The present invention relates to apparatuses, methods and a computer program product for controlling of carrier aggregation.
The following meanings for the abbreviations used in this specification apply:
Embodiments of the present invention relate to carrier aggregation. Carrier Aggregation (CA) is a radio technology which allows combining several carriers of different cells such that a UE—and finally the end user—has a higher bandwidth available, allowing a better user experience.
According to the deployment scenarios defined in TS 36.300, a set of carries/cells under the same eNB can be aggregated for one UE in some certain area.
However, in order to fully exploit the benefits of carrier aggregation, management and control thereof need to be further improved.
Embodiments of the present invention address this situation.
According to a first aspect of the present invention a method is provided which comprises
According to a second aspect of the present invention, an apparatus is provided which comprises a connection unit configured to provide connection to a radio network and/or a network control element, and a processor configured to control carrier aggregation in a radio network on the basis of a group of cells in the radio network which can be aggregated.
The first and second aspects of the present invention may be modified by the following features:
According to a third aspect of the present invention a method is provided which comprises
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, an apparatus is provided which comprises a connection unit configured to provide connection to a radio network and/or a network control element, and a processor configured to control carrier aggregation in a radio network, and to set an access control policy regarding a part of the radio network.
The third and fourth aspects may be modified as follows:
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, a computer program product is provided which comprises code means for performing a method according to the first and/or the third aspects and its modifications when run on a processing means or module.
The computer program product may be embodied on a computer-readable medium.
Thus, according to embodiments of the present invention, control of carrier aggregation in a network is further improved.
These and other objects, features, details and advantages will become more fully apparent from the following detailed description of embodiments of the present invention which is to be taken in conjunction with the appended drawings, in which:
Before explaining some embodiments of the present invention in detail, some considerations regarding control and management of carrier aggregation are given in the following.
From management perspective, the operators need to know the maximum bandwidth that the network is able to offer as well as the network capacity in a certain area, so it is necessary to know which cells can be potentially aggregated together.
Some examples for such carrier aggregation scenarios are shown in
Thus, the possibilities for carrier aggregation (aggregation of cells) may largely differ depending on the network configuration.
Also such info is needed for handover in CA, as the source eNB needs to know which cells can be aggregated together in the target side (especially in case of is the target cell(s) belong to an eNB different from the source eNB), to make the right selection of cells for the handover. If the eNB does not know this and selects cells which cannot be aggregated together in one handover or do not provide sufficient bandwidth after the handover, the handover will not be fully successful.
So it is desired to have such info about the aggregation capabilities. In 3GPP such relations between cells are usually modelled in neighbour relations objects, either by manual configuration or configured by the SON ANR functionality.
To measure the performance of CA, the traditional approach of measuring the E-RABs (e.g., the number of E-RABs, or the QoS of the E-RABs) in individual cells is not applicable in CA, because one E-RAB can be spread to multiple cells. For the carrier aggregation case the reasonable approach is to measure the E-RABs (e.g., the number of E-RABs, or the QoS of the E-RABs) for each group of cells that can be aggregated together.
The role (i.e. PCell or SCell) of each cell is acting in CA for each UE is decided by the eNB, while there is also the case that some certain cell is only configured to be SCell to all of the UEs without PCell functionality to any UEs during some time (or there may be some other configurations to make the cell only with PCell functionality). When a new UE is requesting to access the network while the overall resources or the resources for PCell functionality in the group of the cells that can be aggregated together are not sufficient, then the eNB needs to know what to do—to accept the new access request (maybe by downgrading the bandwidth to the existing UEs) or ignore the new access request and retain the existing services, such priorities need to be configured from OAM.
Thus, according to embodiments of the present invention, information regarding a group of cells which can be aggregated together is provided.
In the following, description will be made to embodiments of the present invention. It is to be understood, however, that the description is given by way of example only, and that the described embodiments are by no means to be understood as limiting the present invention thereto.
