Detecting cellular network bottlenecks through analysis of resource allocation patterns

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to "Detecting a Cellular Network Bottleneck by Analysis of Resource Allocation Patterns." The present disclosure discloses a system and method for operating a user equipment (UE) to determine a cellular network bottleneck in a downlink channel, and an apparatus for determining the cellular network bottleneck in a UE. The UE may determine a burst of network traffic from network traffic received from the cellular network during a series of transmission time intervals. The UE may analyze resource allocations to the UE during the burst to determine how busy the cellular network is. The UE may determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based at least in part on the analysis of the resource allocations to the UE in the burst.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application relates to wireless networks for user equipment (UE) devices, and more particularly to systems and methods for passively determining bottlenecks in cellular networks. Background Art

[0002] The use of wireless communication systems has grown rapidly. In recent years, wireless devices such as smart phones and tablets have become increasingly sophisticated. Mobile devices (i.e., user equipment devices or UEs) support phone calls, as well as provide access to the Internet, email, text messaging, and navigation using a global positioning system (GPS), and are capable of operating complex applications that utilize these capabilities. In addition, there are many different wireless communication technologies and wireless communication standards. Some examples of wireless communication standards include GSM, UMTS (e.g., associated with WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE, Advanced LTE (LTE-A), NR, HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), IEEE 802.11 (WLAN or Wi-Fi), BLUETOOTH, and LTE-A. TM Etc. The network associated with these standards is called the Radio Access Network (RAN).

[0003] The flow of data in a network is affected by the bandwidth of various resources and devices on the system supported by the network. Bottlenecks and network congestion may occur when a large amount of data is trying to flow through the network and the bandwidth support is insufficient. The continued increase in the popularity of mobile data applications has led to an increase in both the number of UEs using cellular networks and the overall consumption of mobile data on cellular networks. Sometimes, these increases lead to bottlenecks.

[0004] A network bottleneck refers to a condition where data flow (e.g., data transmission from a base station to a UE) is limited by insufficient computer or network resources or poor radio link performance (e.g., poor signal strength or interference). The term "network congestion" may also be used to refer to a bottleneck. A bottleneck may result in highly undesirable conditions such as slow communication speeds, poor application performance, application failures, and limitations on user efficiency and productivity on the network. Therefore, a variety of methods have been implemented to determine and manage network bottlenecks.

[0005] The determination of Radio Access Technology (RAT) bottlenecks at the UE is a very important but challenging problem, especially in the downlink (from base station to UE). If the UE can determine that a certain RAT has a bottleneck in the downlink, the UE can take steps to improve mobile application performance.

[0006] Existing methods for identifying bottlenecks in the downlink, such as SpeedTest, rely on measuring throughput. However, measuring cellular interface downlink throughput is not sufficient to identify bottlenecks, as low downlink throughput can be attributed to multiple factors. For example, low downlink throughput can be attributed to low application data rates provided, which is a condition not created by a RAT bottleneck.

[0007] Another prior art method of bottleneck determination utilizes active measurements for throughput estimation. Methods that rely on active measurements are limited because they cannot determine whether the bottleneck should be attributed to the radio access network (RAN) or the core network. In addition, methods that rely on active measurements impose additional overhead on the RAT, thereby creating even more traffic on the downlink. Therefore, improvements in the art are desired. Summary of the invention

[0008] Systems and methods for operating a user equipment (UE) to determine a cellular network bottleneck in a downlink channel, and embodiments of an apparatus in a UE for determining a cellular network bottleneck are presented herein. The UE may include: at least one antenna; a radio component operatively coupled to the at least one antenna for communicating with a cellular network; a memory coupled to the radio component; and a processor operatively coupled to the memory and the radio component.

[0009] The UE may determine a burst of network traffic from network traffic received from the cellular network during a series of transmission time intervals. The UE may analyze resource allocations to the UE during the burst to determine how busy the cellular network is. The UE may then determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based at least in part on the resource allocation analysis. In response to determining the bottleneck, the UE may take some action to attempt to resolve the bottleneck, such as switching from a current RAT to a different RAT.

[0010] The analysis may include determining a percentage of a plurality of transmission time intervals within a burst of network traffic for which no resources are allocated to the UE (indicating that the base station is busy), and comparing the percentage to a first threshold. The analysis may further include determining a status of each of at least a subset of the plurality of transmission time intervals within the burst of network traffic.

[0011] When determining the state of each transmission time interval within a burst, the UE may calculate a percentage of the total number of resource blocks allocated to the UE from the base station during each transmission time interval. The UE may then determine the state of each transmission time interval in the burst based on the percentage. The UE may determine the number of transmission time intervals with an active state within a burst of network traffic, wherein the active state indicates that a high percentage of resource blocks in the transmission time interval are allocated to the UE. The UE may also determine the number of transmission time intervals with a busy state within the burst, wherein the busy state indicates that no resource blocks are allocated to the UE within the burst of network traffic. The busy state within a burst may indicate that the network must serve other UEs and may therefore indicate a bottleneck. The UE may then determine the percentage of transmission time intervals with a busy state within a burst of network traffic.

[0012] When the UE does not receive a resource block during the corresponding transmission time interval and the previous transmission time interval has an active state, the UE may determine that the corresponding transmission time interval has a busy state. When the UE does not receive a resource block during the corresponding transmission time interval and the previous transmission time interval does not have an active state, the UE may determine that the transmission time interval has an idle state, for example, the previous TTI is the last active or idle state.

[0013] When executing the above method, the UE may calculate the average degree of busyness of the cellular network over multiple bursts and possibly over multiple time windows each containing multiple bursts. When determining whether there is a bottleneck, the UE may compare the average degree of busyness of the cellular network with a first threshold.

[0014] The UE may also determine the duration of the burst by identifying a first active transmission time interval and a last active transmission time interval of the burst. In some embodiments, the UE may calculate an average duration value. The UE may determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based at least in part on determining that the duration of a burst of network traffic is greater than a first duration threshold. In some embodiments, the UE may determine that a bottleneck exists when the duration of the burst is greater than a second shorter duration threshold and the degree of busyness of the cellular network is greater than a "busy" threshold. The UE may determine the first active transmission time interval (TTI) as having an activity state immediately preceding an empty TTI, and may determine the last active TTI as a transmission time interval having a non-zero percentage of resource blocks that contain data for the UE that is less than a high threshold.

[0015] It should be noted that the techniques described herein may be implemented in and / or used with a number of different types of devices, including but not limited to base stations, access points, cellular telephones, portable media players, tablet computers, wearable devices, and various other computing devices.

