless network generally.

[0155] Further definitions and embodiments are discussed below.

[0156] In the above-description of various embodiments of present inventive concepts, it is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of present inventive concepts. Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which present inventive concepts belong. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of this specification and the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

[0157] When an element is referred to as being "connected", "coupled", "responsive", or variants thereof to another element, it can be directly connected, coupled, or responsive to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being "directly connected", "directly coupled", "directly responsive", or variants thereof to another element, there are no intervening elements present. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Furthermore, "coupled", "connected", "responsive", or variants thereof as used herein may include wirelessly coupled, connected, or responsive. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity. The term "and/or" (abbreviated “/”) includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

[0158] It will be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements/operations, these elements/operations should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element/operation from another element/operation. Thus a first element/operation in some embodiments could be termed a second element/operation in other embodiments without departing from the teachings of present inventive concepts. The same reference numerals or the same reference designators denote the same or similar elements throughout the specification.

[0159] As used herein, the terms "comprise", "comprising", "comprises", "include", "including", "includes", "have", "has", "having", or variants thereof are open-ended, and include one or more stated features, integers, elements, steps, components or functions but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, elements, steps, components, functions or groups thereof. Furthermore, as used herein, the common abbreviation "e.g.", which derives from the Latin phrase "exempli gratia," may be used to introduce or specify a general example or examples of a previously mentioned item, and is not intended to be limiting of such item. The common abbreviation "i.e.", which derives from the Latin phrase "id est," may be used to specify a particular item from a more general recitation.

[0160] Example embodiments are described herein with reference to block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations of computer-implemented methods, apparatus (systems and/or devices) and/or computer program products. It is understood that a block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions that are performed by one or more computer circuits. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor circuit of a general purpose computer circuit, special purpose computer circuit, and/or other programmable data processing circuit to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer and/or other programmable data processing apparatus, transform and control transistors, values stored in memory locations, and other hardware components within such circuitry to implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks, and thereby create means (functionality) and/or structure for implementing the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block(s).

[0161] These computer program instructions may also be stored in a tangible computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks. Accordingly, embodiments of present inventive concepts may be embodied in hardware and/or in software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) that runs on a processor such as a digital signal processor, which may collectively be referred to as "circuitry," "a module" or variants thereof.

[0162] It should also be noted that in some alternate implementations, the functions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the flowcharts. For example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functional ity/acts involved. Moreover, the functionality of a given block of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be separated into multiple blocks and/or the functionality of two or more blocks of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be at least partially integrated. Finally, other blocks may be added/inserted between the blocks that are illustrated, and/or blocks/operations may be omitted without departing from the scope of inventive concepts. Moreover, although some of the diagrams include arrows on communication paths to show a primary direction of communication, it is to be understood that communication may occur in the opposite direction to the depicted arrows. [0163] Many variations and modifications can be made to the embodiments without substantially departing from the principles of the present inventive concepts. All such variations and modifications are intended to be included herein within the scope of present inventive concepts. Accordingly, the above disclosed subject matter is to be considered illustrative, and not restrictive, and the examples of embodiments are intended to cover all such modifications, enhancements, and other embodiments, which fall within the spirit and scope of present inventive concepts. Thus, to the maximum extent allowed by law, the scope of present inventive concepts are to be determined by the broadest permissible interpretation of the present disclosure including the examples of embodiments and their equivalents, and shall not be restricted or limited by the foregoing detailed description.

Claims

Claims What is claimed is:

1 . A method performed by a network node in a communications network, the method comprising: determining (910) information associated with a transport layer used for communication between the network node and a communication device in the communications network; determining (950) radio resources to be used by the communication device for the communication between the network node and the communication device based on the information; and configuring (960) the radio resources to be used for the communication between the network node and the communication device.

2. The method of Claim 1 , wherein the information comprises at least one of: an indication of a type of transport protocol being used; and an indication of a state of the transport protocol.

3. The method of Claim 2, wherein the information comprises the indication of the type of the transport protocol being used, and wherein the type of the protocol comprises at least one of: a stateful transport protocol; and a stateless protocol.

4. The method of Claim 3, wherein the type of the transport protocol comprises a stateless transport protocol, and wherein determining the radio resources comprises: determining whether a current allocation of radio resources is fully utilized; and responsive to determining that the current allocation is fully utilized incrementing the current allocation by one radio resource; or responsive to determining that the current allocation is not fully utilized, determining to use the current allocation of radio resources.

47

5. The method of Claim 3, wherein the type of the transport protocol comprises a stateful transport protocol, and wherein the type of the transport protocol comprises at least one of: a transmission control protocol; a user datagram protocol, UDP; and a quick UDP internet connection.

