Abstract: A method of inter-RAT failure event report is proposed. A UE detects a failure event in a first cell served by a first base station, and the first cell belongs to a first RAT. The failure event may include a radio link failure or a handover failure. The UE then performs an RRC establishment procedure with a second cell served by a second base station, and the second cell belongs to a second RAT. After the RRC establishment, the UE transmits a failure event report to the wireless network. The failure event can be a radio link failure, or be associated with a mobility command such as a handover command. By providing more reliable information in the failure event report than a network solution could provide, inter-RAT mobility performance can be improved.

Abstract: An enhanced connection recovery upon lost RRC connection due to radio link failure (RLF) or handover failure (HOF) is proposed. A UE first establishes an RRC connection in a source cell in a mobile communication network. Later on, the UE detects a failure event and starts an RRC reestablishment procedure in a target cell to restore the RRC connection. In a first novel aspect, a fast RLF process is applied to reduce the outage time in the serving cell. In a second novel aspect, an enhanced cell selection mechanism based on cell prioritization information is applied to reduce the outage time in the target cell. In one embodiment, multi-RAT registration is used to steer cell selection.

Abstract: A method of offload selection for a UE to select between 3GPP RAT and WLAN cell is provided. The UE receives configuration information that applies to selecting WLAN or 3GPP radio access technology (RAT). The UE determines if the UE may perform WLAN offload by evaluating 3GPP radio access network (RAN) conditions where at least one RAN condition is related to a radio signal strength or a radio signal quality in 3GPP RAT. The UE then determines if there is at least one suitable WLAN cell by evaluating WLAN conditions. The UE also determines if there is candidate traffic for WLAN offload. Finally, the UE steers the determined traffic to WLAN if the UE may perform WLAN offload and if there is at least one suitable WLAN cell. Otherwise, the UE steers the determined traffic to 3GPP RAT.

Abstract: A method of reliable and efficient information exchange between a first and a second entity, includes receiving data from the first entity by the second entity, determining if a response to the received data is required based on received control information, determining a response time during which the response is to be sent to the first entity (when a response is required), generating the response before expiration of the response time, and transmitting the response to the first entity before the expiration of the response time. The control information is received along with the data from the first entity. The control information includes an indication as to what type of response is required. In one example, the response is included in an unrelated scheduled transmission that is the next scheduled transmission from the second entity to the first entity.

Abstract: A method of user equipment (UE) indication of traffic-related information to network is provided. The method comprises a UE determining a traffic indicator and transmitting the traffic indicator to a base station. In one embodiment, the traffic indicator indicates either that default power consumption is preferred or low power consumption is preferred. For example, when the UE is in background traffic or sparse traffic, low power consumption is preferred. In another embodiment, the traffic indicator indicates a time pattern of the traffic history. From the network perspective, upon receiving and evaluating information contained in the traffic indicator, the network triggers a QoS modification procedure by applying one or more QoS modification algorithms.

Abstract: A novel and efficient connected mode cell reselection procedure is proposed to improve the mobility performance for user equipments (UEs) configured with extended connected mode Discontinuous Reception (DRX) cycle in LTE systems. A UE-centric mobility mechanism with which a UE performs cell reselection in RRC connected mode is proposed. The UE is allowed to select a target cell without handover signaling in the source cell and when needed to initiate signaling with the target cell, for which signal quality is much better. In this way, handover failures due to failed signaling in the source cell can be avoided. More specifically, the proposed mobility mechanism reduces signaling overhead and is inherently robust towards different DRX cycle settings, i.e., longer DRX cycles do not cause more failures, or more overhead, or more battery consumption.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for load balancing and load distribution using a set of alternative configurations. In one novel aspect, the UE receives and stores a set of alternative configurations. The UE selects a new alternative configuration upon detecting one or more triggering events and performs a cell selection based on the new alternative configuration. In one embodiment, the UE receives the set of alternative configurations from a broadcast signaling channel. In another embodiment, the UE applies a new configuration upon detecting one or more triggering events. In another embodiment, the UE selects the new alternative configuration using a hash function based on a UE identifier, wherein the hash function hashes to a priority class, and wherein each priority class maps to an alternative configuration. In one embodiment, a prohibition timer is used to prevent too frequent resource changes.

