This disclosure relates to communication devices with multiple Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs). The disclosure also relates to controlling radio access technologies (RATs) for improving operating conditions of user equipment in an idle mode or connected mode, for example.
Rapid advances in electronics and communication technologies, driven by immense customer demand, have resulted in the widespread adoption of mobile communication devices. The extent of the proliferation of such devices is readily apparent in view of some estimates that put the number of wireless subscriber connections in use around the world at nearly 80% of the world's population. Furthermore, other estimates indicate that (as just three examples) the United States, Italy, and the UK have more mobile phones in use in each country than there are people living in those countries.
Relatively recently, cellular phone manufactures have introduced phone designs that include multiple SIM cards. Each SIM card facilitates a separate connection to the same network or different networks. As a result, the SIMs provide the owner of the phone with, for example, two different phone numbers handled by the same phone hardware. Accordingly, the multiple SIM approach alleviates to some degree the need to carry different physical phones, and improvements in multiple SIM communication devices will continue to make such devices attractive options for the consumer.
The innovation may be better understood with reference to the following drawings and description. In the figures, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the different views.
The discussion below refers to user equipment. User equipment may take many different forms and have many different functions. As one example, user equipment may be a cellular phone capable of making and receiving wireless phone calls. The user equipment may also be a smartphone that, in addition to making and receiving phone calls, runs general purpose applications. User equipment may be virtually any device that wirelessly connects to a network, including as additional examples a driver assistance module in a vehicle, an emergency transponder, a pager, a satellite television receiver, a networked stereo receiver, a computer system, music player, or virtually any other device. The discussion below addresses how to control radio access technologies (RATs) in user equipment that includes one or more Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs). RATs may include technologies that arise from UMTS, 3GPP, GSM (R) Association, Long Term Evolution (TM) efforts.
User equipment that can communicate via multiple RATs provides challenges for a single or multiple SIM standby mode (also referred to as idle mode or camped mode). The user equipment described below includes techniques that may improve operation by controlling access to particular RAT(s) for the user equipment while it is operating in certain modes, such as idle mode. Once the user equipment is in a connected mode, regardless of how much uplink or downlink activity is occurring, inter-RAT techniques in the user equipment can provide the benefits of access to multiple RATs. The techniques are useful in many different environments, such as an environment that is predominantly 2G or 3G but that also has 4G hot spot coverage. The techniques may also be useful for providing enhanced operations in 2G/3G capable dual SIM user equipment running in a camped mode or other modes. The techniques are not limited to 2G/3G/4G or any other particular standards, but may apply to any standards in a sequence of evolving or incrementally improving standards.
The user equipment 100 includes a communication interface 112, system logic 114, and a user interface 118. The system logic 114 may include any combination of hardware, software, firmware, or other logic. The system logic 114 may be implemented, for example, in a system on a chip (SoC), application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or other circuitry. The system logic 114 is part of the implementation of any desired functionality in the user equipment 100. In that regard, the system logic 114 may include logic that facilitates, as examples, running applications, accepting user inputs, saving and retrieving application data, establishing, maintaining, and terminating cellular phone calls, wireless network connections, Bluetooth connections, or other connections, and displaying relevant information on the user interface 118. The user interface 118 may include a graphical user interface, touch sensitive display, voice or facial recognition inputs, buttons, switches, and other user interface elements.
The communication interface 112 may include one or more transceivers. The transceivers may be wireless transceivers that include modulation circuitry,/demodulation circuitry, power amplifiers, low noise amplifiers, coders/decoders, waveform shaping circuitry, phase locked loops (PLLs), clock generators, analog to digital and digital to analog converters and/or other logic for transmitting and receiving through one or more antennas, or through a physical (e.g., wireline) medium. As one implementation example, the communication interface 112 and system logic 114 may include a BCM2091 EDGE/HSPA Multi-Mode, Multi-Band Cellular Transceiver and a BCM59056 advanced power management unit (PMU), controlled by a BCM28150 HSPA+ system-on-a-chip (SoC) baseband smartphone processer. These integrated circuits, as well as other hardware and software implementation options for the user equipment 100, are available from Broadcom Corporation of Irvine Calif. The transmitted and received signals may adhere to any of a diverse array of formats, protocols, modulations, frequency channels, bit rates, and encodings. As one specific example, the communication interface 112 may support transmission and reception under the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The techniques described below, however, are applicable to other communications technologies regardless of whether they arise from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), GSM (R) Association, Long Term Evolution (LTE) (TM) efforts, or other partnerships or other standards bodies.