[0016] This disclosure is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the topics described in this document. Therefore, it should be understood that the above features are only examples and should not be construed as narrowing the scope or essence of the topics described herein in any way. Other features, aspects and advantages of the topics described herein will become apparent through the following detailed description, drawings and claims. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0017] A better understanding of the present invention may be obtained when the following detailed description of the embodiments is considered in conjunction with the following drawings.

[0018] Figure 1 An exemplary (and simplified) wireless communication system according to some embodiments is shown;

[0019] Figure 2 illustrates an example of a base station (base station) and an access point communicating with a user equipment (UE) device according to some embodiments;

[0020] Figure 3 is a block diagram of a cellular network system according to some embodiments;

[0021] Figure 4 An exemplary block diagram of a UE according to one embodiment is shown;

[0022] Figure 5 shows an exemplary block diagram of a base station according to one embodiment;

[0023] Figure 6 An example of downlink data transmission in LTE is shown;

[0024] Figure 7 shows various TTI states according to embodiments described herein;

[0025] Figure 8 A flow chart illustrating an exemplary bottleneck determination method according to embodiments described herein;

[0026] Fig. 9 A second exemplary bottleneck determination method according to embodiments described herein is shown;

[0027] Fig.10 shows an exemplary short burst interrupted by a measured gap according to embodiments described herein;

[0028] Fig.11 is a graph illustrating determination of a bottleneck according to embodiments described herein;

[0029] Fig.12 is a graph illustrating determination of a bottleneck according to embodiments described herein;

[0030] Fig.13 is a graph illustrating determination of “no bottleneck” according to embodiments described herein;

[0031] Fig.14 is a graph illustrating determination of a bottleneck according to embodiments described herein; and

[0032] Fig.15 is a graph illustrating the determination of “no bottleneck” according to embodiments described herein.

[0033] Although the present invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and described in detail herein. However, it should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereof are not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the purpose is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternative forms falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0034] Acronyms

[0035] Various acronyms are used throughout this disclosure. The definitions of the most prominent acronyms used that may appear throughout this disclosure are as follows:

[0036] UE: User Equipment

[0037] RF: Radio Frequency

[0038] BS: Base Station

[0039] NW:Network

[0040] DL: Downlink

[0041] UL: Uplink

[0042] GSM: Global System for Mobile Communications

[0043] UMTS: Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

[0044] LTE: Long Term Evolution

[0045] NR: New Radio

[0046] TX: Transmit / Transmit

[0047] RX: Receive / Receive

[0048] RAT: Radio Access Technology

[0049] RAN: Radio Access Network

[0050] FDMA: Frequency Division Multiple Access

[0051] IE: Information Element

[0052] NF: Network Function

[0053] PUSCH: Physical Uplink Shared Channel

[0054] PDCCH: Physical Downlink Control Channel

[0055] RRC: Radio Resource Control

[0056] the term

[0057] The following is a glossary of terms that will appear in this disclosure:

[0058] Memory medium - any of various types of non-transitory memory devices or storage devices. The term "memory medium" is intended to include installation media, for example, CD-ROM, floppy disk or tape device; computer system memory or random access memory such as DRAM, DDR RAM, SRAM, EDO RAM, Rambus RAM, etc.; non-volatile memory such as flash memory, magnetic media, for example, hard disk drive or optical storage device; registers or other similar types of memory elements, etc. The memory medium may also include other types of non-transitory memory or their combination. In addition, the memory medium may be located in the first computer system executing the program, or may be located in a different second computer system connected to the first computer system via a network such as the Internet. In the latter example, the second computer system may provide program instructions to the first computer system for execution. The term "memory medium" may include two or more memory media that may reside in different locations in different computer systems connected, for example, via a network. The memory medium may store program instructions (e.g., expressed as a computer program) that may be executed by one or more processors.

[0059] Carrier Medium—storage media as described above, and physical transmission media such as a bus, network, and / or other physical transmission media that transport signals such as electrical, electromagnetic or digital signals.

[0060] Computer System (or Computer) - Any of various types of computing or processing systems, including a personal computer system (PC), a mainframe computer system, a workstation, a network appliance, an Internet appliance, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a television system, a grid computing system, or other devices or combinations of devices. In general, the term "computer system" may be broadly defined as any device (or combination of devices) that includes at least one processor that executes instructions from a memory medium.

[0061] User Equipment (UE) (or "UE device") - any of various types of computer systems or devices that are mobile or portable and that perform wireless communications. Examples of UE devices include mobile phones or smart phones (e.g., iPhone TM , based on Android TM phones), tablets (e.g., iPad TM 、Samsung Galaxy TM ), portable gaming devices (e.g., Nintendo DS TM , PlayStation Portable TM 、Gameboy Advance TM , iPhone TM ), wearable devices (e.g., smart watches, smart glasses), laptops, PDAs, portable Internet devices, music players, data storage devices or other handheld devices, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned aerial vehicle controllers (UACs), vehicles, etc. In general, the term "UE" or "UE device" can be broadly defined to include any electronic device, computing device, and / or telecommunication device (or combination of devices) that is convenient for a user to transport and capable of wireless communication.

[0062] Wireless Device—Any of various types of computer systems or devices that perform wireless communications. A wireless device may be portable (or mobile), or may be stationary or fixed at a certain location. A UE is an example of a wireless device.

[0063] Communication device - any of various types of computer systems or devices that perform communication, where the communication may be wired or wireless. A communication device may be portable (or mobile), or may be stationary or fixed at a location. A wireless device is an example of a communication device. A UE is another example of a communication device.

[0064] Base Station (BS) - the term "base station" has the full breadth of its ordinary meaning and includes at least a wireless communication station installed at a fixed location and used to communicate as part of a wireless telephone system or a radio system.

[0065] Processing element (or processor) – refers to various elements or combinations of elements that are capable of performing functions in a device, such as a user equipment device or a cellular network device. Processing elements may include, for example, a processor and associated memory, portions or circuits of individual processor cores, entire processor cores, processor arrays, circuits such as ASICs (application specific integrated circuits), programmable hardware elements such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and any of the above combinations.

[0066] Wi-Fi - The term "Wi-Fi" has the full scope of its usual meaning and includes at least wireless communication networks or RATs that are served by wireless LAN (WLAN) access points and provide connectivity to the Internet through these access points. Most modern Wi-Fi networks (or WLAN networks) are based on the IEEE 802.11 standard and are marketed under the name "Wi-Fi". Wi-Fi (WLAN) networks are different from cellular networks.