Abstract: A method of mobility management with smart measurement is proposed. The present invention addresses modifications on RRM measurements as well as mobility control procedures in order to improve mobility performance for UE configured with longer connected mode DRX cycle. Since the poor mobility performance when applying extended DRX cycle mainly results from reduced number of measurements, one solution is to dynamically adjust the measurement interval so as to trigger the measurement reporting in time.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for transmitter assisted Quality of Service (QoS) measurement. Time information is generated by the transmitter and transmitted along with a data transmission. A receiving device determines a QoS measurement based upon the time information and the received data. The time information indicates when the data was made available for transmission, which data transmission blocks belong to a single data transmission, and when a transmitter buffer was emptied. The QOS measurements are performance measurement such as, latency measurements and throughput measurements. The time information indicates a time reference relative to the timing of a wireless interface. The time reference is a System Frame Number (SFN), a Connection Frame Number (CFN), a relative count of frame numbers, a count of sub-frames, or a count of Time Transmission Intervals (TTIs). An aggregated QOS measurement is generated based upon the QOS measurement.

Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for low cost machine communication type (LC-MTC) devices for cell selection and cell reselection. In one novel aspect, the LC-MTC UE determines whether the cell is capable of supporting LC-MTC. If the LC-MTC UE determines that LC-MTC is not supported by the cell, the LC-MTC UE considers the cell as barred. The LC-MTC support capability information is provided to the LC-MTC UE in the system information, or in the RRC Connection Release message, or by inheriting from another RAT during the inter-RAT cell (re)selection. The LC-MTC support capability information is indicated per cell or per frequency. In another novel aspect, the LC-MTC UE acquires LC-MTC support capability information of neighbor cells and performs cell reselection based on the LC-MTC support capability information. In one embodiment, the LC-MTC support capability information of neighbor cells is provided in the system information of the serving cell.

Abstract: An enhanced connection recovery upon lost RRC connection due to radio link failure (RLF) or handover failure (HOF) is proposed. A UE first establishes an RRC connection in a source cell in a mobile communication network. Later on, the UE detects a failure event and starts an RRC reestablishment procedure in a target cell to restore the RRC connection. In a first novel aspect, a fast NAS recovery process is applied to reduce the outage time in the target cell. In a second novel aspect, context fetching is used to reduce the outage time in the target cell. In a third novel aspect, a loss-less reestablishment procedure is proposed to reduce data loss during the connection recovery.

Abstract: An enhanced paging mechanism is provided for UEs waking up from a very long paging cycle to improve paging robustness and flexibility. Enhanced paging includes absolute time paging (ATP) and paging with extended wakeup time. For absolute time paging, a UE receives ATP configuration and uses the actual wall time to calculate paging occasion if a condition is satisfied. In one embodiment, the wall time is acquired from at least one of an internal UE clock, a GPS time, information broadcasted from the network, or information from a higher layer signaling. For paging with extended wakeup time, a UE applies a long paging cycle followed by multiple normal paging cycles after waking up from the long paging cycle. In one embodiment, the long paging cycle is infinite and the UE enters normal paging cycle only upon TAU-triggered paging or uplink traffic.

Abstract: Apparatus and methods are provided to reorder PDCP SDUs. In one novel aspect, a timer-based PDCP reordering process is triggered upon detecting a PDCP gap existing condition, which indicates an SN gap between the PDCP SDUs of two parallel RLC entities larger than zero. The PDCP gap-closing condition is detected when the last-delivered SDU COUNT number plus one equals to the next-expected SDU COUNT number. In one embodiment, all the stored PDCP SDUs with consecutive COUNT numbers starting from the received SDU COUNT number are delivered upon detecting the PDCP gap-closing condition. In another novel aspect, a reordering timer is started upon detecting the PDCP gap condition. In one embodiment, the expiration of the reordering timer triggers the delivery of SDUs to upper layers. In one embodiment, the UE is configured with dual connectivity and the reordering SDU COUNT numbers and the reordering timers are associated with different connectivity configured.

Abstract: A method of managing multiple timing advance (TA) groups, maintaining multiple TA timers, and performing UL synchronization in a multi-carrier wireless system is provided. When a new component carrier (CC) is configured, it is assigned to a TA group having a TA group identifier. The TA groups are managed statically or dynamically. The TA group identifier is used to uniquely identify the TA group in the operations of uplink (UL) timing synchronization. Multiple TA timers are assigned to multiple TA groups. The TA timers may have different values for different TA group. Different embodiments of UL timing adjustments for multiple TA groups are provided.

