Abstract:
When a UE is being served by a base station over a first air interface in a client-server relationship and the UE receives from the base station a HARQ NACK for a transmission over the first air interface, the UE will responsively engage in the HARQ re-transmission to the base station over a second, different air interface, such as through a peer-to-peer communication to the base station. The first air interface may be an OFDMA air interface such as LTE, and the second air interface may be a WLAN air interface such as WiFi. Engaging in re-transmission via the second air interface may enable the base station to complete receipt of the data from the UE and thereby provide the UE, via the first air interface, with a HARQ ACK. This arrangement may help reduce delay in re-transmission, which may be particularly useful for delay-sensitive communications such as VoIP communications.
Abstract:
A method and system for coordinated multipoint transmission concurrently to multiple user equipment devices (UEs) from multiple base stations. When multiple base stations each serve a respective UE and each base station has a separate bit stream to communicate to its respective served UE, bit groups will be defined across the base station's bit streams, such that each bit group includes at least one bit from each base station's bit stream. And the base stations will then engage in CoMP transmission of each bit group, with all of the base stations transmitting the bit group at the same time and frequency as each other, such as on the same resource element, using the same modulation scheme. Each UE may then receive that transmitted bit group and process just the appropriate bit(s) destined to the UE, discarding the others.
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.
Abstract:
Disclosed is a method and system for adjusting a transport block size used for uplink transmissions from a user equipment device (UE) when engaging in uplink coordinated multipoint service (UL CoMP), under conditions in which a propagation delay to a receiving CoMP base station (BS) exceeds a threshold. Based on predicted delay reported to a serving BS from the CoMP BS, the serving BS may compute a reduced transport block size such that uplink resource blocks transmitted from the UE to the CoMP base station will be temporally under-filled by an amount corresponding to the predicted delay. As received at the CoMP BS, the under-filled resource blocks will not overrun their assigned transmission time interval (TTI), and therefore will not be a source of potential interference.
Abstract:
A method and system for bit-level protection in concurrent downlink coordinated multipoint transmission of bit groups to multiple user equipment devices (UEs) from multiple base stations. Multiple base stations each serving a respective UE and each having a separate bit stream to communicate to its respective served UE will define bit groups across the bit streams, such that each bit group includes at least one bit from each base station's bit stream. Each bit group will be transmitted as a multi-bit data symbol modulated onto a subcarrier frequency. Susceptibility to pairwise confusion between different data symbols due to misidentification of particular bits will be used to determine bit-level protection for various bit positions of the data symbols. Assignment of particular bits of each bit group to particular UEs will include consideration of bit-level protection, such that UEs with lower quality downlink properties will be assigned bits providing higher bit-level protection, and vice versa.
Abstract:
A base station and a user equipment (UE) device may communicate over an air interface in a particular time division duplexing (TDD) configuration. The TDD configuration specifies a certain number of consecutive subframes for uplink communications and a certain number of consecutive subframes for downlink communications. A transmitter (either the UE device or the base station) may transmit data using transmission time interval (TTI) bundling with a bundle size of N. To select a set of N subframes to use to transmit the data, the transmitter may compare N to C, the number of consecutive subframes available to transmit the data. If N≤C, the N subframes in the set are consecutive subframes. If N>C, the set of N subframes includes C consecutive subframes and at least one additional subframe that is separated from the consecutive subframes by one or more subframes not in the set.
Abstract:
A method and system for managing uplink control channel communication by adjacent base stations. Adjacent base stations may programmatically work with each other to arrange for their respective use of different sub-carriers for scheduling their respective uplink control channel communications. Further, to help make more efficient use of all available sub-carriers, a given base station may schedule uplink traffic channel communication for one or more user equipment devices on the same sub-carriers that a neighboring base station is using for uplink control channel communication if those one or more user equipment devices do not report detecting the neighboring base station above a threshold level.
Abstract:
An improved method for controlling how long a device will occupy a wireless channel, based on consideration of QoS class of communication on the channel. With respect to a communication that the device detects on the channel, the device could determine QoS class by detecting a sequence of energy levels in association with the detected communication, the sequence of energy levels indicating the QoS class. The disclosed method could be applied by a cellular base station to control how long the base station will provide cellular service on the channel, where the channel is also used for other communications such as WiFi communications for instance.
Abstract:
A base station and a user equipment (UE) device may communicate over an air interface using a frequency division duplexing (FDD) configuration that provides a time sequence of consecutive subframes for both uplink and downlink communications. A transmitter (either the UE device or the base station) may select a sequence of N subframes for N transmissions of the same data to a receiver using transmission time interval (TTI) bundling, wherein successive subframes in the sequence are separated by one or more subframes. The transmitter may transmit the data M times (where M
Abstract:
Disclosed is a method and system for managing signaling in wireless communication network. Base stations in the network will be divided into groups, but each base station's coverage area will be deemed a separate respective tracking area, and, for each group of base stations, an intermediary will manage transmission of registration and paging signaling between a paging controller and the group of base stations. In practice, when a tracking-area update (TAU) arrives from a WCD in coverage of the group of base stations, the intermediary may forward the TAU to the paging controller only if the TAU represents the WCD's movement into coverage of the group of base stations. Further, when a paging message arrives for a WCD, the intermediary may forward the paging message to the appropriate base station in the group.