Abstract: Systems, methods, and processing nodes for minimizing interference caused by high-powered wireless devices to other wireless devices in the network by determining that a first wireless device assigned to a first power class is located in a potential interference zone of a coverage area of an access node, and deactivating a high-powered transmission mode of the first wireless device. The high-powered transmission mode utilizes a first transmission power level that is associated with the first power class. The potential interference zone is defined based on standard-powered uplink transmissions that have a high noise or low SINR.

Abstract: In a wireless network comprising a plurality of carriers available for carrier aggregation transmissions between a base station and UE, the base station: (i) determines whether a requirement exists to transmit data between the UE and the base station via a carrier aggregation transmission; (ii) in response to determining that the carrier aggregation transmission requirement exists, selects a primary component carrier and one or more secondary component carriers from the plurality of carriers for the carrier aggregation transmission based on one or more of each carrier's group delay, group delay variation, or insertion loss; (iii) allocates the selected primary and secondary component carriers to the carrier aggregation transmission; (iv) informs the UE of the allocation; and (v) executes the carrier aggregation transmission according to the allocation.

Abstract: A method and system is disclosed for controlling communication behavior of application programs running on a user equipment device (UE) based on joint consideration of predicted roaming and predicted communication behavior of the application programs. A UE may monitor its operational state data during times when it is operating in a wireless network of a home service provider and during other times when it is roaming in a wireless network of a different service provider, and apply the monitored operational state data to a roaming prediction model configured for predicting future roaming state. The UE may also monitor communication behavior data of resident application programs, and apply the monitored communication behavior data to an application-communication prediction model configured for predicting future communication behavior of the applications.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and processing nodes for minimizing interference caused by high-powered wireless devices to other wireless devices in the network by identifying a high-powered relay device attached to a first access node, instructing a second access node to report interference caused by the high-powered relay device to uplink transmissions received at the second access node, receiving an indicator of interference from the second access node, and instructing the first access node to deactivate a high-powered transmission mode of the high-powered relay device.

Abstract: A method and corresponding system to help improve handoff of a wireless communication device from a first network to a particular second network. The first network may maintain data that includes operational parameters of each of a plurality of second networks, such as networks that provide coverage in the same market area as the first wireless network. When the first network receives from a wireless communication device an indication that the device has detected coverage of a particular one of the second networks, the first network may then provide the device with the corresponding set of operational parameters for the detected second network.

Abstract: Carrier aggregation may occur in wireless networks when multiple carriers from either contiguous frequency bands or non-contiguous frequency bands are aggregated together as component carriers. Wireless computing devices (WCDs) may use these aggregated component carriers as a single, logical channel for wireless communication. Such a WCD may determine that an amount of carrier aggregation used by a wireless interface of the WCD has increased. The WCD may receive data packets from a correspondent device by way of the wireless interface, and the WCD may transmit, in response to receiving the data packets, acknowledgment packets to the correspondent device by way of the wireless interface. Possibly based on the amount of carrier aggregation increasing, the WCD may reduce an extent of the acknowledgment packets transmitted to the correspondent device.

Abstract: A base station and a user equipment (UE) device may communicate over an air interface in a particular time division duplexing (TDD) configuration. The TDD configuration specifies a certain number of consecutive subframes for uplink communications and a certain number of consecutive subframes for downlink communications. A transmitter (either the UE device or the base station) may transmit data using transmission time interval (TTI) bundling with a bundle size of N. To select a set of N subframes to use to transmit the data, the transmitter may compare N to C, the number of consecutive subframes available to transmit the data. If N?C, the N subframes in the set are consecutive subframes. If N>C, the set of N subframes includes C consecutive subframes and at least one additional subframe that is separated from the consecutive subframes by one or more subframes not in the set.

Abstract: A method and system for coordinated multipoint transmission concurrently to multiple user equipment devices (UEs) from multiple base stations. When multiple base stations each serve a respective UE and each base station has a separate bit stream to communicate to its respective served UE, bit groups will be defined across the base station's bit streams, such that each bit group includes at least one bit from each base station's bit stream. And the base stations will then engage in CoMP transmission of each bit group, with all of the base stations transmitting the bit group at the same time and frequency as each other, such as on the same resource element, using the same modulation scheme. Each UE may then receive that transmitted bit group and process just the appropriate bit(s) destined to the UE, discarding the others.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method and apparatus to help manage data communication in a manner that increases downlink capacity. As disclosed, a base station may transmit, in a downlink traffic channel of a given sub-frame, bearer data to a particular wireless communication device (WCD). After transmitting the bearer data, the base station may transmit, in the downlink control channel of another sub-frame, a signaling message that directs the particular WCD to read the previously transmitted bearer data. The signaling message may include an indication of the given sub-frame having the previously transmitted bearer data. When the WCD receives and reads the signaling message, the WCD may use the indication as a basis to read the previously transmitted bearer data in accordance with the signaling message.

Abstract: In systems and methods for establishing communication between a wireless device and a communication network, one or more sounding signals are received from one or more relay nodes. One or more parameters of beam formation are determined based on the received one or more sounding signals. Formation of one or more beams is initiated from two or more antennas to the one or more relay nodes based on the determined one or more beam formation parameters. The total number of the formed beams and the formation of the beams are adjusted dynamically based on the received sounding signals from the relay nodes.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method and system to help avoid performing third-party registration of a UE with an SMS gateway of an IMS, the IMS including a P-CSCF, an S-CSCF, and an HSS. In an example implementation, when registering for service with the IMS, the UE provides UE-capability data to the P-CSCF, the P-CSCF sends the data to the S-CSCF, and the S-CSCF sends the data to the HSS. The S-CSCF does not send the UE-capability data to the SMS gateway. Rather, when the SMS gateway receives a request to send an SMS message to the UE, the SMS gateway queries the HSS to obtain the UE-capability data. Based on the UE-capability data, the SMS gateway makes a determination of whether the UE is capable of receiving SMS messages over IP and routes the SMS message over an appropriate access network based on the determination.

