CN109548170B

CN109548170B - Connection establishment method, network element, storage medium and system

Info

Publication number: CN109548170B
Application number: CN201710607456.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 戴谦
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2017-07-24
Filing date: 2017-07-24
Publication date: 2024-11-05
Anticipated expiration: 2037-07-24
Also published as: CN109548170A; WO2019019990A1

Abstract

The invention discloses a connection establishment method, a network element, a storage medium and a system, wherein the method comprises the steps that after receiving a connection request initiated by a user terminal B, an access network element determines a terminal group to which the user terminal B belongs; the access network element determines a user terminal capable of carrying out connection pretreatment in the terminal group; the access network element performs connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal. The technical scheme of the invention can quickly establish or recover the RRC connection and effectively reduce the overhead cost of the control plane signaling.

Description

Connection establishment method, network element, storage medium and system

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications technologies, and in particular, to a connection establishment method, a storage medium, a network element, and a system.

Background

With the development of the internet of things, the number of user terminals is continuously increased to become an industry background, and the problem of load and system efficiency of massive connection on network access has become one of the important points of current research.

Low cost, small bandwidth and small data are one of typical characteristics of the internet of things equipment, the duration of access of the equipment to the network is short, the transmission data volume is small, but the equipment holding volume is very large, and each time the equipment and the wireless communication network are connected, a large amount of air interface control plane signaling and the overhead of ground side control plane signaling are caused, wherein the control plane signaling consumed by the establishment process of the context on the RAN side is mainly used, but compared with the data volume transmitted by the equipment, the situation that the control plane signaling overhead is larger than the user plane data volume exists, and the transmission efficiency of the system is low is caused. At present, in research of enhanced MTC (Machine-type communication, machine type communication), narrowband internet of things (NBIOT, narrow Band Internet of Things), 5G new network (5G new Radio Access Technology) and the like, how to reduce the control plane signaling overhead cost caused by massive access is one of important research directions by 3 GPP.

In the LTE standard and the 5G new RAT standard discussed by the current 3GPP, a light connected state is introduced in LTE, an inactive state is introduced in the 5G new RAT, the 2 states are similar in nature, and for LTE RAN and 5G RAN, the light connected state and the inactive state belong to sub-states of RRC connected state, and if in the light connected state or the inactive state, the terminal still maintains RRC connection with RAN, and signaling bearer and data bearer still maintain, but differ from RRC connected state in that: the terminal and RAN need to save the terminal context, the mobility of the terminal adopts a cell reselection mode, and the terminal monitors the paging of the RAN and the CN.

The introduction of the 2 new states can partially reduce the power consumption of the terminal and the switching times of the terminal from an IDLE state to a connection state, thereby reducing partial signaling overhead; but does not substantially reduce signaling caused by the massive connections.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention aims to provide a connection establishment method, a storage medium, a network element and a system, which are used for solving the problem of high cost of control plane signaling overhead in the prior art.

In order to solve the above technical problems, in one aspect, the present invention provides a connection establishment method,

After receiving a connection request initiated by a user terminal B, an access network element determines a terminal group to which the user terminal B belongs;

the access network element determines a user terminal capable of carrying out connection pretreatment in the terminal group;

The access network element performs connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal.

Further, the user terminal capable of performing connection preprocessing is:

user terminal capable of carrying out AS access layer context creation; or alternatively

The AS connection pre-recovery can be performed for the user terminal.

Further, performing connection preprocessing on the determined user terminal, including:

according to the AS context of the user terminal in the terminal group stored in advance, the AS connection of the user terminal which is determined to be capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery is pre-recovered; or alternatively

And establishing the AS context for the user terminal capable of performing AS context establishment according to the group information of the terminal group and/or the information of the user terminal in the terminal group.

Further, the user terminal capable of pre-recovering the AS connection means: the method comprises the steps that a user terminal with AS context is stored in a network side and a terminal side in advance;

the user terminal capable of performing AS access layer context creation refers to: and the user terminal does not store AS context at the network side and the terminal side.

Further, the connection request initiated by the user terminal B is: connection establishment request, connection recovery request, or data transmission request.

Further, after receiving a connection request initiated by the user terminal B, the access network element determines that the user terminal B belongs to the terminal group, including:

when the user terminal B uses the PRACH resources pre-allocated for the terminal group, judging that the user terminal B is the user terminal in the terminal group; or alternatively

And judging the user terminal B as the user terminal in the terminal group according to the ID of the user terminal B or the group ID of the group to which the user terminal B belongs, wherein the ID is uploaded by the user terminal B.

Further, determining the user terminal capable of connection pretreatment in the terminal group comprises the following steps:

A request is sent to a core network element to request the core network element to determine the user terminal which can be connected and preprocessed in the terminal group; the request contains the IDs of all the user terminals except the user terminal B in the terminal group, the IDs of the terminal group or the IDs of the user terminal B only;

and obtaining the user terminal which is determined to be capable of performing connection pretreatment in the terminal group according to the confirmation indication fed back by the core network element.

