Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

Christopher Williams

Stephen G Rayment

Aroosh Elahi

Evangelos Paravalos

A method and apparatus are disclosed for steering a UE () from a WLAN () to a cellular network () with an overlapping coverage area. The UE () is connected to the WLAN () through an access point (AP) (). The AP () suppresses the broadcast of a network identifier of the WLAN () and de-authenticates the UE () from the WLAN (). After de-authenticating the UE (), the AP () ignores probe requests from the UE (). The UE () will conclude that the WLAN () is no longer available and will connect to the cellular network. From the perspective of the UE (), the suppression of the network makes it appear to the UE () that it has moved out of range of the AP () so the UE () will not 'blacklist' the WLAN (). The suppression of the network ID will not impact UEs not targeted, which will continue to communicate via WLAN () even when the network ID is suppressed.

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Nepean, Canada

Christopher Williams