Mobile Gateway for Local Traffic Offloading in Enterprise Networks
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Solution Overview
Problem
In indoor environments, cellular-telephone networks face challenges with degraded performance and limited coverage due to constraints on base stations, making it difficult to provide seamless mobility and quality-of-service for electronic devices within enterprise wireless networks.
Innovation Solution
A radio node with a mobile gateway is implemented in a local wireless network, providing IP addresses, triggering paging, and managing data transmission using LTE protocol, while enforcing quality-of-service policies and supporting lawful intercept, all without accessing the core network, and facilitating L2 and L3 bridges for mobility within and across subnets.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of stationary object
If cellular-telephone networks use macrocells with base stations, then network coverage area is improved, but device complexity and operational costs increase due to constraints on base station deployment
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the network into two parts: macrocells for wide-area coverage and local wireless networks (enterprise networks) for indoor/offloaded traffic. This segmentation allows macrocells to focus on broad coverage while local networks handle specific indoor traffic, reducing the need for dense macrocell base station deployment and lowering overall complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a gateway as an intermediary between the cellular-telephone network and the local wireless network. This gateway enables traffic offloading and interconnection without requiring direct integration, simplifying the architecture by providing a standardized interface point that mediates between the two network types
2Reliability
If cellular-telephone networks deploy more base stations to improve indoor performance, then network performance in indoor environments is improved, but operational costs and device complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the function of providing cellular services in local areas from the macrocell base stations and places it in local wireless networks with gateways. This extraction allows indoor performance to be improved through local network deployment rather than through expensive macrocell base station deployment, reducing operational costs
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a copy of cellular network functionality within local wireless networks through the gateway, which implements mobile gateway functions including IP address allocation, paging, and quality-of-service enforcement. This copying enables cellular services to be delivered locally without requiring physical macrocell base stations in every location
3Ease of operation
If cellular-telephone networks provide seamless mobility support, then user experience is improved, but network complexity and operational costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway acts as an intermediary that handles mobility management between macrocells and local networks. It maintains user context, manages handovers, and enforces quality-of-service policies, thereby providing seamless mobility support while containing network management complexity within the gateway rather than requiring complex coordination across the entire network
Data Source
AI summary
A communication technique for providing a mobile gateway in a radio node (such as an eNodeB) in a local wireless network that is associated with a venue is described. During the communication technique, the radio node may provide, via the mobile gateway, cellular-telephone-network services. In particular, the mobile gateway may implement functions including: providing, when an electronic device attaches to the local wireless network, an Internet Protocol (IP) address to the electronic device based on a media access control (MAC) address for the electronic device, which is, in part, provided by a mobile management entity (MME) in a cellular-telephone network; triggering, via a supported interface, paging to the electronic device when the electronic device is in idle in the local wireless network; transmitting uplink data and receiving downlink data via a cellular-telephone communication protocol (such as Long Term Evolution or LTE); and/or electronic-device mobility in the local wireless network.