Abstract: A communication system where wireless devices communicating with an access node may be communicating either directly with the access node, or via a heterodyne repeater. A heterodyne repeater relays communications transparently such that operation of the access node may not provide the ability to distinguish which wireless devices are communicating directly from those that are communicating via the heterodyne repeater. The system determines whether the wireless device is communicating either directly with the access node, or via a heterodyne repeater. When a wireless device is communicating via a heterodyne repeater, the access node selects a radio resource control configuration adapted for communication via a heterodyne repeater to be used with that wireless device.

Abstract: A method and system that uses user-equipment (UE) capability reporting to control UE service. A UE provides its serving base station with an initial capabilities report indicating that the UE does not support determining and reporting when neighboring coverage is threshold strong, and so the base station does not yet provision the UE with a measurement event including a threshold to facilitate such determining and reporting. When the UE then determines that its serving coverage is threshold weak, the UE then transmits to its serving base station an updated capabilities report indicating that the UE does support such determining and reporting, and so the base station then provisions the UE with threshold (e.g., provisions the UE with a measurement event causing the UE to compare measured neighbor coverage strength with such a threshold).

Abstract: A wireless communication device (WCD) may determine that the WCD has bearer traffic queued for transmission to a radio access network (RAN). The WCD may be configured to transmit the bearer traffic and neighbor reports over a reverse-direction channel of the RAN. The neighbor reports may contain information related to wireless coverage areas. One or more characteristics of the bearer traffic may also be determined. Based on the one or more characteristics of the bearer traffic, the neighbor reports may be scheduled to be transmitted over the reverse-direction channel at a particular rate. The WCD may transmit the neighbor reports over the reverse-direction channel at the particular rate.

Abstract: When a base station has just a small amount of data to transmit to a served UE, the base station will transmit the data to the UE in a DCI message on a PDCCH, rather than using the DCI message to allocate PDSCH resources to carry the data and transmitting the data on the allocated PDSCH resources. Further, the base station could advantageously make use of a standard DCI message format but could transmit the data in DCI message fields that would otherwise be used to allocate PDSCH resources or otherwise to facilitate PDSCH transmission, since those DCI message fields would not be needed when the data is transmitted in the DCI message itself.

Abstract: A method for prioritized transmission of redundancy data in a voice-over-packet call. A sending device applies a variable rate codec to generate a sequence of encoded voice frames having varying sizes, and the sending device inserts the encoded voice frames into a sequence of fixed-size packets, one encoded voice frame per packet, resulting in varying left-over payload capacity per packet. The sending device further generates based on each encoded voice frame multiple redundancy blocks to help facilitate recovery of the encoded voice frame. And on a per packet-basis, the sending device selects, from a sliding-window set of recently generated redundancy blocks, one or more redundancy blocks to add into the left-over payload capacity of the packet, with the selecting of each redundancy block being based at least on importance of the voice frame based on which the redundancy block was generated, and the age and size of the redundancy block.

Abstract: Embodiments disclosed herein provide individual idle-mode cell reselection priority lists to wireless devices dynamically, based on real-time load conditions for frequency bands deployed within a wireless network. Load equalization operations include classifying frequency bands into congested, target, or non-congested bands, grouping similar bands, comparing loads across the various bands in to a threshold, and adjusting the priority of each frequency band accordingly. The adjusted priorities are transmitted to each wireless device as the wireless device enters idle mode.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method and system to facilitate management of resources in a scenario where a base station has an established radio-link-layer connection for serving a device on multiple component carriers. Rather than providing all bearer data transmission to the device by rote on the multiple component carriers, the base station dynamically decides per data whether to transmit the data to the device on the multiple component carriers or rather on just one of the component carriers. For instance, when the base station receives data for transmission over the radio-link-layer connection to the device, the base station determines based on at least one characteristic of the data whether to transmit the data to the UE on the multiple component carriers or rather on just one of the component carriers, and the base station then schedules and engages in the transmission in accordance with that determination.

Abstract: A method and system for using a positioning reference signal (PRS) of a cell to indicate an operational state of the cell. The cell could have two or more candidate PRS configurations defining physical configurations of its PRS, such as frequency positions of air interface resources that carry the cell's PRS. One such PRS configuration could correspond with one operational state of the cell (e.g., heavy cell load), and another such PRS configuration could correspond with a different operational state of the cell (e.g., normal or light cell load). A base station could thus select and apply a particular PRS configuration to indicate operational state of the cell. And an entity such as a wireless client device or neighboring base station could determine the PRS configuration used in the cell as a way to determine the operational state of the cell.

Abstract: A one or more downlink resource elements of a downlink resource block in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) communication system can be shared by two wireless communication devices (WCDs) by assigning each WCD a different one of two orthogonal modulation axes. To transmit data to two WCDs using the same downlink resource block, a base station may receive a data stream including respective data for each of the WCDs, then modulate the data for one WCD on in-phase modulation axis and modulate that data for the other WCD on the quadrature axis. The two modulation modes can be simultaneously transmitted on a common sub-carrier of an OFDM downlink to both WCDs. Each WCD can demodulate the data on a pre-assigned demodulation axis to recover its intended data. This sharing technique can be applied to some or all of the downlink resource elements of a commonly allocated downlink resource block.