Further, establishing the AS context includes:

taking the public part of the AS context of the user terminal B AS the public part of the AS context of the target user terminal of which the AS context is to be established; or alternatively

Presetting an AS context, and taking a public part in the preset AS context AS a public part of the AS context of a target user terminal for which the AS context is to be established;

The proprietary part of the AS context of the target user terminal is then negotiated and established by the target user terminal with the network side.

Further, the pre-recovery AS connection includes:

the AS context of the last AS connection of all user terminals in the terminal group is stored;

Distributing a terminal group recovery ID for the terminal group, or distributing a corresponding recovery ID for each user terminal in the terminal group;

When the pre-recovery AS connection is established, the AS context corresponding to the recovery ID of the terminal group or the recovery ID of the user terminal is searched according to the received recovery ID; the AS connection is pre-restored according to the AS context.

Further, the pre-recovery AS connection includes:

the AS context of the last AS connection of the user terminal B is saved, and the public part of the AS context is used AS the public part of the AS contexts of all the user terminals in the terminal group to be stored;

Further, determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery includes:

And for the user terminals in the terminal group, determining the user terminals which intensively initiate the connection request or the connection recovery request in the previous terminal group or the user terminals which continuously initiate the connection request or the connection recovery request for times exceeding a set threshold value AS the user terminals which can perform AS context new establishment or the user terminals which can perform AS connection pre-recovery.

When the group data period of the user terminals in the terminal group is unique, determining the user terminals which are consistent with the group data period and the data transmission time bias of the user terminal B AS the user terminals which can be subjected to AS context creation or the user terminals which can be subjected to AS connection pre-recovery;

And when the user terminals in the terminal group have various data periods, determining the user terminals which are consistent with the data period and the data transmission time bias of the user terminal B AS the user terminals capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminals capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery.

And determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-restoration according to the user terminal list capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal list capable of performing AS connection pre-restoration designated by the core network element, or the user terminal list capable of rejecting the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-restoration designated by the core network element.

Further, the pre-restoration of the AS connection includes at least: and establishing signaling bearing, data bearing and AS security.

In another aspect, the present invention provides a connection establishment method, including:

The method comprises the steps that a core network element receives a decision request sent by an access network element, and the request core network element judges whether AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group;

the core network element makes a decision for the request and feeds back to the access network element a list of user terminals that are allowed and/or denied to make AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration.

Further, after the core network element makes the decision for the request, the method further includes:

carrying out non-access stratum (NAS) context new establishment or core network connection pre-recovery on the user terminal;

The core network connection pre-recovery comprises that a core network element recovers NAS connection and S1 connection of a user terminal according to the core network context of the terminal stored in advance, wherein the S1 connection refers to connection between the core network and the RAN.

Further, the decision request includes an ID list of the user terminal to be decided, or a group ID of a preset terminal group to which the user terminal to be decided belongs.

Further, the core network connection pre-recovery further includes:

The method comprises the steps of storing core network contexts connected with a previous core network of all user terminals of a preset terminal group by taking the group as a unit, or selecting and storing the core network context connected with a previous core network of one user terminal B in the terminal group, and taking a public part stored by the core network context of the user terminal B as a public part stored by the core network context of all user terminals of the terminal group;

Distributing corresponding terminal group recovery IDs for the core network context storage, or distributing corresponding user terminal recovery IDs for each user terminal of the terminal group;

When the user terminal B establishes core network connection again, receiving a recovery ID of a terminal group or a recovery ID of the user terminal B, which is sent by the user terminal B or an access network element;

Inquiring the core network context storage corresponding to the user terminal B according to the recovery ID of the terminal group or the recovery ID of the user terminal B, and establishing the core network connection of the user terminal B according to the stored core network context.

In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a storage medium having stored therein program instructions configured to:

After receiving a connection request initiated by a user terminal B, determining a terminal group to which the user terminal B belongs;

Determining user terminals capable of connection pretreatment in the terminal group;

and carrying out connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal.

Further, the user terminal capable of performing connection preprocessing is:

The AS connection pre-recovery can be performed for the user terminal.

Further, determining that the user terminal B belongs to the terminal group includes:

After pre-allocating a special physical random access channel PRACH resource for the terminal group, when the user terminal B uses the special PRACH resource, judging that the user terminal B is a user terminal in the terminal group; or alternatively

Further, establishing the AS context includes:

Further, the pre-recovery AS connection includes:

Receiving a decision request sent by a network element side of a wireless access network, and requesting a core network element to judge whether AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group;

and judging the request, and feeding back a list of user terminals which allow and/or reject AS context creation or AS connection pre-recovery to the access network element.

Further, after making the determination for the request, further comprising:

The core network connection pre-recovery comprises that a core network element recovers NAS connection and S1 connection of a user terminal according to a pre-stored core network context of the terminal, wherein the S1 connection refers to connection between the core network and an access network element.

