Telecom Italia S.p.a.

Telcom Italia S.p.a.

Giovanni Stea

Marco Caretti

Dario Sabella

Matteo Maria Andreozzi

Antonio Virdis

Giovanni Nardini

Roberto Fantini

Daniele Migliorini

Daniele Franceschini

Luciano Lenzini

Enzo Mingozzi

Roberto Rossi

Enrico Scarrone

Vinicio Vercellone

Andrea Bacioccola

Massimo Sassi

Generoso Pagano

Ettore Pulieri

Andrea Rossali

Giovanni Accongiagioco

Vincenzo Maria Pii

A method for managing data packets transmitted by a first user equipment to be received by a second user equipment through a radio network includes having the radio network comprising a radio transceiver station receive data packets transmitted by the first user equipment. For each data packet received, checking whether the data packet comprises a request for a data packet tunneling. For each data packet comprising a request for data packet tunneling, providing the data packet to a relay protocol entity at a Radio Link Control protocol layer. The relay protocol entity is configured for generating at least one tunneling data packet, said generating at least one tunneling data packet comprises inserting at least a portion of the transmitted data packet into the at least one tunneling data packet and transmitting the tunneling data packet to the second user equipment.

Method and system for data tunneling in device to device communication assisted by a telecommunication network

A first user equipment can communicate with a second user equipment in a direct mode or in an infrastructure mode via a base station of a network. To communicate with the second user equipment, the first user equipment generates packets and forwards the packets to a lower protocol layer of a protocol stack. The first user equipment also acts as a buffer protocol entity by storing the packets until acknowledgement of receipt is received from the second user equipment. If the first user equipment switches from the direct mode to the infrastructure mode, or vice versa, the first user equipment forwards each of the stored packets to the lower protocol layer for transmission to the second user equipment using the current mode.

Method and system for loss mitigation during device to device communication mode switching

A method for allocating communication resources for communications performed by user equipment in a mobile communication network comprises receiving a first indication about an amount of available communication resources and obtaining information about interfering communications between user equipment. The method further comprises, for each communication between user equipment to which communication resources have to be allocated, receiving a second indication about an available communication rate for an infrastructure-based communication and for a device-to-device communication, receiving a third indication about a requested communication rate for said each communication, making a selection between an infrastructure-based communication type or a device-to-device communication type based on the first, second and third indications and the information about interfering communications, and allocating communication resources to each communication on the basis of the selection between an infrastructure-based communication type or a device-to-device communication type.

Resource allocation system and method adapted to implement device-to-device communications in wireless communication networks

A method manages sub-frame data transmission in a cellular network including a macro node and at least one small node associated therewith. The method includes at a macro node side: based on channel quality information from user equipment associated with the macro node, grouping the user equipment into a first group that can be served at a macro node first transmission power and a second group that has to be served at a macro node second transmission power higher than the macro node first transmission power, and determining a sub-frames pattern including: a number of no-transmission sub-frames wherein data transmission is prevented at the macro node side, a number of limited-transmission sub-frames wherein data transmission is allowed at the macro node side at only the first transmission power, and a number of normal-transmission sub frames wherein data transmission is allowed at the macro node side at the second transmission power.

Method for managing data transmission power in mobile cellular networks

A method for allocating resource blocks of a transmission frame on a cellular network. The cellular network includes a cluster of antennas and a master unit of the cluster. Each antenna of each cluster is configured to provide radio coverage over a corresponding cell to exchange data with corresponding user equipment in communication with the antenna. During the transmission frame the antennas of the cluster are configured to be selectively activated and muted according to a plurality of cluster muting conditions.

Method for scheduling radio resources

A method for managing a cellular network, which comprises a plurality of macro nodes defining respective macro cells and a plurality of small nodes within said macro cells, the method comprising, at each current time snapshot of a plurality of time snapshots and for each macro cell, providing, according to a history traffic load of the cellular network, an overload probability in a first configuration of the cellular network with only macro nodes activated. The method further comprises identifying, among said plurality of time snapshots, first candidate time snapshots for small nodes deactivation in each first candidate time snapshot the overload probability being lower than a threshold overload probability, and if the current time snapshot is one among the first candidate time snapshots, deactivating each small node having a current number of allocated radio resources lower than a threshold number.

Method for power consumption optimization in mobile cellular networks

A method scheduling resources allocation within a wireless communications network including at least one network cell including a central unit providing coverage over the network cell and managing at least one transmission frame for putting the central unit into communication with at least one user equipment. The method includes: retrieving input parameters including, for each user equipment, a channel quality parameter indicating a measured/estimated channel quality based on actual network cell conditions; applying a de-contextualization function to each channel quality parameter for obtaining a corresponding atomic channel quality parameter indicating channel quality de-contextualized from the actual network cell conditions; performing a scheduling algorithm providing a binary allocation matrix indicating each scheduled physical resource block, transmission frame and user equipment; and applying a contextualization function to the allocation matrix obtaining transport block size data usable by the scheduled transmission frame for transport blocks transmissions from or towards each scheduled user equipment.

