公开(公告)号：US11419172B2

公开(公告)日：2022-08-16

申请号：US17247519

申请日：2020-12-15

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Hemanth B. Pawar ,  Krishna Sitaram ,  Shilpa K. Srinivas

IPC: H04W76/15 ,  H04W76/16 ,  H04W28/02 ,  H04W88/06 ,  H04W36/00

Abstract: When a user equipment device (UE) is served with standalone connectivity by a first access node on a first carrier, the first access node could detect a trigger for transitioning the UE from the standalone connectivity to dual connectivity. In response to at least the trigger, the first access node could then (i) transition the UE from the first carrier to a second carrier selected based on the second carrier being lower in frequency than the first carrier, so as to help facilitate quality communication in the dual connectivity service, and then (ii) transition the UE from the standalone connectivity to the dual connectivity.

公开(公告)号：US11343762B1

公开(公告)日：2022-05-24

申请号：US16947789

申请日：2020-08-17

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Sreekar Marupaduga

IPC: H04W48/20 ,  H04W88/08 ,  H04W76/15 ,  H04W88/14 ,  H04W28/02 ,  H04W28/06

Abstract: A method and system to control selection of a serving cell for a UE. An example method includes determining respectively for each candidate cell of multiple candidate cells a maximum backhaul bit rate of the candidate cell, determining that a given one of the candidate cells has a highest determined maximum backhaul bit rate among the candidate cells, and based at least on the determining that the given candidate cell has the highest determined maximum backhaul bit rate among the candidate cells, selecting the given candidate cell to be the serving cell for the UE. Further, the method could also include basing the selection on consideration of a backhaul packet-drop rate of the given cell. In example implementations, the selection of a serving cell could be a selection of a PCell for carrier-aggregation service, an anchor cell for dual-connectivity service, or a secondary cell for dual-connectivity service, among other possibilities.

公开(公告)号：US11337113B2

公开(公告)日：2022-05-17

申请号：US16947524

申请日：2020-08-05

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Sreekar Marupaduga

IPC: H04W24/10 ,  H04W28/08 ,  H04W28/10 ,  H04W36/00 ,  H04W52/24 ,  H04W52/36 ,  H04W72/04 ,  H04W72/08 ,  H04W76/15 ,  H04W76/25 ,  H04W76/34 ,  H04W84/02 ,  H04W88/06 ,  H04W92/02 ,  H04W92/10

Abstract: A method and system for controlling apportionment of uplink data flow of a UE having a first connection with a first access node and a second connection with a second access node. An example system could operate to determine an uplink data apportionment, defining what portion of the uplink data flow the UE should provide on the first connection versus what portion of the uplink data flow the UE should provide on the second connection, where determining the uplink data apportionment is based on (i) a comparison of uplink power headroom of the UE on the first connection with uplink power headroom of the UE on the second connection and/or (ii) a comparison of uplink noise on the first connection with uplink noise on the second connection. Further, the example system could then cause the UE to operate in accordance with the determined uplink data apportionment.

公开(公告)号：US11297671B1

公开(公告)日：2022-04-05

申请号：US16842475

申请日：2020-04-07

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Sreekar Marupaduga

IPC: H04W76/16 ,  H04W72/04 ,  H04W48/20 ,  H04W52/24

Abstract: When a first access node is considering setup of dual-connectivity service for a UE, the first access node could take into consideration the uplink path loss respectively of each of one or more candidate second access nodes, in order to decide whether to set up the dual-connectivity service for the UE and/or to decide which of the multiple second access nodes to use for the UE's dual-connectivity service. For instance, the first access node may decide to use a given candidate second access node for the dual-connectivity service of the UE, with the decision being based on the given candidate second access node having a lower measure of uplink path loss than one or more other candidate second access nodes.

公开(公告)号：US11277797B1

公开(公告)日：2022-03-15

申请号：US17247596

申请日：2020-12-17

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Sreekar Marupaduga

IPC: H04W52/02

Abstract: A method and system for controlling uplink-path switching of a user equipment device (UE) when the UE has at least two co-existing air-interface connections including a first air-interface connection with a first access node and a second air-interface connection with a second access node, where one of the connections defining a primary uplink path of the UE and an uplink-path-switch control process dynamically controls switching which one of the air-interface connections is the UE's primary uplink path. An example method includes (a) detecting that both (i) the switching of which one of the air-interface connections is the UE's primary uplink path has been occurring at a threshold high rate and (ii) the UE's remaining battery energy threshold low, and (b) responsive to at least the detecting, disabling further switching of which one of the air-interface connections is the UE's primary uplink path while the UE maintains the co-existing air-interface connections.