Further, the core network connection pre-recovery further includes:

When the user terminal B establishes core network connection again, receiving a recovery ID of a terminal group or a recovery ID of the user terminal B, which is sent by the user terminal B or the RAN;

In yet another aspect, the present invention provides an access network element, including a processor and a memory, the memory having stored therein program instructions, the processor performing the following operations by invoking the program instructions in the memory:

and carrying out connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal.

Further, establishing the AS context includes:

Further, the pre-recovery AS connection includes:

In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a core network element, including a processor and a memory, the memory storing program instructions, the processor executing the following operations by calling the program instructions in the memory:

Further, after making the decision for the decision request, further comprising:

Further, the core network connection pre-recovery further includes:

In yet another aspect, the present invention provides a system, including the above access network element, a core network element, and a user terminal.

The invention has the following beneficial effects:

the invention is based on the mode of group, when the terminal in the group initiates connection, the other terminals in the group to which the terminal belongs are pre-established or pre-recovered, thus, when the terminals which complete the pre-establishment or pre-recovery of the RRC connection initiate the establishment or recovery of the RRC connection, the RRC connection can be quickly established or recovered, and the cost of the signaling overhead of the control plane is effectively reduced.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a group-based multi-terminal connection establishment method in an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are for purposes of illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.

The concept of group, although proposed in 3GPP, is currently only applied to addressing in units of group, AMBR (AGGREGATE MAXIMUM BIT RATE, cumulative maximum rate) control, group messaging in the form of broadcast, charging in units of group, etc., and is not always focused and solved by the industry because it is a terminal-initiated individual discrete behaviour, both in time and in connection nature, that is difficult to implement once in groups.

The core scheme of the invention is as follows: grouping the user terminals, screening and identifying the rest user terminals in the terminal group when any user terminal in the terminal group initiates a connection request (connection establishment request, connection recovery request or data transmission request), selecting the user terminals capable of performing connection pretreatment, and performing pretreatment on the selected user terminals at the access network side and the core network side. In this way, when the user terminal which has established the pre-connection process initiates the connection request again, the connection is established directly by the pre-connection information, so that the RRC connection can be quickly established or restored, and the cost of the overhead of the control plane signaling is effectively reduced.

Screening and identifying the rest user terminals in the terminal group, when a user terminal capable of performing pre-connection processing is selected, and when a core network side is required to make a decision, receiving a decision request sent by an access network element (RAN) side by the core network element, and requesting the core network element to judge whether AS context establishment or AS connection pre-restoration can be performed for the user terminals in the terminal group; the core network element makes a decision for the request and feeds back to the RAN a list of user terminals that are allowed and/or denied AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration.

The pre-connection processing at the base station side comprises the following steps: according to AS context of user terminal in the pre-stored terminal group, pre-recovering AS connection of user terminal capable of pre-recovering AS connection is determined; or establishing AS context for the user terminal capable of establishing AS context according to the group information of the terminal group and/or the information of the user terminal in the terminal group.

The pre-connection processing of the core network side comprises the following steps: carrying out non-access stratum (NAS) context new establishment or core network connection pre-recovery on the user terminal; the core network connection pre-recovery comprises that a core network element recovers NAS connection and S1 connection of a user terminal according to the core network context of the terminal stored in advance, wherein the S1 connection refers to connection between the core network and the RAN.

The following is a detailed description of specific examples.

Example 1

The embodiment relates to a connection establishment method, which is applied to an access network element side and comprises the following steps:

After receiving a connection request initiated by a user terminal B, an access network element firstly determines a terminal group to which the user terminal B belongs; then determining the user terminal capable of connection pretreatment in the terminal group; and finally, carrying out connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal. Through the technical scheme, when the terminal which completes the connection pretreatment initiates the connection request again, the RRC connection can be quickly established or restored, and the cost of the control plane signaling is effectively reduced.

In this embodiment, the determining the terminal group to which the user terminal B belongs may adopt any one of the following schemes:

When the user terminal B uses the PRACH resources which are pre-allocated for the terminal group, the user terminal B is judged to be the user terminal in the terminal group; or alternatively

In the above solution, the connection request initiated by the user terminal B may be a connection establishment request, a connection recovery request, or a data transmission request. The user terminal capable of performing connection preprocessing is as follows: user terminal capable of carrying out access layer AS context creation; or a user terminal that can perform AS connection pre-restoration. Wherein, the pre-recovery of AS connection at least comprises: and establishing signaling bearing, data bearing and AS security.

The determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context new establishment or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery comprises the following steps:

For the user terminals in the terminal group, the user terminals which intensively initiate the connection request or the connection recovery request in the previous terminal group or the user terminals which continuously initiate the connection request or the connection recovery request for times exceeding a set threshold value are determined to be the user terminals which can perform AS context new establishment or the user terminals which can perform AS connection pre-recovery; or alternatively

User terminals in the terminal group, which are consistent with the data period and the data transmission time bias of the user terminal B, are determined to be user terminals capable of performing AS context new establishment or pre-recovery of AS connection; or alternatively

In the above scheme, determining the user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment in the terminal group includes:

A request is sent to a core network element to request the core network element to determine a user terminal which can be subjected to connection pretreatment in a terminal group; the request contains the IDs of all the user terminals except the user terminal B in the terminal group, the IDs of the terminal group or the IDs of the user terminal B only;

and obtaining the user terminal which is determined to be capable of carrying out connection pretreatment in the terminal group according to the confirmation indication fed back by the core network element.