[0067] Automatic—refers to an action or operation performed by a computer system (e.g., software executed by a computer system) or a device (e.g., a circuit, a programmable hardware element, an ASIC, etc.) without the need for user input to directly specify or perform the action or operation. Thus, the term "automatic" is in contrast to a user manually performing or specifying an action, where the user provides input to directly perform the action. An automatic process may be initiated by input provided by a user, but subsequent actions performed "automatically" are not specified by the user, i.e., are not performed "manually," where the user specifies each action to be performed. For example, a user filling out an electronic form by selecting each field and providing input specifying information (e.g., by typing in information, selecting checkboxes, radio selections, etc.) is manually filling out the form, even though the computer system must update the form in response to the user action. The form may be automatically filled out by a computer system, where the computer system (e.g., software executed on the computer system) analyzes the fields of the form and fills out the form without any user input specifying the answers to the fields. As indicated above, a user may invoke automatic filling out of a form, but not participate in the actual filling out of the form (e.g., the user does not manually specify the answers to the fields but rather they are automatically completed). This specification provides various examples of operations that are automatically performed in response to actions taken by a user.

[0068] Configured to - Various components may be described as being "configured to" perform one or more tasks. In such environments, "configured to" is a broad statement that generally means "having a structure" that performs one or more tasks during operation. Thus, a component can be configured to perform a task even when the component is not currently performing the task (e.g., a set of electrical conductors can be configured to electrically connect a module to another module even when the two modules are not connected). In some contexts, "configured to" can be a broad statement that generally means "having a structure" that performs one or more tasks during operation. Thus, the component can be configured to perform a task even when the component is not currently turned on. Typically, the circuitry that forms the structure corresponding to "configured to" may include hardware circuitry.

[0069] Bottleneck – A network bottleneck is a point at which the wireless network cannot accommodate the application data rate. A bottleneck may occur when the network has so many requests from multiple UEs that the network cannot provide one or more of the UEs with the attention they need or desire. A bottleneck may also occur when the performance of a wireless link is poor due to low signal strength or interference. As an example, a network “bottleneck” may be a point of communication congestion on the network.

[0070] Burst — A continuous transmission of data from one device to another, with or without interruptions.

[0071] Transmission Time Interval (TTI) - The term "Transmission Time Interval" has the full scope of its ordinary meaning and includes at least the time unit during which a base station (BS) schedules uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) data transmissions.

[0072] Radio Access Network (RAN) – A radio access network is a part of a telecommunication system that connects individual devices to the rest of the network through radio connections. The RAN resides between user equipment (such as a mobile phone, computer, or any remotely controlled machine) and provides connectivity to its core network. Examples of radio access networks include Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GSM, UMTS, 4G LTE, and 5G NR network connections.

[0073] Radio Access Technology (RAT) - Radio Access Technology is the underlying physical connection method of a radio access network. Many modern mobile phones support several RATs in one device, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GSM, UMTS, 4G LTE or 5G NR.

[0074] Uplink (UL) – In cellular communications, the uplink is the transmission path from the user equipment (UE) to the base station (BS).

[0075] Downlink (DL) – In cellular communications, the downlink is the transmission path from the base station (BS) to the user equipment (UE).

[0076] Contention – is a condition that occurs when two or more mobile devices or UEs compete for the same network resources.

[0077] For ease of description, various components may be described as performing one or more tasks. Such descriptions should be interpreted as including the phrase "configured to". The description of a component being configured to perform one or more tasks is expressly intended to not invoke the interpretation of the sixth paragraph of Section 112 of Title 35 of the United States Code on that component.

[0078] Figure 1 and Figure 2 -Exemplary Communication System

[0079] Figure 1 A simplified exemplary wireless communication system is shown that can implement various aspects of the present disclosure according to some embodiments. Note that Figure 1 The system is only an example of one possible system, and the embodiments may be implemented in any of a variety of systems as desired.

[0080] As shown, the exemplary wireless communication system includes a base station 102, which communicates with one or more (e.g., any number) user devices 106A, 106B, etc., through 106N via a transmission medium. Each user device may be referred to herein as a "user equipment" (UE) or a UE device. Therefore, user device 106 is referred to as a UE or a UE device. A UE device is an example of a wireless device.

[0081] The base station 102 may be a base transceiver station (BTS) or a cell site and may include hardware and / or software to enable wireless communications with the UEs 106A to 106N. If the base station 102 is implemented in the context of LTE, it may be referred to as an "eNodeB" or "eNB". If the base station 102 is implemented in the context of 5G NR, it may alternatively be referred to as a "gNodeB" or "gNB".

[0082] The communication area (or coverage area) of a base station may be referred to as a “cell.” The base station 102 and the user equipment may be configured to communicate over a transmission medium using any of a variety of radio access technologies (RATs), also referred to as wireless communication technologies or telecommunication standards, such as GSM, UMTS (WCDMA), LTE, Advanced LTE (LTE-A), LAA / LTE-U, 5G NR, 3GPP2, CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), Wi-Fi, etc.

[0083] Base station 102 may also be equipped to communicate with network 100 (e.g., a core network of a cellular service provider, a telecommunications network such as a public switched telephone network (PSTN), and / or the Internet, among other possible networks). Thus, base station 102 may facilitate communications between user devices and / or between user devices and network 100. In particular, cellular base station 102A may provide UE 106 with various communication capabilities such as voice, SMS, and / or data services.

[0084] Also as used herein, with respect to a UE, a base station may sometimes be considered to represent a network in consideration of uplink and downlink communications of the UE. Therefore, a UE communicating with one or more base stations in a network may also be understood as a UE communicating with the network.

[0085] Base station 102A and other similar base stations (such as base stations 102B...102N) operating according to the same or different cellular communication standards can therefore be provided as a network of cells that can provide continuous or nearly continuous overlapping service to UE 106A-N and similar devices over a geographic area via one or more cellular communication standards.

[0086] Thus, although base station 102A may function as Figure 1 106A-N, but each UE 106 may also be able to receive signals from (and possibly be within communication range of) one or more other cells (which may be provided by base stations 102B-N and / or any other base stations), which may be referred to as "neighboring cells." Such cells may also be able to facilitate communications between user devices and / or between user devices and network 100. Such cells may include "macro" cells, "micro" cells, "pico" cells, and / or cells of any various other granularity of service area size. For example, in Figure 1 The base stations 102A-B shown in FIG. 1 may be macro cells, while the base station 102N may be a micro cell. Other configurations are also possible.

[0087] In some embodiments, base station 102A may be a next generation base station, e.g., a 5G New Radio (5G NR) base station or "gNB". In some embodiments, a gNB may be connected to a legacy Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and / or to a New Radio Communications Core (NRC) network. In addition, a gNB cell may include one or more transition and reception points (TRPs). In addition, a UE capable of operating in accordance with 5G NR may be connected to one or more TRPs within one or more gNBs.

