Control Plane Overload Management via UE Transfer
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Solution Overview
Problem
Control planes in radio access technologies like LTE and 5G often become overloaded, leading to denial of access for devices not in ongoing communication sessions, resulting in failed attempts to join the network and inefficient use of resources.
Innovation Solution
The technology identifies overloaded control planes, assesses available overlapping control planes, and transfers user equipment (UE) using criteria such as signal radio bearer usage, data radio bearer usage, IoT device classification, and Reference Signal Received Power to alleviate overload, thereby freeing up control plane capacity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If control plane capacity is increased to handle more UEs, then network access reliability improves, but device complexity and resource allocation complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the control plane functionality by introducing multiple control planes (first control plane and second control plane) that can independently handle different groups of UEs. This segmentation allows the system to distribute the load and improve reliability without requiring a single complex control plane to handle all UEs, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and complexity.
2Productivity
If control plane processing capacity is increased to reduce elapsed time, then productivity improves, but use of energy and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the functionality of multiple control planes to collectively handle control plane protocol stack processing for UEs. By combining the processing capacity of the first and second control planes, the system achieves higher overall productivity and reduced elapsed time without requiring a single high-power processor, thus resolving the contradiction between productivity and energy consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
The technology described herein reduces control-plane overloading by transferring UEs from the overloaded control plane to another available control plane. At a high level, the technology identifies when a control plane is overloaded, identifies other available control planes in a geographic area served by the overloaded control plane, and then identifies UEs for transfer using one or more criteria. Initially, a measure of control-plane performance for a control plane is received. Next, a determination is made that the control plane is overloaded by comparing the measure of control-plane performance to an overload threshold. When an overload condition exists for a control plane, then UEs with existing communication sessions using the control plane are identified for transfer.