In the above scheme, establishing the AS context includes:

taking the public part of the AS context of the user terminal B AS the public part of the AS context of the target user terminal of which the AS context is to be established; or presetting an AS context, and taking the public part in the preset AS context AS the public part of the AS context of the target user terminal for which the AS context is to be established; the proprietary part of the AS context of the target user terminal is then negotiated and established by the target user terminal with the network side.

In the above scheme, pre-recovering the AS connection includes:

the AS context of the last AS connection of all user terminals in the terminal group is stored; distributing a terminal group recovery ID for the terminal group, or distributing a corresponding recovery ID for each user terminal in the terminal group; when the pre-recovery AS connection is established, the AS context corresponding to the recovery ID of the terminal group or the recovery ID of the user terminal is searched according to the received recovery ID; pre-recovering AS connection according to the AS context; or alternatively

The AS context of the last AS connection of the user terminal B is saved, and the common part of the AS context is used AS the common part of the AS contexts of all the user terminals in the terminal group to be stored; distributing a terminal group recovery ID for the terminal group, or distributing a corresponding recovery ID for each user terminal in the terminal group; when the pre-recovery AS connection is established, the AS context corresponding to the recovery ID of the terminal group or the recovery ID of the user terminal is searched according to the received recovery ID; the AS connection is pre-restored according to the AS context.

In the above scheme, the connection preprocessing is performed on the determined user terminal, specifically:

According to AS context of user terminal in the pre-stored terminal group, pre-recovering AS connection of user terminal capable of pre-recovering AS connection is determined; or establishing AS context for the user terminal capable of establishing AS context according to the group information of the terminal group and/or the information of the user terminal in the terminal group.

Example 2

The present embodiment relates to a storage medium having stored therein program instructions for implementing the technical solution of embodiment 1, where the program instructions are configured to implement the following functions:

In the above scheme, establishing the AS context includes:

In the above scheme, pre-recovering the AS connection includes:

Example 3

The embodiment relates to an access network element, which comprises a processor and a memory, wherein program instructions are stored in the processor, and the processor is used for realizing the technical scheme of the embodiment 1 by calling the program instructions stored in the memory, wherein the program instructions are used for realizing the following functions:

In the above scheme, establishing the AS context includes:

In the above scheme, pre-recovering the AS connection includes:

Example 4

The embodiment relates to a connection establishment method, which is applied to a core network element side and comprises the following steps:

The method comprises the steps that a core network element receives a decision request sent by an access network element, and the request core network element judges whether AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group; the decision request includes an ID list of the user terminal to be decided, or a group ID of a preset terminal group to which the user terminal to be decided belongs.

Wherein the core network connection pre-recovery further comprises:

According to the technical scheme of the embodiment, the user terminal which determines to perform AS context new construction or AS connection pre-recovery performs non-access stratum NAS context new construction or core network connection pre-recovery, so that when the terminals initiate requests, RRC connection can be quickly established or recovered when connection establishment requests are initiated again, and the cost of control plane signaling is effectively reduced.

Example 5

The present embodiment relates to a storage medium having stored therein program instructions for implementing the technical solution of embodiment 4, where the program instructions are configured to implement the following functions:

Wherein the core network connection pre-recovery further comprises:

Example 6

The embodiment relates to a core network element, which comprises a processor and a memory, wherein program instructions are stored in the processor, and the processor is used for realizing the technical scheme of embodiment 4 by calling the program instructions stored in the memory, wherein the program instructions are used for realizing the following functions:

Receiving a decision request sent by an access network element, and requesting a core network element to judge whether AS context establishment or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group; the decision request includes an ID list of the user terminal to be decided, or a group ID of a preset terminal group to which the user terminal to be decided belongs.

Further, after making the determination for the request, further comprising:

the core network connection pre-recovery comprises the step of recovering NAS connection and S1 connection of the terminal according to the pre-stored core network context of the user terminal, wherein the S1 connection refers to connection between the core network and an access network element.

Wherein the core network connection pre-recovery further comprises:

The following describes a group-based multi-terminal connection establishment method and related network element devices in a specific embodiment.

Example 7

Taking the LTE system as an example, assume that a terminal group a has been predefined on the core network element MME-a (mobility management entity-a) side, in which an ID (e.g., S-TMSI or IMSI) of 10 terminals is included, an eNB subordinate to the MME-a has obtained information of group a from the MME-a in advance, a terminal B (assuming that it belongs to a member of terminal group a) initiates a calling procedure, and initiates an RRC connection establishment procedure to an eNB subordinate to the MME-a (base station of the LTE RAN); after 5 minutes, another member terminal D of group a initiates an RRC connection recovery procedure to the eNB.