Abstract: A method of cell reselection enhancement is proposed. A UE obtains parameters for extended cell reselection (ECR) in a mobile communication network. The UE goes to sleep and then wakes up periodically to monitor a paging channel. The UE either applies a normal paging cycle having a normal paging cycle length or applies a power-saving paging cycle having a very long paging cycle length. The UE performs cell selection if normal paging cycle is applied. The UE performs cell reselection based on the ECR parameters if the power-saving paging cycle is applied, and if the ECR parameters are still valid based on a list of conditions. In one novel aspect, the network provides the ECR parameters for a wider area for the UE such that the UE can still use cell reselection after waking up from a very long sleep to reduce power consumption.

Abstract: An enhanced paging mechanism is provided for UEs waking up from a very long paging cycle to improve paging robustness and flexibility. Enhanced paging includes absolute time paging (ATP) and paging with extended wakeup time. For absolute time paging, a UE receives ATP configuration and uses the actual wall time to calculate paging occasion if a condition is satisfied. In one embodiment, the wall time is acquired from at least one of an internal UE clock, a GPS time, information broadcasted from the network, or information from a higher layer signaling. For paging with extended wakeup time, a UE applies a long paging cycle followed by multiple normal paging cycles after waking up from the long paging cycle. In one embodiment, the long paging cycle is infinite and the UE enters normal paging cycle only upon TAU-triggered paging or uplink traffic.

Abstract: A method of throughput and data volume measurement for minimization of drive test (MDT) is proposed. A base station establishes a radio resource control (RRC) connection with a user equipment (UE) in a mobile communication network. The base station or UE measures transmitted or received data volume during a transmission time of a data burst between the base station and the UE. When the data burst spans multiple measurement periods and the data burst is split at each measurement period boundary. For each measurement period, data volume during the measurement period is measured to generate a measurement result. When throughput measurement is performed by the network, the base station receives location information that is available during the transmission time of the data burst. The data volume measurement is logged with time stamp such that each measurement result can correlated with the location information.

Abstract: A method of providing location option control for Minimization of Drive Test (MDT) in LTE systems is provided. In one embodiment, a UE or an eNB receives an MDT location request that comprises an MDT location option configuration having one or more location options. The UE or eNB determines a first location option based on the MDT location option configuration and initiates positioning for MDT measurements, reporting, and logging according to the first location option. In one novel aspect, each location option is associated with a priority. In addition to MDT measurements, reporting, and logging, a UE determines the best positioning procedure from a list of available location options. In one novel aspect, under a specific positioning objective, the UE prioritizes the list of available location options based on the signal strength and/or quality of cellular and WLAN signals.

Abstract: Various schemes are provided to improve SR resource utilization by adapting SR resource allocation to traffic pattern. In a first Scheme, SR resource allocation is configured more accurately. In one example, UE provides assistant information for eNB to determine or adjust SR configuration based on the received assistant information. In a second Scheme, multiple SR periods are configured and adapted to traffic pattern. In one example, eNB configures a set of SR resources with multiple SR periods, and UE applies different SR periods based on predefined events. Unused SR resources could be recycled by eNB for PUSCH data transmission. In a third Scheme, multiple SR allocations are configured and adapted to concerned applications. In one example, eNB configures multiple sets of SR resources adapted to predefined applications, and UE applies SR configurations based on corresponding applications. The additional SR configurations could be activated and/or deactivated.

Abstract: A method of radio link monitoring (RLM) and radio link failure (RLF) handling over a secondary serving cell (SCELL) is proposed. In a wireless network, a user equipment (UE) establishes a radio resource control (RRC) connection with a base station (eNB). The UE applies carrier aggregation for multiple component carriers (CCs) configured as multiple serving cells. The UE performs radio link monitoring over a primary serving cell (PCELL). The UE also performs radio link monitoring over a secondary serving cell (SCELL). The SCELL belongs to a CC group of one or more CCs, and used as a reference cell for the CC group. When SCELL performance is below pre-defined criteria, the UE and the eNB apply certain actions over the SCELL. The proposed SCELL RLM/RLF handling prevents spurious and uncontrollable uplink SCELL transmission and interference to other UEs.