Virtual Home Network APN for Roaming Latency
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Solution Overview
Problem
Roaming services experience noticeable latency and resource utilization issues when user devices connect to visitor networks, as traffic is routed back and forth between the user device and the home network, which can be physically far away, leading to increased latency and resource consumption.
Innovation Solution
The implementation of a virtual home network is instantiated, using a virtual gateway connected to the packet data network, which reduces the distance traffic needs to travel and offloads resource usage from the home network by hosting the virtual network on a device closer to the user device and visitor network.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If home-routed routing is used to enable roaming services, then user devices can access services provided by the home network through a gateway, but traffic must travel a long distance back and forth between the user device and the home network, resulting in noticeable latency
Solution Approach 1:
A virtual gateway is introduced as an intermediary component that is physically located near the user device in the visitor network. This virtual gateway acts as a mediator between the user device and the home network, allowing traffic to be routed through a local point rather than forcing all traffic to travel back to the distant home network gateway, thereby reducing latency while maintaining service availability
2Reliability
If home-routed routing is used for roaming services, then user devices can connect to visitor networks and access home network services, but resources of the home network are consumed to handle traffic forwarding
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the gateway functionality from the home network infrastructure and deploys it as a virtual gateway in the visitor network. This extraction allows the resource-intensive traffic forwarding operations to be performed locally in the visitor network rather than consuming home network resources, while the home network retains control and service provisioning capabilities
3Loss of time
If a virtual home network is instantiated with a virtual gateway connected to the packet data network, then traffic travels a shorter distance and latency is reduced, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual copy of the home network gateway functionality that resides in the visitor network. This copy replicates the essential routing and forwarding capabilities needed for local traffic handling, reducing latency without requiring complete duplication of the entire home network infrastructure. The virtual gateway is a simplified representation that performs only the necessary functions
Data Source
AI summary
A device associated with a home network may receive an access point name (APN) request from a device associated with a visitor network, wherein the APN request is associated with a user device. The device associated with the home network may cause, based on the APN request, a virtual home network to be instantiated that includes a virtual gateway, wherein the virtual home network is physically closer to the user device than the home network. The device associated with the home network may generate an APN that identifies the virtual home network and the virtual gateway. The device associated with the home network may cause the APN to be sent to the device associated with the visitor network to cause a gateway associated with the visitor network to connect to the virtual gateway.