Integrated small cell and Wi-Fi networks

The current 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) telecommunication standards support core-network based interworking between Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) at the Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN-GW). Using the PDN-GW as the integration point causes a bottleneck in the mobile core network and results in inefficient inter-system handover procedure between the long term evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi air interfaces. In this paper, we propose three new LTE-WLAN integrated architectures which enable more efficient inter-system handover mechanisms. The new architectures propose moving the integration point closer to the local integrated LTE/Wi-Fi network. In doing so, we introduce new logical network entities, reference points, and messages to the current 3GPP LTE-WLAN integrated architecture. Unlike existing user-initiated intersystem handover mechanisms, the proposed handover mechanisms may also be network-initiated to dynamically adapt to the conditions in the local LTE/Wi-Fi network (e.g., load balancing).