However, this is only an example, and the invention may be implemented also in a network management system (NMS), an element management system (EMS), a separate self-organizing network (SON) server, the eNB or any other suitable network control node. The apparatus 1 comprises a processor 11 and an connection unit 12. The connection unit 12 is configured to provide connection to a network and/or an EMS/NMS, and the processor 11 is configured to control carrier aggregation in a radio network on the basis of a group of cells in a radio network which can be aggregated. Optionally, the eNB 1 may also comprise a memory 13 for storing data and programs, by means of which the processor 11 may carry out its corresponding functions.
Thus, a method according to a general embodiment of the present invention comprises controlling carrier aggregation in a radio network on the basis of a group of cells in a radio network which can be aggregated.
According to some further detailed embodiments regarding the control of carrier aggregation described above, operations may be carried out which are illustrated in the
In
In
In
In
In
Thus, according to embodiments of the present invention, information regarding CA groups (groups of cells which can be aggregated together) is provided. Therefore, for example each eNB in the network knows which cells can be aggregated. Hence, control and management in connection with carrier aggregation can be improved.
It is noted that the above described setting of an access control policy is not restricted to be applied to a certain CA group only. Such a policy could also be configured to be applied to a part of the network, for example, a whole subnetwork or individual eNBs. Examples for these measures are shown in
In
The access control policy may be to indicate, in case of insufficient resources, access of a user equipment to the part of the network (e.g., subnetwork, eNB or cell) is denied, or access of the user equipment is admitted and resources for existing services are reduced.
In the following, some more detailed embodiments of the present invention are described.
I. Management of the group of cells which can be aggregated together is provided. For example, a new IOC for CA group can be modelled, or the CA group can be modelled as an attribute to the existing IOCs, such as EUtranCell IOC or ENBFunction IOC.
II. The CA group information is made available in ANR. In particular, the CA group information can be included when exchanging the cell info via X2 interface (defined between two eNBs).
III. The CA group information can be made available in manual neighbours setup. For example, regarding the IOC containing the CA group (either a new IOC or an existing IOC), the CA group information can be included in an ExternalEUtranCell IOC. For example, the new IOC for CA group can be made such that it contains the information of the ExternalEUtranCell, or alternatively the CA group information can be included as a new attribute to the existing ExternalEUtranCell IOC.
IV. Measurement of performance of CA can be defined. In particular, performance measurements for E-RAB or QCI (e.g., number of E-RABs, and/or the QoS/throughput for each QCI) can be defined on the CA Group granularity.
V. Arbitration of new access requests in case of insufficient resources for CA can be defined. In particular, a policy can be set by OAM to the eNB on the priority to admit the new accesses or retain the QoS/bandwidth for the existing services. As already mentioned above, the setting of an access control policy is not restricted to be applied to a certain CA group only, such a policy could also be configured to be applied to a part of the network.
Embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in the NMS, EMS, a separate SON server or eNB with support from external management interface.
The following examples show in the typical format of a 3GPP 32.series and 36.423 stage 2 description how the solution can be realized.
For solutions I) and III) in common, following attribute is added to the ENBFunction IOC, which is defined in TS 32.762.
Alternatively, as mentioned above, a new IOC (having, e.g., the name CaGroup) can be modeled for each CA group following in TS 32.762.
Further alternatively, or in addition to the above, the following attribute may be added to the EUtranGenericCell IOC (TS32.762):
Further alternatively, or in addition to the above, the following attribute may be added to the ExternalEUtranGenericCell IOC, as defined in TS 32.762:
According to a further embodiment regarding an implementation for solution II described above, the CA group info is added to “X2 SETUP RESPONSE” (as a further example for an information message or information message type). That is, the corresponding definition as given in 3GPP TS 36.423 V11.0.0 (March 2012), chapter 9.1.2.3, may be augmented as indicated in the table shown in
It is noted that in all tables shown in
Moreover, the abbreviations used in column “Presence” have the following meanings:
M: IEs marked as Mandatory (M) shall always be included in the message.
O: IEs marked as Optional (O) may or may not be included in the message.
C: IEs marked as Conditional (C) shall be included in a message only if the condition is satisfied. Otherwise the IE shall not be included.
Moreover, in column “Range” the value “maxCellineNB” means a maximum number of cells that can be served by an eNB.