Existing communication standards include the Transport Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) standard. The user equipment 100 may implement any such standard as part of the logic that handles data connections, and more specifically to handle data packet communications between the user equipment 100 and the networks. Some goals of TCP include providing reliability and systematic communication of packets from one user equipment to another. Because of these benefits, TCP is the protocol that the majority of Internet applications use, including World Wide Web browsers, email clients, remote administration and file transfer applications, and many others. Other applications, which require less reliable data or systematic communication, may use the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which provides a datagram service that trades reduced latency for reliability.
In one implementation, the system logic 114 includes one or more processors 116 and a memory 120. The memory 120 stores, for example, communication instructions 122 that the processor 116 executes. SIM1 102 and SIM2 104 may be on the same or different networks, and may be served by the same or different cells. For example, the Node B 128 may manage a particular cell to which SIM1 102 is connected, while the Node B 129 may manage a different cell to which SIM2 104 is connected. Accordingly, a circuit switched (CS) or a packet switched (PS) communication may be established for each of SIM1 and SIM2 independently. The user equipment 100 may store communication parameters, including parameters for each of the SIMs and for each type of communication. The parameters may be stored in the memory 120 as the SIM1 communication parameters 124 and the SIM2 communication parameters 126. The memory 120 may also include other parameters and instructions such as predetermined conditions 130 and multi-RAT switch logic 1100 (both described below). The Node Bs 128 and 129 (e.g., UMTS network base stations) can signal some or all of the communication parameters (e.g., paging indicator timing parameters) to the user equipment 100 through information elements in a control channel, for example.
As mentioned above, the Node B 128 may be part of a network that supports SIM1 102, while the Node B 129 may be part of the same or different network that supports SIM2 104. As will be described in more detail below, the system logic 114 may enhance communications in a dual SIM environment by controlling which RAT(s) to employ. For example, the system logic 114 may assist in reducing power consumption by choosing to employ a first RAT that provides less bandwidth but uses less power to operate than a performance-centered second RAT. This would be advantageous in a scenario where power consumption takes priority over allotted bandwidth.
Also, the Node B 128 may manage a particular cell to which SIM1 202 is connected. Accordingly, a CS or a PS communication may be established for the SIM1. Further, the user equipment 100 may store communication parameters, including parameters for the SIM1 202 and for each type of communication. The communication parameters may be stored in the memory 220 as the SIM1 communication parameters 124. The memory 220 may also include other parameters and instructions such as predetermined conditions 230 and multi-RAT switch logic 1100 (both described below). The Node B 128 can signal the communication parameters to the user equipment 200 through information elements in a control channel, for example.
As will be described in more detail below, the system logic 214, analogous to the system logic 114, may increase efficiency of communications in a single SIM environment also. As will also be suggested in more detail below, the system logic 214 may increase efficiency of communications in a single SIM environment by controlling which RAT(s) to employ. For example, the system logic 214 may assist in reducing power consumption by choosing to employ a first RAT that provides less bandwidth but uses less power to operate than a performance-centered second RAT.
Although the techniques described in this document pertain to a dual SIM environment, such methods may also be analogously applied to a single SIM environment or user equipment having more than two SIMs.
Wireless communications may include CS and PS communications. While CS communications are commonly used for connecting voice circuits, dedicated circuits persisting between two communicating parties or nodes can be extended to signal content other than voice. A difference between CS and PS communications is that CS communications may provide for continuous transfer without overhead associated with PS communications. PS communications may include overhead for meeting quality of service guarantees afforded by reserving bandwidth and keeping PS communications protected from competing uses. Because of this overhead PS communications typically may benefit largely from RATs that provide greater performance characteristics, such as greater bandwidth or higher data transfer rates.
