British Telecommunications Public Limited Company

Stephen Johnson

Francis J Scahill

Andrew P Gower

Maria Cuevas Ramirez

Stephen Dyett

A method of operating a telecommunications network (), said telecommunications network being accessible to a User Equipment (UE) () and comprising a cellular telecommunications network (-) and a fixed-access telecommunications network (-), the method comprising the steps of: providing a set of user plane functions for processing user traffic for the UE, said set comprising at least two user plane functions; providing a combined user plane function () for processing user traffic for the UE according to the set of user plane functions; following establishing a network connection between the UE and the cellular telecommunications network via the fixed-access telecommunications network (), identifying inefficient routing of user traffic associated with the UE (), said inefficient routing comprising routing user traffic to at least the set of user plane functions; in response to identifying inefficient routing, re-routing user traffic associated with the UE to the combined user plane function so as to process the user traffic at the combined user plane function instead of at the set of user plane functions ().

Method of operating a telecommunications network

A wireless network including a wireless access gateway (WAG) and methods are provided for routing traffic between non-cellular and cellular networks. The WAG interconnects at least one non-cellular network and at least one cellular network in an at least one-to-many relationship. The WAG receives a first IP address for the UE in the cellular domain and the WAG allocates a second IP address for the UE in the non-cellular domain. The WAG creates a routing rule including the first and second IP addresses for the UE and an additional data path identifier.

Wireless access gateway

A method of operating an interconnect server for a roaming network, the roaming network having a plurality of cellular networks and a plurality of hotspot networks formed of wireless access points, the interconnect server being connectable to a routing server within each of the plurality of cellular networks and to a routing server within each of the plurality of hotspot networks, wherein the plurality of hotspot networks are operable to allow subscriber devices of the plurality of cellular networks to connect to a wireless access point forming part of the hotspot network and access the device's subscriber cellular network, is disclosed.

Roaming management

A first server comprises at least one processor configured to establish a connection between a terminal and a second server in a communications network. A connection is established between the terminal and the server by associating credentials with a user of the terminal; receiving from the second server over a non-WebRTC communications channel, a connection request comprising the CLI or the URI; identifying from the CLI or the URI comprised in the connection request, an address for the terminal; setting up the connection between the second server and the terminal; in which the connection comprises a WebRTC channel extending to the terminal and a non-WebRTC channel extending to the second server; in which the WebRTC channel and the non-WebRTC channel are interconnected for communication at an intermediate point of the connection; and disassociating the credentials from the user at a time at which it is determined that the user no longer requires the credentials.

Data communications

A wireless network including a wireless access gateway (WAG) and methods are provided for routing traffic between non-cellular and cellular networks. The WAG receives a first IP address for the UE in the cellular domain and the WAG allocates a second IP address for the UE in the non-cellular domain from a dedicated pool of IP addresses for that non-cellular domain. The WAG also creates a routing rule between the first and second IP addresses.

Individual time stamp data inputs generated by different viewers of a broadcast or other video output are used to identify parts of the video data to be used to generate a sequence of video clips or 'highlights'. The individual time stamps for each event are aggregated to generate a single marker flag () for each event, defined for example as the median () (or some other point) in the distribution () of time stamps.

Provision of video data

Video clips are generated from a sequence of video data for delivery and playback on demand. Each clip () is identified by an event marker () and a pre/post event ratio (PPER). The pre/post event ratio determines the relative duration of the clip before and after the element defined by the event marker. In response to a request for video clip data, identified with reference to the event marker (), the discrete elements () of video data making up each clip are allocated to a sequence starting with the element associated with the event marker () and following in an order (, etc) determined by the pre/post event ratio. This allows clips having different durations but having the same PPER to be transmitted to different receivers dependant on channel capacity or reliability. The receiver may compile clips of a selected length by compiling the elements starting at the event marker and adding the elements in a sequence, before and after the event marker, determined by the PPER until a clip of a required length is complete. A sequence of several clips can be compiled, the event markers for different clips having different priorities such that if a short sequence is required, the low priority clips are omitted or abbreviated.

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London, United Kingdom

Stephen Johnson