This example is used to illustrate how during a new network connection procedure, the RAN (Radio Access Network ) and MME can prepare the AS connections and core network connections of multiple group members in advance in a group form and use them for the subsequent RRC connection setup procedure of the group member terminals to reduce the overhead of air interface signaling.

Only the flow of terminal B in initiating the establishment of an RRC connection to establish an RRC connection pre-recovery for other terminals in the group is shown in fig. 1 (note: AS connection is a generic term for connection between radio access network and terminal, RRC connection is attributed to AS connection), and the subsequent flow of terminal in group initiating the establishment of an RRC connection, so fig. 1 does not include the flow of terminal B in establishing an RRC connection, and does not indicate that terminal B does not establish an RRC connection, but is not shown in fig. 1 only. The connection request initiated by the user terminal B may be: connection establishment request, connection restoration request, or data transmission.

As shown in fig. 1, the group-based multi-terminal connection establishment method includes:

Step 101: the terminal B initiates an RRC connection establishment process to the eNB, and reports the UE ID (S-TMSI) of the terminal B in an RRC connection establishment request message, wherein the RRC connection establishment is based on MO-data (calling data service);

Step 102: the eNB inquires whether the terminal B belongs to a member of a certain group and determines that the terminal B belongs to the group A according to the ID; the RAN or the core network element defines member terminals belonging to a group and assigns a group ID, and the member terminals in the group should have the following same characteristics: the same service, the same service model, the same service class, the same terminal type, or the same APN (Access Point Name ).

Step 103: the eNB judges whether the RRC connection is pre-restored to the other 9 group member terminals remained in the group A; the necessary condition for performing RRC connection pre-recovery is that the eNB stores the AS context of the terminal in advance, the terminal without the stored context cannot perform RRC connection pre-recovery, and the method for determining which group member terminals perform RRC connection pre-recovery based on meeting the necessary condition includes:

Judging according to the liveness of the group members: if a certain group member X does not initiate connection in the RRC connection of the previous group member or does not initiate RRC connection for a plurality of times in succession, the group member X is considered to be an inactive member, and the RAN does not pre-recover the RRC connection for the member;

judging according to the data period of the group members: if the group member reports the data transmission period information (data period) of the member to the RAN, or the RAN acquires the data transmission period information of the group A from the MME, the RAN can determine whether the RRC connection needs to be pre-restored for the member according to the information; the method comprises the following steps:

If the UE which initiates the connection does not accord with the data period and the data transmission time bias, judging that the connection is the personal burst behavior of the UE, and not needing to pre-recover the RRC connection of other groups;

if the members in the group have multiple data periods, judging which data periods and data transmission time offsets of the members in the group are consistent with the UE which initiates connection currently, and recovering the RRC connection of the consistent members in advance;

Judging according to feedback of the MME: if MME-A designates a UE list capable of recovering RRC connection, eNB determines group member UE capable of recovering RRC connection according to the indications; if the MME designates a UE list refusing the pre-restoration connection, the eNB does not perform RRC pre-establishment or pre-restoration of the UE in the list;

if the connection establishment cause of the terminal B currently initiating the connection procedure is MT call (MobileTerminal Call, called) and the RAN has not received the paging from the MME to the UE of other group a members or has not received the group paging from the MME of group a, then it is considered that MTcall is only the single service of the UE, and the other group a members do not need to pre-restore the RRC connection together;

Among the above methods, 1 method may be selected to assist in the judgment, or two or three methods may be used in combination, where the method indicated by the MME has the highest priority. That is, if the eNB itself determines that 8 terminals can perform RRC connection pre-recovery, but the MME indicates that only 5 terminals of them allow RRC connection pre-recovery, the eNB needs to follow the MME's indication.

In this example, it is assumed that the eNB determines that 7 terminals out of the remaining 9 terminals perform RRC pre-recovery.

Step 104: the eNB sends a list of 7 terminals which can be subjected to RRC pre-recovery to the MME for verification, and the list can be carried by the existing signaling of the S1 port, for example, the list is sent by initial UE message; an S1 port signaling may also be newly defined. The S1 port refers to an interface between the eNB and the MME. And (3) injection: if the eNB decides to perform RRC connection pre-recovery for all terminals remaining from group A, only the ID of group A may be sent to the MME.

Step 105: the MME checks whether the 7 terminals can pre-recover the core network connection, and similarly, the requirement that the core network connection pre-recovery can be performed is that the MME stores the core network context of the corresponding terminal in advance, otherwise, the terminal cannot perform the core network connection pre-recovery. On the basis of meeting the necessary condition, the auditing method can refer to the method of step 103, and due to the difference of the eNB and the MME algorithm and the parameters, in addition, the MME needs to consider additional factors such as load of the MME, and the auditing result of the MME may refuse the pre-establishment of part of terminals. In this example, assuming that the MME only allows 6 terminals to pre-recover the core network connection, the MME feeds back a list of terminals that allow the pre-recover core network connection to the eNB, which may be carried by the existing signaling of the S1 port, for example, sent through initial Context Setup Request; an S1 port signaling may also be newly defined.