[0088] It should be noted that the UE 106 is capable of communicating using multiple wireless communication standards. For example, in addition to at least one cellular communication protocol (e.g., GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interface), LTE, LTE-A, 5G NR, HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), etc.), the UE 106 can be configured to communicate using wireless networking (e.g., Wi-Fi) and / or peer-to-peer wireless communication protocols (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi peer-to-peer, etc.). If desired, the UE 106 can also or alternatively be configured to communicate using one or more global navigation satellite systems (GNSS, such as GPS or GLONASS), one or more mobile television broadcast standards (e.g., ATSC-M / H or DVB-H), and / or any other wireless communication protocol. Other combinations of wireless communication standards (including more than two wireless communication standards) are also possible.

[0089] Figure 2 A user equipment (UE) 106 (e.g., one of device 106A through device 106N) is shown in communication with a base station 102 and an access point 112 according to some embodiments. The UE 106 may be a device having cellular communication capabilities and non-cellular communication capabilities (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, etc.), such as a mobile phone, a handheld device, a computer or tablet, or substantially any type of wireless device as defined above.

[0090] UE 106 may include a processor (processing element) configured to execute program instructions stored in a memory. UE 106 may perform any of the operations described herein by executing such stored instructions. Alternatively or in addition, UE 106 may include programmable hardware elements, such as FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), integrated circuits, and / or any of various other possible hardware components configured to perform (e.g., individually or in combination) any of the embodiments described herein or any part of any of the embodiments described herein.

[0091] UE 106 may include one or more antennas for communicating using one or more wireless communication protocols or technologies. In some embodiments, UE 106 may be configured to communicate using, for example, CDMA2000 (1xRTT / 1xEV-DO / HRPD / eHRPD), LTE / Advanced LTE, or 5G NR using a single shared radio component and / or GSM, LTE, Advanced LTE, or 5G Nr using a single shared radio component. The shared radio may be coupled to a single antenna, or may be coupled to multiple antennas (e.g., for MIMO) for performing wireless communications. Typically, the radio component may include any combination of a baseband processor, an analog radio frequency (RF) signal processing circuit (e.g., including filters, mixers, oscillators, amplifiers, etc.), or a digital processing circuit (e.g., for digital modulation and other digital processing). Similarly, the radio component may use the aforementioned hardware to implement one or more receive chains and transmit chains. For example, UE 106 may share one or more parts of a receive chain and / or transmit chain between multiple wireless communication technologies such as those discussed above.

[0092] In some embodiments, UE 106 may include a separate transmit chain and / or receive chain (e.g., including separate antennas and other radio components) for each wireless communication protocol configured to communicate with it. As another possibility, UE 106 may include one or more radio components shared between multiple wireless communication protocols, and one or more radio components used uniquely by a single wireless communication protocol. For example, UE 106 may include a shared radio component for communicating using any one of LTE or 5GNR (or LTE or 1xRTT, or LTE or GSM), and a separate radio component for communicating using each of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Other configurations are also possible.

[0093] Similarly, the base station 102 may include a processor (processing element) configured to execute program instructions stored in a memory. The base station 102 may perform any of the operations described herein by executing such stored instructions. Alternatively or in addition, the base station 102 may include a programmable hardware element, such as an FPGA (field programmable gate array), an integrated circuit, and / or any of a variety of other possible hardware components configured to perform (e.g., alone or in combination) any of the embodiments described herein or any part of any of the embodiments described herein.

[0094] Figure 3 —Example Cellular Network

[0095] Figure 3is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary cellular network according to some embodiments. As shown, a UE wirelessly communicates with a base station, which may be referred to as a gNB as an example. The base station in turn communicates with a cellular network.

[0096] Figure 3 A simplified view of a cellular network is shown, which illustrates various elements that may be relevant to the operations described herein. As shown, a base station may be coupled to a radio access network (RAN). The RAN may in turn be coupled to various network elements or network functions, such as one or more computer systems that implement various network functions. For example, the radio access network may be coupled to a user plane function (UPF), which in turn may be coupled to various additional network functions.

[0097] Typically, the network function may be implemented as software executed on a computer system (such as a server, e.g., a cloud server). The network functions that may be present in a cellular network system may include functions such as: access and mobility management function (AMF), policy control function (PCF), network data analysis function (NWDAF), application function (AF), network slice selection function (NSSF), and UE radio capability management function (UCMF) and various possible other functions.

[0098] Figure 4 – Block diagram of an exemplary UE device

[0099] Figure 4 A block diagram of an exemplary UE 106 according to some embodiments is shown. As shown, the UE 106 may include a system on a chip (SOC) 300, which may include parts for various purposes. For example, as shown, the SOC 300 may include a processor 302 that can execute program instructions for the UE 106, and a display circuit 304 that can perform graphics processing and provide display signals to a display 360. The SOC 300 may also include a motion sensing circuit 370, which may detect the motion of the UE 106, for example, using any of a gyroscope, an accelerometer, and / or various other motion sensing components. The processor 302 may also be coupled to a memory management unit (MMU) 340 and / or other circuits or devices, such as the display circuit 304, the radio component 330, the connector I / F 320, and / or the display 360, which may be configured to receive addresses from the processor 302 and translate those addresses into locations in memory (e.g., the memory 306, the read-only memory (ROM) 350, the flash memory 310). The MMU 340 may be configured to perform memory protection and page table translation or setup. In some embodiments, the MMU 340 may be included as part of the processor 302.

[0100] As shown, SOC 300 may be coupled to various other circuits of UE 106. For example, UE 106 may include various types of memory (e.g., including NAND flash memory 310), connector interface 320 (e.g., for coupling to a computer system, a docking station, a charging station, etc.), display 360, and wireless communication circuitry 330 (e.g., for LTE, LTE-A, NR, CDMA2000, BLUETOOTH TM , Wi-Fi, GPS, etc.). The UE device 106 may include at least one antenna (e.g., 335a), and may include multiple antennas (e.g., as shown by antennas 335a and 335b) for performing wireless communications with base stations and / or other devices. Antennas 335a and 335b are shown by way of example, and the UE device 106 may include fewer or more antennas. In general, one or more antennas are collectively referred to as antennas 335. For example, the UE device 106 may use antenna 335 to perform wireless communications with the aid of radio circuitry 330. As described above, in some embodiments, the UE may be configured to perform wireless communications using multiple wireless communication standards.

[0101] In some embodiments, radio 330 may include separate controllers dedicated to controlling communications for various corresponding RAT standards. Figure 4 As shown, the radio component 330 may include a Wi-Fi controller 352, a cellular controller (eg, an LTE and / or LTE-A controller) 354, and a BLUETOOTH controller. TM Controller 356, and in at least some embodiments, one or more or all of these controllers may be implemented as respective integrated circuits (referred to as ICs or chips) that communicate with each other and with SOC 300 (more specifically, with processor 302). For example, Wi-Fi controller 352 may communicate with cellular controller 354 via a cell-ISM link or WCI interface, and / or BLUETOOTH TM The controller 356 may communicate with the cellular controller 354 via a cell-ISM link, etc. Although three separate controllers are shown within the radio 330, other embodiments may be implemented in the UE device 106 having fewer or more similar controllers for various different RATs.

