Sprint Spectrum L.p.

Sprint Communications Comapny L.p.

Other

T-mobile Innovations LLC

Pratik Kothari

Hemanth Balaji Pawar

Krishna Sitaram

Chunmei Liu

Shilpa Kowdley Srinivas

Muhammad Ahsan Naim

Yu Zhou

Luca Zappaterra

Parashar Thanki

A voice coding rate is selected for a voice call involving a user equipment (UE) device based on an air interface efficiency of the base station serving the UE device. The air interface efficiency of the base station is determined based on at least one of (i) a beamforming capability of the base station, (ii) a multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) capability of the base station, or (iii) an antenna configuration of the base station. The voice coding rate could be selected by either the UE device or by the base station. The UE device transmits to the base station during the voice call one or more voice frames that convey voice data coded at the selected voice coding rate. During the voice call, a new air interface efficiency may be determined, and a new voice coding rate may be selected based on the new air interface efficiency.

Method and apparatus for selecting a voice coding rate based on the air interface efficiency of the serving base station

Disclosed are methods and systems to facilitate management of carriers to help ensure QoS for single-carrier UEs. In particular, a base station may serve one or more first user equipment devices (UEs) on just a first carrier. While doing so, the base station may determine that each of the one or more first UEs being served on just the first carrier is receiving threshold low quality of service from the base station on the first carrier. Responsive to this determining, the base station may (i) select one or more second UEs based on the one or more second UEs being served by the base station on both the first carrier and one or more other carriers and (ii) discontinue serving each selected second UE on the first carrier while continuing to serve each selected second UE on one or more other carriers.

Management of carriers to help ensure QoS for single-carrier UEs

A method and system for managing carriers on which a base station provides service to a user equipment device (UE), based on consideration of latency. A base station that is arranged to operate on a plurality of carriers may, while serving a UE on a set of one or more carriers of the plurality, select, from at least two other carriers of the plurality, an additional carrier to add to the set of one or more carriers on which the base station serves the UE, and may make the selection based a latency on the selected carrier. In response to selecting the additional carrier, the base station may add the selected carrier to the set of one or more carriers on which the base station serves the UE, and may then serve the UE on the set of one or more carriers including the selected carrier.

Method and system for latency-based management of carriers on which to serve a user equipment device

Systems and methods are described for transmitting a beamformed signal to a wireless device proximate to an antenna system. An uplink signal may be received at an access node from a wireless device in communication with the access node. It may be detected that the wireless device is proximate to an antenna system, wherein the antenna system does not comprise the access node. The detection may be based on a determined location for the wireless device, an indication from the antenna system, a retrieved signal level metric for the wireless device, and the like. It may be then determined that a beamformed signal is to be transmitted to the wireless device based on the detecting. And the beamformed signal may be transmitted from the access node to the wireless device.

Systems and methods for transmitting a beamformed signal to a wireless device proximate to an antenna system

According to exemplary embodiments described herein, communicating via a plurality of antennae includes transmitting different data streams from each of a first antenna and a second antenna in a first transmission mode, and transmitting identical data streams from a third antenna and one of the first and second antennae in a second transmission mode. The first and second antennae are horizontally stacked relative to each other and the third antenna is vertically stacked relative to both the first and second antennae.

Dynamic multi-antenna communication

A wireless device or UE is configured to function as a relay on behalf of a donor access node. The relay UE performs call admission controls including balancing the resources of the relay access node with the resources provided by the donor access node providing services to end UEs via the relay access node, i.e. a backhaul connection of the relay UE. The backhaul throughput is compared to a throughput requirement of the end UEs being served by the relay UE. If the throughput requirement is larger than the backhaul throughput, any new connection requests from an additional end UE may be rejected. A threshold may be defined to ensure that there are ample resources at the backhaul prior to accepting connection requests from additional end UEs.

Call admission control for relay access nodes

Allocating resources in a wireless network includes monitoring usage of each of a control channel and a data channel, determining that at least the usage of the data channel exceeds a capacity of the data channel, determining a usage of each of the control channel and the data channel operating in MU-MIMO mode, determining that the usage of the control channel in the MU-MIMO mode exceeds a first capacity of the control channel, determining a usage of each of the control channel and the data channel operating in both the MU-MIMO mode and an enhanced control mode, and adjusting a size of the portion of resources of the data channel allocated for control information upon determining that the second usage of one of the control channel or the data channel exceeds a second capacity of one of the control channel or the data channel.

Resource allocation in wireless networks

A method and system for controlling wireless communication over an air interface between a base station and a user equipment device (UE) served by the base station. In examples, the base station is configured to use a particular modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to transmit downlink control signals over the air interface to the UE without the base station beamforming the downlink control signals to the UE. Responsive to the base station determining that the UE is experiencing threshold poor RF conditions on the air interface, the base station reconfigures itself to beamform downlink control signals to the UE. And, given that the base station is reconfigured to beamform downlink control signals to the UE, the base station further reconfigures itself to use a higher-order MCS to transmit downlink control signals to the UE.

Dynamic increase of control channel modulation order conditional on beamforming to a poor-RF UE

A Long Term Evolution (LTE) access node to serve User Equipment (UEs) with a wireless Carrier Aggregation (CA) data communication service. A data processing system schedules CA Primary Component Carriers (PCCs), CA intra-band Secondary Component Carriers (SCCs) and CA inter-band SCCs for the UEs. A wireless transceiver wirelessly exchanges user data with the UEs based on the scheduling to serve the UEs with the CA PCCs, the CA intra-band SCCs, and the CA inter-band SCCs. The data processing system detects that a number of the UEs exceeds a UE threshold, and in response, identifies the UEs that use an LTE channel for their CA inter-band SCCs but not for their CA PCCs. The data processing system disables the LTE channel for the UEs that use the LTE channel for their CA inter-band SCCs but not for their CA PCCs.

Long term evolution (LTE) network control of carrier aggregation for user equipment

Systems, methods, and processing nodes for providing a quality of service (QoS) to wireless devices attached to a relay access node include determining that a first amount of a first traffic type between a donor access node and a first one or more wireless devices in communication with the donor access node via the relay access node exceeds a threshold amount, and adjusting a quality of service (QoS) parameter of a wireless backhaul link between the relay access node and the donor access node from a first default QoS parameter to a new QoS parameter.

Providing a quality of service to wireless devices attached to relay access nodes

Link adaptation for an uplink channel is dynamically performed based on changes in uplink resources in the wireless network, the changes based on frame configuration. If the ratio of uplink to downlink subframes in the new frame configuration is smaller, the throughput is increased by increasing a modulation and coding scheme of the uplink channel, and transmit power of wireless devices. If the ratio of uplink to downlink subframes is increased in the new frame configuration, the throughput is decreased, and the wireless device is instructed to transmit using reduced transmit power.

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Sterling, VA, United States of America

Pratik Kothari