Furthermore, as shown in
Further alternatively, as shown in
With respect to solution IV described above, i.e., regarding CA group measurements, such measurements related to E-RAB or QCT should be configured such that they are performed on the CA group level rather than on cell level. This may be defined in TS 32.425, for example, by adding the following statement under section 4.2 and 4.4: “in case of CA, the measurements defined in this section are measured at each CA Group”.
With respect to solution V described above, the following attributes may be added to ENBFunction IOC or the newly created CaGroup IOC (according to Solution I)) in TS 32.762 or to a newly created CaPolicies IOC in TS 32.522:
Thus, according to certain embodiments of the present invention, information regarding a group of cells which can be aggregated is provided in a network in a standardized way, to that those network elements which need this information can easily have access to this information.
Embodiments of the present invention helps the eNB for selection of right set of cells for aggregation with one UE.
Embodiments of the present invention also helps the eNB for selection of right set of cells for handover in CA, especially for inter-eNB HO.
Moreover, according to embodiments of the present invention, meaningful measurements for CA are possible.
Furthermore, according to embodiments of the present invention, network operators are able to control the CA behaviour as desired by operator policies.
It is noted that the embodiments and the present invention in general is not limited to the specific examples given above.
According to embodiments of the present invention, a method and an apparatus are described by which carrier aggregation in a radio network is controlled on the basis of a group of cells which can be aggregated. For example, carrier aggregation group information regarding the group of cells which can be aggregated can be established, transmitted, read and the like, access control policy regarding the group of cells in the radio network which can be aggregated can be set. Moreover, a method and an apparatus is provided by which carrier aggregation in a radio network is controlled, wherein an access control policy regarding a part of the radio network is set.
According to a further aspect of embodiments of the present invention, an apparatus is provided which comprises
According to another aspect of embodiments of the present invention, an apparatus is provided which comprises
It is to be understood that any of the above modifications can be applied singly or in combination to the respective aspects and/or embodiments to which they refer, unless they are explicitly stated as excluding alternatives.
For the purpose of the present invention as described herein above, it should be noted that
It is noted that the embodiments and examples described above are provided for illustrative purposes only and are in no way intended that the present invention is restricted thereto. Rather, it is the intention that all variations and modifications be included which fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/CN2012/076127 | 5/25/2012 | WO | 00 | 11/24/2014 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2013/174021 | 11/28/2013 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
20100273416 | Yi | Oct 2010 | A1 |
20110149913 | Park | Jun 2011 | A1 |
20120014357 | Jung | Jan 2012 | A1 |
20120039175 | Sridhar | Feb 2012 | A1 |
20120087257 | Larsson | Apr 2012 | A1 |
20120250562 | Li | Oct 2012 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
WO 2011069457 | Jun 2011 | CN |
102238692 | Nov 2011 | CN |
2373090 | Oct 2011 | EP |
WO-2011143837 | Nov 2011 | WO |
Entry |
---|
3GPP TR 36.808 V1.7.0; “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Carrier Aggregation; Base Station (BS) radio transmission and reception (Release 10)”; Aug. 2011; whole document (27 pages). |
3GPP TS 36.423 V11.0.0; “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); X2 application protocol (X2AP) (Release 11)”; Mar. 2012; whole document (134 pages). |
3GPP TS 32.762.V11.7.0; “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Telecommunication management; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Network Resource Model (NRM) Integration Reference Point (IRP); Information service (IS) (Release 11)”; Mar. 2014; whole document (59 pages). |
3GPP TS 32.425 V12.0.0; “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Telecommunication management; Performance Management (PM); Performance measurements Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) (Release 12)”; Jun. 2013; whole document (74 pages). |
3GPP TS 32.522 V11.7.0; “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Telecommunication management; Self-Organizing Networks (SON) Policy Network Resource Model (NRM) Integration Reference Point (IRP);; Information Services (IS) (Release 11)”; Sep. 2013; whole document (58 pages). |
3GPP TS 36.300 V12.3.0; “3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network; Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN); Overall description; Stage 2 (Release 12)”; Sep. 2014; whole document (215 pages). |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20150156773 A1 | Jun 2015 | US |