[0102] Figure 5 – Block diagram of an exemplary base station

[0103] Figure 5A block diagram of an exemplary base station 102 according to some embodiments is shown. Note that the base station of FIG. 5 is only one example of a possible base station. As shown, the base station 102 may include a processor 404 that may execute program instructions for the base station 102. The processor 404 may also be coupled to a memory management unit (MMU) 440 or other circuit or device, which may be configured to receive addresses from the processor 404 and convert these addresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 460 and read-only memory (ROM) 450).

[0104] Base station 102 may include at least one network port 470. Network port 470 may be configured to couple to a telephone network and provide access to the telephone network described above. Figure 1 and Figure 2 The network port 470 may be configured to couple to a plurality of devices such as the UE device 106 of the telephone network described in the embodiment of the present invention. The network port 470 (or an additional network port) may also be configured or alternatively configured to couple to a cellular network, such as a core network of a cellular service provider. The core network may provide mobility-related services and / or other services to a plurality of devices such as the UE device 106. In some cases, the network port 470 may be coupled to the telephone network via the core network, and / or the core network may provide the telephone network (e.g., in other UE devices served by the cellular service provider).

[0105] The base station 102 may include at least one antenna 434 and possibly multiple antennas. One or more antennas 434 may be configured to operate as a wireless transceiver and may be further configured to communicate with the UE device 106 via the radio component 430. The antenna 434 communicates with the radio component 430 via a communication chain 432. The communication chain 432 may be a receiving chain, a transmitting chain, or both. The radio component 430 may be designed to communicate via various wireless telecommunication standards, including but not limited to NR, LTE, LTE-A WCDMA, CDMA2000, etc. The processor 404 of the base station 102 may be configured to implement and / or support implementation of part or all of the methods described herein, for example by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). In the case of certain RATs (e.g., Wi-Fi), the base station 102 may be designed as an access point (AP), in which case the network port 470 may be implemented to provide access to a wide area network and / or one or more local area networks, for example it may include at least one Ethernet port, and the radio component 430 may be designed to communicate according to the Wi-Fi standard.

[0106] Bottleneck identification

[0107] A network bottleneck can be characterized as a point of traffic congestion on the network. The network may have so many requests from various UEs that the network cannot provide one or more other UEs with the attention they need or desire. In this case, a bottleneck may occur in the downlink between the base station and the UE. The bottleneck may result in slow communications, poor application performance, and may limit user efficiency and productivity on the network.

[0108] If the UE can determine a bottleneck in the downlink (from the base station to the UE), the UE may have the opportunity to take action to mitigate the impact on the UE. For example, upon determining a bottleneck in the downlink, the UE may choose to adjust the execution of one or more applications, alert the network and / or user, or switch to another RAT.

[0109] Systems and methods for identifying cellular network bottlenecks by utilizing base station scheduling patterns are described herein. The base station scheduling patterns may be used to first identify traffic bursts and then analyze these traffic bursts to determine a cellular network bottleneck. In other words, the embodiments described herein may be operable to analyze resource allocations to UEs in received transmission time intervals (TTIs) to determine (or attempt to assess) how busy the cellular network is, and therefore determine whether a bottleneck has occurred.

[0110] Figure 6 – Downlink data transmission

[0111] Figure 6 A downlink data transmission using LTE as an example is shown. A resource block (RB) is the smallest resource unit that can be allocated to a UE by a base station. A cellular base station may use a centralized proportional fair scheduler that allocates RBs to UEs at each scheduling interval. In this case, the scheduling interval may also be referred to as a transmission time interval (TTI). For example, in LTE, RBs are specified in the time (7 OFDM symbols) and frequency (12 subcarriers) dimensions, and the TTI is 1 ms. For a 20 MHz channel, there are 100 RBs in one TTI.

[0112] A burst is traditionally defined as continuous data transmission from one device to another, ideally without interruption (but there may be some interruptions). The base station preferably sends data to each UE in a burst, i.e., allocating all RBs in a TTI to one UE. There are many reasons for this behavior. For example, bursts save spectrum by reducing control channel overhead. In addition, bursts improve the battery life of the UE by increasing the time that the radio components of the UE can enter low-power mode. Therefore, in each TTI, the base station will allocate a small portion of the total RBs to the target UE only when there is no more buffered data for the target UE, which means the end of the burst. Therefore, the embodiments described herein can enable the UE to determine the start and end of a burst by observing the RB allocation pattern of the base station.

[0113] As used herein, the term "burst" is used to refer to both traditional bursts as defined above (continuous transmission of mostly uninterrupted data), as well as partially continuous data transmission that is actually interrupted by the network due to a bottleneck, a measurement gap, or some other reason. In other words, as used herein, the term "burst" refers to a group of data received by a UE in two or more consecutive transmission intervals, which may or may not actually have been interrupted by an empty TTI due to a bottleneck or some other problem.

[0114] The embodiments described herein characterize the "state" of a TTI based on the amount of RBs allocated to a UE during the TTI. The UE can use these states to determine whether the cellular network (or base station) is busy during one or more bursts of network traffic, thereby identifying bottlenecks in the downlink between the base station and the UE.

[0115] Figure 7 —TTI status used in the burst detection method

[0116] Figure 7 The TTI states used in the burst determination method according to some embodiments described herein are shown. Four TTI states are defined: Active TTI, Last Active TTI, Idle TTI and Busy TTI.

[0117] An active TTI may be defined as a TTI in which the percentage of RBs allocated to a UE is greater than a high threshold (such as 75%). In an active TTI, a large percentage of the TTI's resource blocks are allocated to the UE, so the TTI is presumed to be part of a download network traffic burst from the network (base station) to the UE.

[0118] The last active TTI may be defined as the TTI in which the percentage of RBs allocated to the UE is less than a high threshold (such as 75%) and is non-zero (greater than 0%). In the last active TTI, a small percentage of the resource blocks are allocated to the UE, so this TTI is presumed to indicate the end of the burst. This is based on the concept that at the end of a burst, the "leftover" or "last remaining" data is being transmitted, which is typically not a full amount of resource blocks, but typically a small percentage (except in a few outlier cases).

[0119] A busy TTI may be defined as a TTI in which the percentage of RBs allocated to a UE is zero or 0% (i.e., in which the UE is not scheduled during the TTI) and in which the previous TTI is an active TTI. For a busy TTI, no resource blocks are allocated to the UE in the TTI and the TTI follows an active TTI (not the last active TTI), which means that the TTI is presumed to be within a continuous burst (because the last active TTI has not yet been received).