Scheduling algorithm for wireless communication networks

A method scheduling link activations within a wireless communications network including at least one network cell including a base station providing radio coverage over the network cell and at least one relay node putting the base station into communication with a user equipment within the network cell over an access link. The relay node communicates with the base station over a backhaul link. The method includes estimating, for the relay node, an access link capacity according to status information indicative of a status of the user equipment associated with the relay node, estimating a backhaul link capacity of the relay node according to the status information, and scheduling, for the relay node, either a backhaul link activation or an access link activation such that one of the backhaul link and access link is activated, in a predetermined time interval, based on a comparison between the access capacity and backhaul capacity.

Link scheduling algorithm for OFDMA wireless networks with relay nodes

Data streams are transmitted from a node towards a receiver in a communication network in the form of data packets for playout via a reproduction buffer at the receiver. The data packets are arranged in a scheduling queue and dropped from the scheduling queue if their sojourn time in the queue exceeds a given drop deadline. The reproduction buffer is emulated at the node in order to determine respective playout values for the data packets which are indicative of expected playout instants for the data packets by the reproduction buffer at the receiver. The drop deadlines are assigned to the data packets as a function of the respective playout values determined via the reproduction buffer as emulated at the node.

Method of scheduling transmission in a communication network, corresponding communication node and computer program product

A method executed in a wireless communication network including at least one base station associated to a corresponding area transmitting/receiving data to/from corresponding user terminals located within the area. The method generates a user-rate matrix for each base station. Each element of the user-rate matrix provides a corresponding score, in terms of achievable rate, to a user terminal or group of user terminals within the corresponding area when a transmission is made to/from the user terminal or group of user terminals, respectively, from/to the base station by employing a selected transmission mode. The method further processes the elements of the user-rate matrix to create a scheduling list sorting the elements by a decreasing score, and associating to each user terminal a corresponding selected transmission mode based on the scheduling list for the transmission/reception of data to/from the base station.

LTE scheduling

In a method of scheduling transmission services over a high speed packet access communication link such as a HSDPA and/or a HSUPA link a list of queues is created for transmission services to be provided over the link. The queues, which include both Real Time and Non Real Time queues, are allotted respective service priorities based e.g. on a channel quality indicator and/or a Quality of Service indicator to produce an ordered list of queues based on the service priorities. The link resources needed for serving at least one set of queues having higher priorities in the ordered list are estimated and a check is made. If these resources are available, the set of queues having higher priorities in the ordered list are served. If the resources required are not available, at least one queue is removed from the ordered list of queues.

Scheduling method and system for communication networks; corresponding devices, network and computer program product

In a communication network, a node receives from user equipment information on the length of a queue of information units to be transmitted to the node from the user equipment. The information, for possible use by the node in scheduling transmission of these information units from the user equipment, is in the form of quantized queue length information indicative of a lower bound and an upper bound for the queue length. Transmission of information units from the user equipment to the node is detected at the node, and an improved estimate of the queue length is produced by correcting the lower bound and the upper bound via subtraction of the number of the detected information units transmitted from the user equipment to the node.

Method and system for handling queues in communication networks, corresponding computer program product

A system for scheduling utilization of a service resource by a plurality of flows of information packets, wherein the flows include rate-guaranteed synchronous flows and best-effort asynchronous flows, the asynchronous flows exploiting the service capacity of the resource left unexploited by the synchronous flows. A server visits the flows, in subsequent rounds, by visiting first the synchronous flows followed by the asynchronous flows. The server is configured for detecting any backlogged synchronous flow, and when the server visits any said backlogged synchronous flow, it allows the backlogged synchronous flow to utilize the resource for a given time, whereby the synchronous flows have a guaranteed transmission window on each round. When the server visits any asynchronous flow, the time elapsed since the last visit by the server to the same asynchronous flow is determined. If the visit to the asynchronous flow occurs later than expected based on a reference round time, the asynchronous flow being visited is restrained from utilizing the resource for the ongoing round, and if the visit occurs earlier than expected based on the reference round time the asynchronous flow being visited is allowed to utilize the resource for a respective given time.

Method and system for scheduling utilization of resources, related communication network and computer program product

Each synchronous flow (h=1, 2, N) is associated to a respective synchronous capacity value (H) indicative of the maximum amount of time for which a synchronous flow can be served before relinquishing the token. Each asynchronous flow (I=1, 2, N) is, on the other hand, associated to a respective indicative value of the delay to be recovered so that the respective queue has the right to be served and to another value indicating the instant in which the server visited the respective queue in the pervious cycle. Each queue associated to a synchronous flow (h) is therefore served for a maximum amount of time that is equal to the aforesaid synchronous capacity value, while each queue associated to an asynchronous flow (i) is only served if the server's visit takes place with anticipation with respect to the expected instant. This anticipation is determined as the difference between the expected rotation time, needed by the server () to complete a visit cycle (T) of the queues associated to the aforesaid flows (h, i), and the time that has passed since the server's previous visit () and the delay accumulated. This difference, if positive, defines the maximum service time for the asynchronous queue. If the queue is empty when the server visits it, the server () moves on to the next queue even before the relative maximum service time has passed.

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Pisa, Italy

Giovanni Stea