Processing of data packages between a mobile and a fixed network with quality of service profiles

State of the art

0001The invention relates to a mobile station or a communication system according to the generic class of the independent patent claims. The GSM-System has the possibility to exchange data packages between the mobile station and the base station (GPRS: general package data radio system). For the processing of the data packages the system contains a quality of service profile (QoS profile) that determines how the data packages are handeled compare to other dated packages.

Advantage of the invention

0002The mobile station and the communication system according to the features of the independent patent claims have the advantage that the Quality of Service profile (QOS profile) can be adapted according to the needs of the users. This adaptation of the quality of service profile is performed automatically without asking the user to supply further information.

0003Useful improvements of the invention derive from the features of the dependent patent claims. The analysis is a simple translation from one format to another format, if the data itself contain information about how the data should be handled like in TCP/IP headers. Further a quality of service profile can easily be extracted from the type of data. A further possibility is to analyse stream of data packages over the time.

Drawings

0004The invention is shown in the drawings and described in detail in the description. Figure 1 shows a communication network comprising a mobile station, a base station and telephone network and figure 2 shows the data processing of a processing unit.

Description

0005Figure 1 shows a communication system comprising a mobile station 1 and a base station 3. The mobile station 1 and the base station 3 are capable to exchange data over a wireless " air interface" 100. The mobile station comprises a processing unit 2 capable to process data from or for different data station 11, 12, 13 and exchanging the data via the air interface 100 with the base station 3. The processing unit 2 is also capable to receive data from the base station 3 and supplies those data to the data stations 11, 12, 13. The base station 3 also comprises a processing unit 4, that processes the data exchanged over the air interface 100 and sent or receive those data to or from the connected network 6 capable of handling packet switched data communication in some manor. The base station further contains a memory 5 capable to exchange information with the processing unit 4. These memory 5 is used for storing control information that is related to the processing of data by the processing unit 4.

0006The invention is related to the exchange of data between the mobile station 1 and the base station 3 in the form of data packages, in the GSM/UMTS system called general packet radio service, GPRS. In this mode of operation lager blocks of information are subdivided in smaller packages and the information are then sent over the air interface 100 in small data packages. An example of this type of exchange of data is found for instance in the GSM-System where it is called general packet data radio system GPRS. The advantage for the system is that data packages are much more easy to handle than a continues stream of data. The transport network has a possibility to smooth situations where high traffic occurs and delay some of the data packages. These delayed data packages are send at a later point in the time when the demand of the network is not that high.

0007Some of the data packages are more important than other packages. Therefor the whole system comprising the mobile station 1, base station 3 and the network 6 contain information about how the data packages sent from or sent to a certain data station 11, 12, 13 should be handled. The GPRS-Network stores therefore information called QoS (quality of service) that contains information how data packages from or to a specific address should be handled. These information is stored in a QoS profile containing data related to the precedence, reliability, delay and the user data throughput.

0008For the parameter precedence there are three different priority classes (high, normal, low) and the data packages with high precedence will be transported ahead of other precedence levels, the data packages with normal precedence will be transported ahead of the data packages with low priority and the data packages with low precedence will only be transported if there are no high or normal priority data packages pending.

0009Related to the reliability there are also three different reliability classes and within each reliability class there are probabilities assigned that a data package gets lost, duplicated, the sequence of the data packages is disturbed, or that the content of the data packages are delivered with an undetected error.

0010The parameter delay is related to the transport from a sender to a receiver.

0011The parameter throughput has two sub parameters wherein this sub parameters the maximum possible data rate and a mean data rate are defined.

0012According to the invention the mobile station 1 comprises a data processing units 2 that is capable to request a certain QoS profile from the base station 3 and the network 6. The processing unit 2 is adapted to analyse the data that origin from the data stations 11, 12, 13 or that are sent to the data stations 11, 12, 13. Based on this analysis the processing unit 2 requests an appropriate quality of service profile from the base station 3 and the network 6.

0013For the further description it will be assumed that the data station 11 is a computer that is used as an internet access, data station 12 is an e-mail system and data station 13 is a video data systems that is capable to send video data or receive video data. As an example the data station 11 is located outside the mobile station 1 whereas the data stations 12 and 13 are incorporated in the mobile station 1. It is also possible that all these components are integrated in the mobile station 1 or that they are located outside the mobile station and that the mobile station is simply used as an interface.

0014The analysis of the data performed by the processing unit 2 is specially simple if the data itself contain information how the data should be processed. This is the case for the internet header as specified in RFC 791 . This internet header contains information related to the precedence, the delay, the throughput and the reliability of the data. In this case the analysis of the processing unit 2 is simply a translation of the internet header to the appropriate quality of service classes used by the GPRS.

0015Another possibility for an analyses is to analyse what kind of data the station is sending. If the processing unit 2 detects that the data are sent from or to the e-mail system 12 it will request a quality of service profile having very high reliability, a high delay and a low data rate. If the processing unit 2 detects that the data are sent from or to the video data system 13 it will request a quality of service profile involving a low reliability, a low delay and a very high data rate.

0016Another possibility is to analyse the traffic of packages. If the number of packages that are pending to sent over the air interface 100 is higher than the number of packages that are sent over the air interface 100 the processing unit 2 should request to increase the data rate. If the processing unit detects that many data packages contain errors than it should request that the reliability class should be increased.

0017Figure 2 shows an example of how the processing unit 2 is processing and analysing the data. On the left side of the function block 2 is a stream of data 200, as an example here a continuous stream of 200 which has in the beginning a header 201 that contains control information. Control information is any information, that is needed for the processing of the data stream 200. The header 201 contains information about the type of data for example video data or e-mail data. Further the header 201 contains information about the handling of the data 200. This may contain information about the importance of the data, priority, how fast the data should be delivered and so on. An example is the internet header as described above. The function of the processing unit 2 is then to chop the information stream 200 in little packages 202 that are than sent over the air interface if needed, also called segmentation. The function of the processing unit 2 is also to receive data packages 202 and to reconstruct the stream of data 200. The communication system is comprising of the mobile station 2, base station 3 and telephone network 6 contains control information of how the data packages 202 should be handled. It is a function of the processing unit 2 and analyse the data, that means either the data 200 or the data packages 202, and to request from the base station 3 or the communication system 6 the quality of service profile with which the data packages 202 are treated. The analyses could be simply a translation of the information that is contained in the control field 201, that means the control information related to priority, delay, throughput and reliability in the header 201 are simply transformed into a format that is used for the data packages 202. Another way of analyses is to analyse what type of data are used for the data stream 200. This information is also contained in the header 201. The processing unit 2 uses this information to request then a quality of service profile that is appropriate for this specific kind of data. A further possibility for analysis is to look at a stream of data packages 202. If to many data packages 202 contain errors then the reliability of the transmission should be enhanced. If the processing unit 2 receives more data 200 then it can send away via data packages 202 the processing unit 2 should request, that the throughput should be enhanced.