[0120] An idle TTI may be defined as a TTI in which the percentage of RBs allocated to the TTI is 0% (i.e., in which no UE is scheduled during the TTI) and in which the previous TTI is the last active TTI or an idle TTI. In the case of an idle TTI, no resource blocks are allocated to the UE in the TTI and the TTI follows the last active TTI (not an active TTI), which means that the TTI is presumed to be at the end of consecutive bursts, for example, between bursts when the base station is transmitting data to other UEs.

[0121] Figure 7 An example of two determined bursts is shown, namely, Burst 1 and Burst 2. As shown, a burst can be determined to start with a transmission time interval (TTI) identified as the first active TTI (the active TTI before the idle TTI) and end with the last active TTI identified (the last active TTI). Burst 1 includes six TTIs, four of which are active TTIs and two of which are busy TTIs. Burst 2 includes two TTIs, both of which are active TTIs (and no busy TTIs). Figure 7 In the example of , the bursts are measured such that they do not include the associated last active TTI. Alternatively, the bursts may be measured such that they do include the associated last active TTI.

[0122] A base station may be determined to have a busy percentage equal to the number of busy TTIs during a burst divided by the total number of TTIs in the burst. Consistent with this definition, Burst 1 may be described as having a busy percentage of 33.3%, with 2 TTIs identified as busy and 4 TTIs identified as active, yielding a ratio of 2 divided by 6, or 33.3%. Alternatively, the last active TTI may also be counted as part of the burst, so the ratio would be 2 divided by 7, or 28.5%.

[0123] Burst 2 may be described as having a busy percentage of 0% since it does not have any busy TTIs.

[0124] A bottleneck in the downlink may be caused by various scenarios, such as application data rate greater than RAT throughput, high contention between UEs receiving network traffic from the same base station, etc. A first scenario may result in bursts with high duration, such as bursts with duration greater than 2 seconds. A second scenario may result in bursts of significant duration that also have a high busy percentage, such as bursts with duration greater than or equal to 40 milliseconds and a busy percentage greater than 50%. Embodiments described herein may be operable to determine a bottleneck in the downlink by identifying the aforementioned conditions.

[0125] Figure 8 – Flowchart of bottleneck determination method

[0126] Figure 8 A flowchart of a bottleneck determination method according to some embodiments described herein is shown. The method of FIG8 may be performed by a UE, for example, by each of a plurality of UEs served by a cellular network. As described above, the method may analyze the resource allocation in the received TTI to determine whether a bottleneck may exist.

[0127] At 802, the method may determine a burst and may estimate a duration of the burst. As described above, a burst may be determined to start with a transmission time interval (TTI) that is first identified as an active TTI (the active TTI is preceded by an idle TTI) and end with the last active TTI identified (the last active TTI). The duration of the burst may include all transmission time intervals within the burst except the last active TTI. In the active TTI, RBs exceeding a high threshold (e.g., 75%) are allocated to the UE. In the last active TTI, RBs between 0% and a high threshold (e.g., 75%) are allocated to the UE.

[0128] After identifying the burst and determining the duration of the burst, at 804, the method may determine whether the length of the burst is greater than a burst duration threshold (e.g., 2 seconds). A burst of "long" duration (exceeding the "burst duration threshold") indicates that the base station needs considerable time to transmit the requested data to the UE. A long burst may mean that the data buffer of the base station is full, that is, there is a "backlog" of UE application data at the base station. The backlog may indicate that the UE's application data rate is greater than the throughput of the RAT downlink channel, resulting in a bottleneck. The burst duration threshold may be any of a variety of values. In this example, the burst duration threshold is 2 seconds. However, other thresholds (e.g., any value in the range of 1 second or higher) may be used to indicate a "long" burst.

[0129] If the UE determines that the burst exceeds the burst duration threshold, the UE determines a bottleneck at 812 and operations are complete, such as returning to 802 to monitor for newly received bursts. If the length of the burst is less than the burst duration threshold, the method proceeds to 806.

[0130] At 806, the method can estimate a busy percentage of the burst. As described above, the base station can be determined to have a busy percentage equal to the number of busy TTIs during the burst divided by the total number of TTIs in the burst. A busy TTI immediately follows an active TTI and includes zero RBs allocated to the UE.

[0131] The presence of a busy TTI within a burst may indicate that, while the base station is sending data to the UE (as indicated by the active TTI in the burst), the cellular network (base station) needs to transmit data to one or more other UEs (as indicated by the busy TTI during the burst). Therefore, the base station interrupts its service to the UE in order to handle these conflicting demands. This situation (where one or more UEs contend for scarce resources) is called "contention" between UEs.

[0132] Therefore, calculating the busy percentage of a burst may result in an indication of a bottleneck. The busy percentage may be calculated by dividing the total number of busy TTIs during a burst by the total number of active TTIs during a burst. The UE may perform other methods or processes to determine how busy the network is.

[0133] Bursts of moderate duration (greater than a medium duration threshold (e.g., 40 milliseconds), but less than a "long" burst duration threshold (e.g., 2 seconds)) may not be long enough by themselves to mean that there is a backlog of data at the base station, which may indicate a bottleneck. However, in this embodiment, bursts of at least moderate duration or longer and also having a significant busy percentage may indicate contention, and therefore a bottleneck.

[0134] At 808, the method may determine whether the burst is greater than a medium duration threshold (e.g., 40 milliseconds) and whether the burst has a busy percentage greater than a certain percentage (such as 50%). Any of a variety of busy percentage thresholds (such as a busy threshold percentage in the range of 40% or higher) may be used to determine whether the cellular network is busy.

[0135] If the answer to both determinations is "yes," the method may determine a bottleneck at 814. If the answer to one of these determinations is no, the method may determine that there is no bottleneck at 810. In this case, the method may return to 802 and begin evaluating a new burst.

[0136] Figure 8 The flowchart of can be repeatedly or continuously executed to continuously evaluate whether there is a bottleneck in the network. In some embodiments, the network can be disabled or turned off during time periods or geographic areas where bottlenecks are unlikely to occur. Figure 8 In some embodiments, a UE may share its bottleneck determination with other neighboring UEs.

[0137] In response to detecting a bottleneck, the UE may be operable to switch to using a different RAT. For example, when the UE detects a bottleneck using the above method, the UE may operate on an LTE network. The UE may operate on an LTE network because it may have less power requirements or possibly more available bandwidth than more modern RATs such as NR. A bottleneck identified on an LTE network may indicate that the speed of the LTE network cannot adapt to the application data rate of an application (such as a game) executed on the UE. A bottleneck identified on an LTE network may also indicate or alternatively indicate that two or more UEs are competing for the attention of a base station (network). It should be noted that the method described herein may identify a bottleneck using only passive measurements (i.e., using only data that has been sent to the UE). In addition, the method may not make any assumptions about application data rates or core network performance.