公开(公告)号：US11272523B1

公开(公告)日：2022-03-08

申请号：US16858235

申请日：2020-04-24

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Sreekar Marupaduga

IPC: H04W72/12 ,  H04W88/10 ,  H04W92/10

Abstract: A method and system to control air-interface-resource scheduling priority of a user equipment device (UE) served by an access node over an air interface, where the air interface defining air-interface resources such as physical resource blocks (PRBs) allocable by the access node. In an example method, the access node detects that both (i) the UE has threshold low remaining battery energy and (ii) the UE is served with non-standalone connectivity, such as EN-DC, rather than with standalone connectivity, such as 4G-only or 5G-only. And based at least on that detecting, the access node transitions from serving the UE with a baseline air-interface scheduling priority to serving the UE instead with an increased air-interface scheduling priority higher than the baseline scheduling priority.

公开(公告)号：US11258494B1

公开(公告)日：2022-02-22

申请号：US16373335

申请日：2019-04-02

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Krishna Sitaram ,  Hemanth B. Pawar ,  Shilpa K. Srinivas

IPC: H04B7/06 ,  H04W24/08 ,  H04B7/0413 ,  H04W88/08

Abstract: A base station or an associated control entity determines when base station's air interface is threshold highly loaded or is predicted to be threshold highly loaded, and the base station responsively reduces the number of transmit antennas that the base station uses. Further, the base station or associated control entity could determine when the base station's air interface is no longer actually or predicted to be threshold highly loaded, and the base station could responsively increase the number of transmit antennas that the base station uses, such as by reverting to use a default number of antennas. Reducing the number of transmit antennas that the base station uses when its air interface is threshold highly loaded may help to increase air-interface capacity by reducing resource consumption from transmission of reference signals associated with the transmit antennas.

公开(公告)号：US11234290B1

公开(公告)日：2022-01-25

申请号：US16847287

申请日：2020-04-13

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Sathyanarayanan Raghunathan ,  Muthukumaraswamy Sekar ,  Maheswaran Vijayakumar ,  Suresh Majjara

IPC: H04W76/28 ,  H04W36/00 ,  H04W36/06 ,  H04W88/10 ,  H04W36/30 ,  H04W76/34 ,  H04W84/04 ,  H04L1/00

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems for configuring service of a user equipment device (UE). When the UE has dual-connectivity service, such as EN-DC service, high quality on one of the UE's air-interface connections could result in transition of the UE to operate in discontinuous reception (DRX) mode on the UE's other air-interface connection.

公开(公告)号：US11197206B1

公开(公告)日：2021-12-07

申请号：US16385514

申请日：2019-04-16

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Siddharth S. Oroskar ,  Jasinder P. Singh

IPC: H04W36/00 ,  H04W36/18 ,  H04W36/30

Abstract: When a UE is served with dual-connectivity by a master node (MN) over master connection on a first radio access technology (RAT) and a secondary node (SN) over a secondary connection on a second RAT and where the UE is engaged in a voice call over the master connection, an entity detects that quality of the UE's master connection has become threshold poor and responsively carries out a sequence of operations including (i) releasing the UE's secondary connection with the SN so as to transition the UE from dual-connectivity to standalone-connectivity served by the MN, and (ii) then transferring the UE's voice call from being served by the MN on the first RAT to instead being served by a tertiary node (TN) on a third RAT.

公开(公告)号：US11178287B1

公开(公告)日：2021-11-16

申请号：US14871208

申请日：2015-09-30

Applicant: Sprint Spectrum L.P.

Inventor： Luca Zappaterra ,  Yu Zhou ,  Muhammad A. Naim

IPC: H04M15/00 ,  H04W72/04 ,  H04L12/701 ,  H04W40/02

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and systems to facilitate use of a single channel for voice communications and of multiple channels for non-voice communications. In particular, a transmitting node may determine that data is to be communicated from the transmitting node to a receiving node and may then make a determination of whether the data is to be communicated as part of a voice communication. If the determination is that the data is not to be communicated as part of a voice communication, then the transmitting node may responsively communicate the data to the receiving node over two or more channels. Whereas, if the determination is that the data is to be communicated as part of a voice communication, then the transmitting node may responsively communicate the data to the receiving node over just one channel rather than communicating the data to the receiving node over two or more channels.