Meanwhile, the MME starts to pre-recover the core network connection of the 6 terminals, namely, the S1 port control plane bearing, the S1 port user plane bearing, the NAS security context and the like are respectively recovered for each terminal according to the corresponding terminal context stored in advance by the MME.

Step 106: the eNB finally determines terminals capable of carrying out RRC pre-recovery according to the list of the MME, and carries out RRC connection pre-recovery of the terminals according to AS contexts of the terminals stored by the eNB, wherein the terminals comprise signaling bearing, data bearing, AS security contexts and the like which are respectively established for each terminal;

Note that: in the above steps, the RRC connection and NAS connection establishment procedure of the terminal B is not affected, and the pre-recovery of the RRC connection and core network connection with other terminals may be performed in parallel.

Terminals completing RRC connection pre-recovery and core network connection pre-recovery belong to a light connected state (light connected state) from the perspective of the LTE network side; from the perspective of the 5G new RAT network, the terminal belongs to an inactive state (inactive state), namely, the terminal and the network side both store the context of the terminal, the mobility of the terminal adopts a cell reselection mode, and the terminal monitors paging of the RAN and the core network.

Step 107: after 5 minutes, assuming that the member terminal D of the group a initiates a service, then initiating an RRC connection establishment procedure or an RRC connection recovery procedure to the eNB, reporting its UE ID in an RRC connection establishment request message or in an RRC connection recovery request message, where the reason for this RRC connection establishment is MO-data (calling data service);

Step 108: the eNB inquires whether the terminal D has pre-recovered RRC connection, if so, the pre-recovered RRC connection context (or AS context) is directly adopted, RRC connection parameters are configured for the terminal D and issued, meanwhile, the MME is informed that the terminal D can carry out connection recovery, the informing information contains the ID of the terminal D, and the informing information can be carried in the existing S1 signaling or an S1 signaling is newly established; if not, establishing RRC connection for the terminal according to the flow of the common new RRC connection;

step 109: after receiving the notification information sent by the eNB, the MME adopts the pre-recovered core network connection to transmit control plane signaling for the terminal D.

Example 8:

the application scenario of this embodiment is the same as that of embodiment 7, except that when determining the list of terminals that can perform RRC connection pre-recovery, the following method may be used in addition to the final decision by the MME as described in embodiment 7:

the RAN does not perform step 103, but directly sends the user terminal list of the group A to the MME, and the MME makes a final decision to determine which user terminals can perform RRC connection pre-recovery;

Example 9:

The application scenario of this embodiment is assumed to be the same as that of embodiment 7, except that when determining the list of terminals for which RRC connection pre-recovery is possible, the following method may be used in addition to the final decision by the MME as described in embodiment 7:

The RAN does not perform steps 104 and 105, but directly performs RRC connection pre-recovery on the user terminal of the group A which can perform RRC connection pre-recovery and is determined by the RAN;

This is further divided into two embodiments:

1. the RAN does not inform the MME of the user terminal list of the group A which determines the RRC connection pre-recovery, so that when the terminal which is pre-recovered with the RRC connection is accessed to the network subsequently, a core network connection is newly established for the terminal;

2. The RAN informs the MME of the user terminal list of the group A which determines to perform RRC connection pre-recovery, and the MME performs core network connection pre-recovery on UE included in the list;

Example 10:

Taking the LTE system as an example, assume that a terminal group a has been predefined on the RAN side, which contains IDs (e.g. S-TMSI or IMSI) of 10 terminals, terminal B (assuming it belongs to one member of terminal group a) initiates a calling procedure, and initiates an RRC connection establishment procedure to the eNB (base station of the LTE RAN); after 5 minutes, the other member terminal D of group a also initiates an RRC connection recovery procedure to the eNB.

This example is used to illustrate how during a new network connection procedure, the RAN prepares in advance part of the contexts of the AS connections of a plurality of group members in the form of a group, and uses them in the subsequent RRC connection establishment or restoration procedure of the group member terminal to reduce the overhead of air interface signaling and reduce the processing power consumption of the base station.

Step 401: the terminal B initiates an RRC connection establishment process to the eNB, and reports the UE ID (S-TMSI) of the terminal B in an RRC connection establishment request message, wherein the RRC connection establishment is based on MO-data (calling data service);

Step 402: the eNB inquires whether the terminal B belongs to a member of a certain group and determines that the terminal B belongs to the group A according to the ID;

step 403: the eNB judges whether the other 9 group member terminals of the group A have stored AS contexts, if not, the AS contexts can only be newly built. Assuming in this example that the eNB does not have AS contexts stored by the 9 group member terminals, the eNB further determines which terminals to create AS contexts, and the selection method includes:

Judging according to the liveness of the group members: if a certain group member X does not initiate connection in the RRC connection of the previous group member or does not initiate RRC connection for a plurality of times, the group member X is considered to be an inactive member, and the RAN does not establish an AS context for the member;

Judging according to the data period of the group members: if the group member reports the own data transmission period information to the RAN or the RAN acquires the data transmission period information of the group A from the MME, the RAN can determine whether an AS context needs to be newly established for the member according to the information; the method comprises the following steps:

If the UE which initiates the connection at present does not accord with the group data period and the data transmission time bias, judging that the connection is the personal burst behavior of the UE, and needing no new AS context;

If the members in the group have multiple data periods, judging which data periods and data transmission time offsets of the members in the group are consistent with those of the UE which initiates connection currently, and creating an AS context for the consistent members;

If the connection establishment cause of the terminal B currently initiating the connection procedure is MT call (Mobile TERMINAL CALL, called) and the RAN has not received the paging from the MME to the UE of other group a members or has not received the group paging from the MME to the group a, then it is considered that MTcall is only the single service of the UE, and other group a members do not need to create an AS context together;

Among the above methods, 1 method may be selected to assist judgment, or two or three methods may be used in combination.

In this example, assume that the eNB determines that 7 out of the remaining 9 terminals are performing new AS contexts.

Step 404: the eNB establishes an AS context for the selected terminal, including the following 2 modes:

1. Taking the AS context of the terminal B which is currently being connected and established AS a blue book, and carrying out AS context new establishment;

2. Taking the default AS context AS a blue book, carrying out AS context creation,

The AS context is divided into a public part and a private part;

The common part refers to an AS context part which can be used with other UE in a common way, and in the LTE standard, the common part comprises one or more of the following: UE security capability, qoS information, RAB (radio access bearer) information, RRC context, handover restriction list; wherein the UE security capability, qos information, although possibly different from terminal to terminal, is common to the same group of terminals having the same characteristics;

The proprietary part is an AS context part which is unique to the UE and is different from other UEs, and at least comprises: AS safety information, because AS safety information needs to be dynamically updated, other UE cannot be used AS reference or a fixed blue book is used for reference;

the eNB actually creates an AS context for the selected terminal, which means that a public part of the AS context is created, and a private part of the AS context of the terminal needs to be created when the terminal initiates RRC connection by itself.

Step 405: after 5 minutes, assuming that the member terminal D of the group A initiates a service, then initiating an RRC connection establishment process or an RRC connection recovery process to the eNB, and reporting an own UE ID in an RRC connection establishment request message or an RRC connection recovery request message, wherein the RRC connection establishment is due to MO-data (calling data service);

Step 406: the eNB queries whether the AS context has been newly created by the terminal D, if so, establishes a public part of the context of the terminal D according to the newly created context, and in addition, the eNB regenerates a private part of the AS context for the terminal D, for example: and sending the newly generated AS security information to the terminal D, and completing the handshake of AS security with the terminal D to establish AS security.

Example 11:

In combination with embodiment 7 and embodiment 10, in step 103 and step 403, when the eNB selects which terminals in the remaining terminals of group a can perform RRC connection pre-recovery or AS context creation, if a part of the remaining terminals have no context stored in advance in the eNB and a part of the remaining terminals have a context stored in advance in the eNB, the eNB may choose to use two methods simultaneously, that is, perform AS context creation for the terminals that do not have an AS context stored in advance, and perform RRC connection pre-recovery for the terminals that have an AS context stored in advance.

Example 12:

This embodiment describes how AS context preservation and RRC connection recovery are performed in groups at the eNB, including:

The method comprises the steps of storing terminal AS contexts of previous AS connection of all user terminals of a terminal group A by taking the group AS a unit, and distributing corresponding group A recovery IDs for AS context storage; or allocating a corresponding recovery ID for each user terminal in the terminal group A;

or selecting the AS context of the previous AS connection of the user terminal B for storage, and storing the common part of the AS context of the user terminal B AS the common part of the AS contexts of all user terminals in the terminal group A; allocating a corresponding group A recovery ID for the AS context storage; or allocating a corresponding recovery ID for each user terminal in the terminal group A;

When the user terminal B in the group A again requires to establish AS connection, the RAN receives the recovery ID of the terminal group A or the recovery ID of the user terminal B sent by the RAN, inquires about AS context storage corresponding to the terminal B according to the recovery ID of the terminal group A or the recovery ID of the user terminal B, and establishes AS connection of the user terminal B according to the stored context.

Example 13:

the present embodiment relates to a system for implementing the above embodiment, where the system includes an access network element, a core network element, and a user terminal. The access network element comprises a memory (storage medium) and a processor, and the processor of the access network element realizes the functions of the access network element in the above embodiment by calling program instructions (software programs) in the memory on the access network element. The core network element comprises a memory (storage medium) and a processor, and the processor of the core network element realizes the functions of the core network element in the above embodiment by calling program instructions (software programs) in the memory on the core network element. The storage medium refers to a physical carrier storing program instruction data (software program); can be a floppy disk, an optical disk, a DVD, a hard disk, a flash Memory, a U disk, a CF card, an SD card, an MMC card, an SM card, a Memory Stick (Memory Stick), an xD card, etc.; but also a device comprising the above-mentioned storage product. Wherein:

program instructions stored in a memory installed on an access network element realize the following functions:

and carrying out connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal.

Further, the user terminal capable of performing connection preprocessing is:

The AS connection pre-recovery can be performed for the user terminal.