[0138] In response to detecting a bottleneck on the LTE network, the UE may transition to a different RAT, such as a 5G RAT (New Radio or NR), which may have less network congestion. Note that the UE may later transition back to the LTE network based on various criteria.

[0139] The embodiments described herein can be used in a variety of use cases. For example, the method can be used in "smart data mode" where the UE can enable its 5G interface (from using LTE to using NR) to improve cellular performance when a bottleneck is detected. The method can also be used in low power mode where the method allows the UE to operate using the LTE RAT to save energy and only switch to a different RAT, such as 5G, when needed. The method can also be used for smart SIM selection. The method can allow smart SIM selection when a RAT bottleneck is identified in a particular SIM.

[0140] Fig. 9 - Bottleneck identification over multiple time windows

[0141] Infrequently, a burst of network traffic may have a size that quite precisely fills an integer number of TTIs. In this case, a burst of network traffic will be indicated by only an integer number of active TTIs, i.e., there may not be a "left over" or "last remaining" amount of data that occupies only a portion of the last TTI of the burst. In this case, the method may not be able to identify the last active TTI associated with the end of the burst. To ensure burst determination (and subsequent bottleneck determination) in this case, the bottleneck detection method may calculate the average burst duration and average busy percentage (contention) over multiple time periods. Examples of such averaging methods are shown in Fig. 9 Shown in.

[0142] Fig. 9 Five continuous time period windows are shown, each having a duration of 2.5 seconds. One or more bursts (usually multiple bursts) can be determined in each time period. The duration and busy percentage of the bursts in each time period can be indicated in each corresponding time period window. The moving average of the burst duration and busy percentage can be calculated for each group in two groups of four continuous time windows. In these examples, both moving averages determine the bottleneck, which is consistent with the parameters of each individual time window.

[0143] Fig. 9 The method may be particularly useful in cases where bursts of network traffic fill exactly an integer number of TTIs and thus are not passed Figure 8 In such cases, a bottleneck detection method involving averaging over a time window may result in a more accurate detection of bursts and / or a more accurate estimate of network busyness.

[0144] The duration of each time window can be 2.5 seconds, such as Fig. 9However, the duration of each time window may be of any desired length, and is preferably longer than the burst duration threshold (e.g., 2 seconds). Also, it should be noted that the moving average calculation need not be limited to four time windows. Instead, the number of time windows used to calculate the moving average may vary depending on the characteristics of the system being analyzed.

[0145] Fig.10 – Short burst

[0146] Sometimes a UE receives bursts of less than a moderate duration (e.g., 40 milliseconds or less). Since short bursts indicate sparse traffic, some embodiments do not consider short bursts to indicate a bottleneck. Since busy estimates for short bursts may be unreliable, some embodiments do not consider whether these short bursts have a busy percentage.

[0147] The busy estimation of short bursts may be unreliable because idle TTIs caused by measurement gaps may be mistaken for busy TTIs. Fig.10 An example of such a scenario is shown. Fig.10 A short burst of 11 milliseconds (1 TTI = 1 millisecond) interrupted by a 10 millisecond measurement gap (represented by ten idle TTIs) is shown. Embodiments included herein may consider the duration of the short burst to be between 0 ms and 40 ms. However, this threshold may vary depending on the duration and periodicity of the measurement gaps in the RAT being analyzed.

[0148] Figures 11 to 15 - Example Operation

[0149] Fig.11 An example of detecting a bottleneck by the method described herein is shown. Fig.11 The graph represents the results of an experiment involving a downlink File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to a UE at 222.65Mbps. The RAT throughput was 200Mbps and there was no contention from other UEs. The method determined a median burst duration of 2.5 seconds and a median busy percentage of approximately 25%. Therefore, the method determined a bottleneck caused by high application data rates (bursts > 2s) and no contention (busy percentage < 50%). The presence of a bottleneck during this time period is confirmed by the presence and absence of application data in the data buffer of the UE under test.

[0150] Fig.12 An example of determining a bottleneck by an embodiment of the method is shown. Fig.12The graph of represents the results of an experiment involving a downlink File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to a UE at 222.65 Mbps. The RAT throughput is <200 Mbps and there is contention from a total of 18 UEs. As shown in the graph, the method first determines the bottleneck by determining that a burst duration of 315.7 ms has a busy percentage of 96.3%. The bottleneck is determined over a period of about fifty time windows (2.5 s each) during which the median burst duration is 2.5 seconds and the median busy duration is 97%.

[0151] Fig.13 An example is shown in which the absence of a bottleneck is determined by the method described herein. Fig.13 The graph of represents the results of an experiment involving downlink video streaming to a UE at an average rate of 20.3 Mbps, a rate much lower than the RAT throughput. There was no contention from other UEs. As shown in the graph, the method determined a mean burst duration of 27.7 ms and a median burst duration of 12 ms. The method determined a mean busy percentage of 28.9% and a median busy duration of 25%. Therefore, the method determined "no bottleneck" for the system under test.

[0152] Fig.14 An example of determining a bottleneck by the method described herein is shown. Fig.14 The curve diagram shows that Fig.13 Experimental results for the same conditions (downlink video streaming to the UE at an average rate of 20.3 Mbps, i.e. at a much lower rate than the RAT throughput), with additional contention from 11 other UEs. As shown in the graph, the method determines a median burst duration of 1418 ms and a median busy duration of 95.9%. By using a reference such as Fig. 9 The moving average calculation described above identifies the bottleneck of the system under test despite the presence of an outlier at x=100.

[0153] Fig.15 An example is shown in which the absence of a bottleneck is determined by the method described herein. Fig.15 The graph of represents the results of an experiment involving downlink video streaming to a UE at an average rate of 1.1 Mbps, a rate much lower than the RAT throughput. There was no contention from other UEs. As shown in the graph, the method determined a mean and median burst duration of 8 ms and a median busy duration of 20%. Therefore, the method determined "no bottleneck" for the system under test.

[0154] It is understood that the use of personally identifiable information should be subject to privacy policies and practices that are generally recognized to meet or exceed industry or government requirements for maintaining user privacy. Specifically, personally identifiable information data should be managed and processed to minimize the risk of unintentional or unauthorized access or use, and the nature of the authorized use should be clearly stated to users.

[0155] Although the above embodiments have been described in considerable detail, numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to encompass all such variations and modifications.