Also, the following description of
Referring back to
The sequence diagram 400 illustrates that the first VM 404 performing a cell search specifically for the first RAT 408 (412). Also, the second VM 406 may perform a cell search specifically for the first RAT 408 as well (414). Once the first RAT 408 is discovered by the first VM 404, for example, the first VM 404 may operate in an idle mode, camping on the discovered cell. Similarly, when the second VM 406 discovers the cell supported by the first RAT 408, the second VM 406 may camp on the discovered cell. In other words, the user equipment 100 may in certain modes constrain its connections to the network to any subset of available RATs (e.g., to 2G/3G out of the set of 2G/3G/4G).
Each VM may transition from idle or camped mode to an active mode during which the VM has been assigned dedicated RF resources to send or receive any desired PS or CS data. The transition happens when, for example, a VM establishes a CS or PS session with its network controller. The VM may establish a CS or PS session on its own accord (e.g., because the user placed a phone call or started a data download), or may establish a CS or PS session in response to paging or other notification from the network controller (e.g., because a third party is calling the user).
Also, a predetermined transition condition may occur (416). One example of the transition condition is that communication traffic from the data service 402 to the user equipment 100, from the user equipment 100 to the data service 402, or both exceeds a communication traffic threshold. More specifically, the transition condition may be that a target transmit or receive data rate for the connection exceeds what the RAT that is currently supporting the connection can provide. As another example, the transition condition may be an operator preference input on the user interface or saved in the memory 120. The operator input may specify, for example, that the user equipment 100 switch from 3G to 4G whenever 4G is available (e.g., regardless of bandwidth need or availability). Other predetermined transition conditions may include a specific requested or desired amount of bandwidth, or range of bandwidth, a specified desired level of power consumption (e.g., the user equipment 100 may consume less power in 3G mode than 4G mode, and the transition condition may specify that the user equipment use the lowest power consuming RAT). The transition conditions may be based on an evaluation of prior transition conditions, such as an evaluation of transition conditions over a period of time (e.g., evaluating averages or hysteresis of the transition conditions).
Upon meeting the predetermined transition condition, such as exceeding the target data rate, the first VM will enable the second RAT 410. The second RAT 410 may be one that can address the issue raised by the transition condition, such as the desire for a higher data rate. Therefore, the VM is permitted to communicate via the first RAT 408 or the second RAT 410 (418). Prior to that point, either VM may suppress a transition to the second RAT 410 in ways that are described below. Dependent on operating conditions reported to the first VM 404 either from the user equipment or over the network, a network controller (e.g., the network controller 300) may initiate RAT handover from the first RAT 408 to the second RAT 410 in order to accommodate a new operation condition, such as increased communication traffic (420). The initiation of RAT handover in the user equipment 100 may be controlled by the switching logic 310, such as by the switching logic 310 sending a VM an inter-RAT handover message.
However, the initiation of the RAT handover may happen in response to a trigger from the user equipment 100 signaling a desire or ability to communicate via the second RAT 410. The VM may effectively suppress the transition to the second RAT 410 by taking certain actions or forgoing certain actions, as examples: not signaling to the network controller the ability to handle the second RAT 410; signaling to the network controller that the user equipment cannot handle the second RAT 410; not signaling that cell coverage is found for the second RAT 410; and signaling a loss of (or the absence of) cell signal for the second RAT 410. The VM may suppress the transition regardless of whether the above actions or inactions are true or reflect the real situation at the user equipment 100. The transition is suppressed because the network controller will not instruct the user equipment 100 to transition to a RAT that the user equipment 100 cannot support or for which the user equipment 100 has no signal coverage.
In some implementations, once the user equipment 100 switches to the second RAT (e.g., from 2G to 3G), the system logic 114 may pass on receiving incoming calls. As examples, the user equipment 100 may forgo monitoring for incoming calls, or may reject incoming calls if they are detected. More particularly, the user equipment 100 may disallow the idle mode SIM to interrupt the active mode SIM to check for paging indicators or other incoming call indicia, while the active mode SIM is active on the second RAT (e.g., while the active mode SIM is receiving or sending data at the higher data rate). However, if the second SIM will make an outgoing connection, the system logic 114 may permit interruption or termination of the active mode SIM connection to give SIM 2 access to the RF interface to make its PS or CS connection.
In some implementations, the system logic 114 may specifically monitor for available RATs. For example, while the SIMs are camped on 2G or 3G cells, the system logic 114 may search for and discover signal coverage for 4G cells to make informed future decisions about how to connect to the network.