6. The method of Claims 5, wherein the information comprises the indication of the state of the transport protocol being used, and wherein the state of the transport protocol comprises at least one of: a slow start phase; and a congestion avoidance phase.

7. The method of Claim 4, wherein the state of the transport protocol comprises the slow start phase, and wherein determining the radio resources comprises determining to increase a number of radio resources being used for the communication between the network node and the communication device based on the transport protocol being in the slow start phase

8. The method of Claim 6, wherein the state of the transport protocol comprises the congestion avoidance phase, and wherein determining the radio resources comprises responsive to the transport protocol being in the congestion avoidance phase, determining to only increase a number of radio resources being used for the communication between the network node and the communication device in response to determining that a utilization of the radio resources by the communication device is above a threshold value.

9. The method of any of Claims 1-8, wherein the information comprises first information, the method further comprising:

48 determining (1020) second information associated with an application layer, wherein determining the radio resources comprises determining the radio resources based on the first information and the second information.

10. The method of Claim 9, wherein the second information comprises at least one of: an indication of a characteristic of an application associated with the communication between the network node and the communication device; and an indication of an expected behavior of the application.

11 . The method of Claim 10, wherein the second information comprises the indication of the characteristic of the application, and wherein the characteristic of the application comprises at least one of: a high- bandwidth application; and a low-bandwidth application.

12. The method of any of Claims 1-11 , wherein the information comprises first information, the method further comprising: determining (1030) third information associated with the communication device, wherein determining the radio resources comprises determining the radio resources based on the first information and the third information.

13. The method of Claim 12, wherein the third information comprises an indication of a subscription associated with the communication device.

14. The method of any of Claims 1-13, wherein the information comprises first information, the method further comprising: determining (1040) fourth information associated with the communications network, wherein determining the radio resources comprises determining the radio resources based on the first information and the fourth information.

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15. The method of Claim 14, wherein the fourth information comprises at least one of: an indication of an expected load on a primary cell associated with the network node; an indication of an expected load on one or more secondary cells associated with the network node; and an indication of a slicing configuration associated with the communications network.

16. The method of any of Claims 1-15, wherein determining the radio resources comprises preventing overallocation or under allocation of the radio resources for the communication device based on the information.

17. The method of any of Claims 1-16, wherein configuring the radio resources comprises at least one of: configuring the communication device to use a specific amount of radio resources or a specific type of radio resource for the communication with the network node; and reconfiguring the communication device with more or less radio resources for the communication with the network node.

18. The method of Claim 1 , wherein the information comprises too little information to determine the type of the transport protocol, wherein determining the radio resources comprises, responsive to determining that the information comprises too little information to determine the type of the transport protocol, determining the radio resources based on an existing allocation or using a heuristic assignment.

19. The method of any of Claims 1-18, wherein the radio resources comprises a radio carrier assigned by carrier aggregation, dual connectivity, multi-connectivity, or multi-technology connectivity.

20. The method of any of Claims 1-19, wherein the radio resources comprises at least one of: a co-existing radio resource; a co-existing frequency resource; a codeployed radio resource; and a co-deployed frequency resource.

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21 . The method of any of Claims 1-20, wherein the radio resources comprise one or more component carriers associated with one or more secondary nodes.

22. The method of any of Claims 1 -21 , further comprising: communicating (970) data with the communication device using the radio resources.

23. The method of any of Claims 1-22, wherein the communications network comprises a 5^th generation network, wherein the network node comprises at least one of: a core network node; a radio access network node; a centralized unit control plane; a centralized unit user plane; and a distributed unit.

24. A network node (404, 406, 504, 700, 800) in a communications network, the network node comprising: processing circuitry (703, 803); and memory (705, 805) coupled to the processing circuitry and having instructions stored therein that are executable by the processing circuitry to cause the network node to perform operations comprising any of the operations of Claims 1-23.

25 A network node (404, 406, 504, 700, 800) in a communications network, the network node adapted to perform operations comprising any of the operations of Claims 1-23.

26. A computer program comprising program code to be executed by processing circuitry (703, 803) of a network node (404, 406, 504, 700, 800) in a communications network, whereby execution of the program code causes the network node to perform operations comprising any operations of Claims 1-23.

27. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium (705, 805) including program code to be executed by processing circuitry (703, 803) of a network node (404, 406, 504, 700, 800) in a communications network, whereby execution of the program code causes the network node to perform operations comprising any operations of Claims 1-23.

28. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored therein that are executable by processing circuitry (703, 803) of a network node (404, 406, 504, 700, 800) to cause the network node to perform operations comprising any of the operations of Claims 1-23.