Claims

1. A user equipment UE, comprising: at least one antenna; a radio operably coupled to the at least one antenna for communicating with a cellular network; a memory coupled to the radio; and a processor operatively coupled to the memory and the radio; The UE is configured as follows: receiving network traffic from the cellular network during a series of transmission time intervals; determining a burst of network traffic from the received network traffic, wherein the burst of network traffic comprises a plurality of transmission time intervals; determining a duration of the burst by determining a first active transmission time interval of the burst and a last active transmission time interval of the burst, wherein the UE is configured to determine the first active transmission time interval as a first transmission time interval having an activity state immediately preceding a null transmission time interval, and wherein the UE is configured to determine the last active transmission time interval as a second transmission time interval having a non-zero percentage of resource blocks containing data for the UE that is less than a first threshold; analyzing resource allocations to the UE in the plurality of transmission time intervals to determine how busy the cellular network is; as well as The cellular network is determining that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based at least in part on the analyzing the resource allocations to the UE in the plurality of transmission time intervals, determining that the duration of the burst of network traffic is greater than a second threshold and that the cellular network is busy greater than a third threshold.

2. The UE according to claim 1, in, When analyzing the resource allocation to the UE in the plurality of transmission time intervals, the UE is configured to: determining a percentage of transmission time intervals within a burst of the network traffic during which no resources are allocated to the UE; and comparing the percentage to a fourth threshold; Wherein the UE is configured to determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based further at least in part on the percentage exceeding the fourth threshold.

3. The UE according to claim 1, in, In analyzing the resource allocation to the UE, the UE is configured to determine a status of each of at least a subset of the plurality of transmission time intervals within a burst of the network traffic; Wherein the UE is configured to determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based further at least in part on the determined status of the at least one subset of the plurality of transmission time intervals within the burst of the network traffic.

4. The UE according to claim 3, Each transmission time interval includes a plurality of resource blocks; in, In determining a status of each of at least a subset of the plurality of transmission time intervals within a burst of the network traffic, the UE is configured to: calculating a percentage of a total number of resource blocks allocated from a base station to the UE during each transmission time interval; The status of each transmission time interval in the burst is determined based on the percentage.

5. The UE according to claim 4, in, When analyzing the resource allocation to the UE, the UE is configured to: determining a number of transmission time intervals having an activity status within a burst of the network traffic, wherein the activity status indicates that a percentage of resource blocks in the transmission time interval above a threshold is allocated to the UE; as well as determining a number of transmission time intervals having a busy status, wherein the busy status indicates that no resource blocks within a burst of the network traffic are allocated to the UE; determining a percentage of transmission time intervals within a burst of the network traffic that have a busy state; and The percentage of the transmission time intervals having a busy status is compared with a fourth threshold.

6. The UE according to claim 5, wherein the UE is further configured to: determining that the corresponding transmission time interval has a busy state when the UE does not receive a resource block during the corresponding transmission time interval and a previous transmission time interval has an active state; When the UE does not receive a resource block during the corresponding transmission time interval and the previous transmission time interval does not have an active state, it is determined that the transmission time interval has an idle state.

7. The UE according to claim 2, wherein the UE is configured to determine an average degree to which the cellular network is busy over a plurality of bursts; wherein the UE is configured to compare the average degree of busyness of the cellular network with the fourth threshold; and The UE is further configured to determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based also at least in part on the average degree of busyness of the cellular network being greater than the fourth threshold.

8. The UE according to claim 1, wherein the UE is configured to determine a duration of each burst in the plurality of bursts; wherein the UE is configured to calculate an average burst duration based on the duration of each burst in the plurality of bursts; and Wherein the UE is configured to determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based further at least in part on determining that the average burst duration of the network traffic is greater than a burst duration threshold.

9. The UE according to claim 1, wherein the UE receives the network traffic while operating in a first radio access technology, RAT; Wherein the UE is further configured to switch to a second RAT in response to determining that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck.

10. A device for user equipment UE, the device comprising: a processor configured to cause the UE to: receiving network traffic from a cellular network during a series of transmission time intervals; determining a burst of network traffic from the received network traffic, wherein the burst of network traffic comprises a plurality of transmission time intervals; determining a duration of the burst by determining a first active transmission time interval of the burst and a last active transmission time interval of the burst, wherein the UE is configured to determine the first active transmission time interval as a first transmission time interval having an activity state immediately preceding a null transmission time interval, and wherein the UE is configured to determine the last active transmission time interval as a second transmission time interval having a non-zero percentage of resource blocks containing data for the UE that is less than a first threshold; analyzing resource allocations to the UE in the plurality of transmission time intervals to determine how busy the cellular network is; as well as The cellular network is determining that it is experiencing a bottleneck based at least in part on the analyzing the resource allocations to the UE in the plurality of transmission time intervals, determining that the duration of the burst of network traffic is greater than a second threshold, and that the cellular network is busy greater than a third threshold.

11. The device according to claim 10, Each transmission time interval includes a plurality of resource blocks; The processor is further configured to: calculating a percentage of a total number of resource blocks allocated from a base station to the UE during each transmission time interval; The status of each transmission time interval in the burst is determined based on the percentage.

12. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the apparatus is further configured to: When the percentage is greater than a fourth threshold, determining that the transmission time interval has an active state; When the percentage is greater than 0% and less than the fourth threshold, determining that the transmission time interval has the last activity state; When the percentage is 0%, it is determined that the transmission time interval has one of a busy state or an idle state.

13. The device according to claim 10, wherein the UE is configured to determine a duration of each burst in the plurality of bursts; wherein the UE is configured to calculate an average burst duration based on the duration of each burst in the plurality of bursts; Wherein the UE is configured to determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based further at least in part on determining that the average burst duration of the network traffic is greater than a second threshold.

14. A method for operating a user equipment (UE) in a cellular network, the method comprising: receiving network traffic from the cellular network during a series of transmission time intervals; determining a burst of network traffic from the received network traffic, wherein the burst of network traffic comprises a plurality of transmission time intervals; determining a duration of the burst by determining a first active transmission time interval of the burst and a last active transmission time interval of the burst, wherein the UE is configured to determine the first active transmission time interval as a first transmission time interval having an activity state immediately preceding a null transmission time interval, and wherein the UE is configured to determine the last active transmission time interval as a second transmission time interval having a non-zero percentage of resource blocks containing data for the UE that is less than a first threshold; analyzing resource allocations to the UE in each of the plurality of transmission time intervals in the burst to determine how busy the cellular network is; as well as Determining that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based at least in part on the analysis of the resource allocation to the UE in each of the plurality of transmission time intervals in the burst, determining that the duration of the burst of network traffic is greater than a second threshold and that the cellular network is busy greater than a third threshold.

15. The method according to claim 14, in, When analyzing the resource allocation to the UE in the plurality of transmission time intervals, the UE is configured to: determining a number of transmission time intervals within a burst of the network traffic during which no resources are allocated to the UE; Wherein the UE is configured to determine that the cellular network is experiencing a bottleneck based further at least in part on a determined number of transmission time intervals within a burst of the network traffic during which no resources are allocated to the UE.

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