When the logic 1102 proceeds as described above, the search and discovery process has characteristics of a background search. One reason is that the search and discovery occurs while the SIMs are idle, or there is no active application currently on the RF interface. The logic 1102 may store in memory any indicia of the RATs discovered (1112), such as RAT type (2G/3G/4G, signal strength, cell identifiers, or other indicia).
The logic 1104 starts an application (1114). The application may be an application that establishes a PS session over a network connection to handle a data connection (e.g., a web browser). However, in other implementations, the application may be a voice application that establishes a CS session over a network connection to handle a voice call. A first RAT may support the network connection. For example, the first network connection might ordinarily be made as a 2G or 3G network connection. The logic 1104 may also determine whether an enhanced RAT is available (1116), for example by checking the memory for the indicia of the discovered RATs (saved at 1112). For example, the logic 1104 may determine whether a RAT that supports a higher data rate, has more reliable communication, or uses less power is available. If not, the logic 1104 may establish the network connection for the application using the first RAT (1118) which may persist until the application finishes (1120). Otherwise, if the enhanced RAT is available, then the logic 1104 may establish the network connection using the enhanced RAT (1122). As one example, the logic 1104 may establish the enhanced network connection by informing the network controller that the user equipment 100 is capable of using the enhanced RAT, and that signal coverage for the enhanced RAT exists, and then initially establishing the network connection using the enhanced RAT, e.g., when instructed or permitted by the network controller. Alternatively, the logic 1104 may initially establish the network connection using the first RAT, and then transition the application to the enhanced RAT, e.g., when instructed or permitted by the network controller. When the application finishes (1124), the logic 1104 may fallback to using the first RAT (1126) to perform activities such as background page monitoring for incoming calls on a 2G or 3G RAT.
The techniques described in this detailed description are not limited to any particular communication standard, communication standard parameters, or control or communication channels. Instead, the techniques described above are applicable to any communication aspects to achieve any desired efficiency goal in a communication system. Furthermore, techniques described in this detailed description are not limited to any particular ordering. Although the several of the figures depict a particular ordering of sub-processes, such ordering is merely meant to be illustrative.
The methods, devices, techniques, and logic described in this detailed description may be implemented in many different ways in many different combinations of hardware, software or firmware or both hardware and software. For example, all or parts of the system may include circuitry in a controller, a microprocessor, or an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or may be implemented with discrete logic or components, or a combination of other types of analog or digital circuitry, combined on a single integrated circuit or distributed among multiple integrated circuits. All or part of the logic described above may be implemented as instructions for execution by a processor, controller, or other processing device and may be stored in a tangible or non-transitory machine-readable or computer-readable medium such as flash memory, random access memory (RAM) or read only memory (ROM), erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM) or other machine-readable medium such as a compact disc read only memory (CDROM), or magnetic or optical disk. Thus, a product, such as a computer program product, may include a storage medium and computer readable instructions stored on the medium, which when executed in an endpoint, computer system, or other device, cause the device to perform operations according to any of the description above.
The processing capability of the system may be distributed among multiple system components, such as among multiple processors and memories, optionally including multiple distributed processing systems. Parameters, databases, and other data structures may be separately stored and managed, may be incorporated into a single memory or database, may be logically and physically organized in many different ways, and may implemented in many ways, including data structures such as linked lists, hash tables, or implicit storage mechanisms. Programs may be parts (e.g., subroutines) of a single program, separate programs, distributed across several memories and processors, or implemented in many different ways, such as in a library, such as a shared library (e.g., a dynamic link library (DLL)). The DLL, for example, may store code that performs any of the system processing described above. While various embodiments of the invention have been described, it will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that many more embodiments and implementations are possible within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not to be restricted except in light of the attached claims and their equivalents.
This application claims the benefit of priority to the following U.S. provisional patent applications: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 61/569,621, filed 12Dec. 2011, under attorney docket No. 14528.00045; U.S. patent application No. 61/587,521, filed 17Jan. 2012, under attorney docket No. 14528.00425; and U.S. patent application Ser. Number 61/595,546, filed 6Feb. 2012, under attorney docket number 14528.00460.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
61569621 | Dec 2011 | US | |
61587521 | Jan 2012 | US | |
61595546 | Feb 2012 | US |