User Terminal Offload Feedback Mechanism for Cellular Base Station Traffic Load
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for selecting user terminals for offload in cellular communication systems do not adequately consider factors such as the presence of nearby wireless LAN access points, user terminal movement, and battery status, leading to inefficient offload decisions.
Innovation Solution
A user terminal with a processor and memory that receives offload commands from a cellular base station, attempts to connect to a WLAN access point, determines the reason for connection failure (radio link or internal issue), and transmits a failure indication to the base station, allowing the terminal to reject offload if conditions are unfavorable.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If offload is performed on user terminals based only on radio resource usage, then traffic load on cellular base station is reduced, but offload efficiency deteriorates due to inappropriate selections (terminals without nearby WLAN, moving terminals, or terminals with low battery)
Solution Approach 1:
The user terminal provides feedback to the cellular base station about its connection status and suitability for offload. The terminal monitors whether it can successfully connect to WLAN access points and reports this information back, allowing the base station to make more accurate offload decisions based on real-time terminal conditions rather than just radio resource usage metrics.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary checks before executing offload by having the user terminal attempt to connect to WLAN access points in advance. The terminal reports connection results beforehand, allowing the base station to verify suitability before committing to offload, thus preventing inappropriate offload decisions.
2Reliability
If the user terminal attempts to connect to WLAN access point, then proper offload selection is enabled, but connection failure analysis complexity increases due to multiple possible failure reasons
Solution Approach 1:
The connection failure analysis is segmented into distinct categories: radio link issues (problems with communication between terminal and WLAN access point) and internal terminal issues (problems within the terminal itself). This segmentation allows the system to systematically identify and report specific failure types to the cellular base station without requiring complex undifferentiated analysis.
Data Source
AI summary
A user terminal, method, and apparatus receive an offload command instructing an offload from a cellular base station, the offload steering traffic from the cellular base station to a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point being while maintaining a connection between the user terminal and cellular base station. An attempt is made to connect to the WLAN access point in response to receiving the offload command, and in response to the attempt failing, determine whether a reason for the failure of connection to the WLAN access point is a first reason being an issue of a radio link between the user terminal and the WLAN access point or a second reason being an internal issue of the user terminal. A failure indication is transmitted to the base station in response to a connection failure indicates connection failure and indicates whether the reason is the first or second reason.