Further, establishing the AS context includes:

Further, the pre-recovery AS connection includes:

2. Program instructions stored in a memory installed on the core network element are used to implement the following functions:

Receiving a decision request sent by a Radio Access Network (RAN) side, and requesting a core network element to judge whether AS context establishment or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group;

The core network element makes a decision for the request and feeds back to the RAN a list of user terminals that are allowed and/or denied AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration.

Further, the core network connection pre-recovery further includes:

In the above embodiment, the types of access network elements include SMALL CELL, home base station, 5G new RAT and other access network element types compatible with EPC architecture besides eNB.

The core network element types include, besides the MME, core network elements supporting machine type communication and mobility management, such as C-SGN, NBiot MME and the like.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the modules or steps of the invention described above may be implemented in a general purpose computing device, they may be centralized on a single computing device, or distributed over a network of computing devices, or they may alternatively be implemented in program code executable by computing devices, such that they may be stored in a memory device and executed by computing devices, or they may be separately fabricated as individual integrated circuit modules, or multiple modules or steps within them may be fabricated as a single integrated circuit module. Thus, the present invention is not limited to any specific combination of hardware and software.

The foregoing description is only of the preferred embodiments of the invention and is not intended to limit the scope of the invention. In light of the present disclosure, various other embodiments may be utilized and those skilled in the art may make various changes and modifications from the present disclosure without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, and any such changes, equivalents, modifications and improvements may be made within the spirit and principles of the invention. Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed for illustrative purposes, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications, additions and substitutions are possible, and accordingly the scope of the invention is not limited to the embodiments described above.

Claims

1. A connection establishment method, characterized in that,

the access network element performs connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal;

The user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment is as follows:

User terminal capable of carrying out access layer AS context creation; or alternatively

User terminal capable of AS connection pre-recovery;

the determining of the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery comprises the following steps:

2. The connection establishment method according to claim 1, wherein the connection pre-processing is performed on the determined user terminal, including:

3. The connection establishment method according to claim 1, wherein the connection request initiated by the user terminal B is: connection establishment request, connection recovery request, or data transmission request.

4. The connection establishment method according to claim 1, wherein upon receiving a connection request initiated by a user terminal B, the access network element determines that the user terminal B belongs to the terminal group, comprising:

5. The connection establishment method according to claim 1, wherein determining user terminals in the terminal group that can perform connection preprocessing comprises:

6. The connection establishment method of claim 2, wherein establishing the AS context comprises:

7. The connection establishment method of claim 2, wherein the pre-recovery AS connection comprises:

8. The connection establishment method of claim 2, wherein the pre-recovery AS connection comprises:

9. The connection establishment method according to claim 1, wherein determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing pre-restoration of AS connection comprises:

10. The connection establishment method according to claim 1, wherein determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing pre-restoration of AS connection comprises:

And determining the user terminal which accords with the data period and the data sending time bias of the user terminal B in the terminal group AS the user terminal which can carry out AS context establishment or the user terminal which can carry out AS connection pre-recovery.

11. The connection establishment method of claim 1, wherein the pre-restoration of the AS connection comprises at least: and establishing signaling bearing, data bearing and AS security.

12. A method of connection establishment, comprising:

The core network element makes a judgment for the request and feeds back a list of user terminals which allow and/or reject AS context creation or AS connection pre-restoration to the access network element;

the access network element is used for determining a user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment in the terminal group;

The user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment is as follows:

User terminal capable of AS connection pre-recovery;

the access network element determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery comprises:

13. The connection establishment method of claim 12, wherein after the core network element makes the determination for the request, further comprising:

14. The connection establishment method of claim 12, wherein the decision request includes a list of IDs of user terminals to be decided or a group ID of a preset terminal group to which the user terminals to be decided belong.

15. The connection establishment method of claim 13, wherein the core network connection pre-restoration further comprises:

16. A storage medium, characterized in that, the storage medium has stored therein program instructions configured to:

performing connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal;

The user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment is as follows:

User terminal capable of AS connection pre-recovery;

the determining the user terminal capable of performing AS context creation or the user terminal capable of performing AS connection pre-recovery comprises the following steps:

17. The storage medium of claim 16, wherein performing connection pre-processing for the determined user terminal comprises:

18. The storage medium of claim 17, wherein establishing an AS context comprises:

19. A storage medium AS defined in claim 17, wherein the pre-recovery AS connection comprises:

20. A storage medium AS defined in claim 17, wherein the pre-recovery AS connection comprises:

21. A storage medium, characterized in that, the storage medium has stored therein program instructions configured to:

receiving a decision request sent by an access network element side, and requesting a core network element to judge whether AS context establishment or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group;

Making a judgment for the request, and feeding back a list of user terminals which allow and/or reject AS context creation or AS connection pre-recovery to an access network element;

The user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment is as follows:

User terminal capable of AS connection pre-recovery;

22. The storage medium of claim 21, further comprising, after making the determination for the decision request:

23. The storage medium of claim 21, wherein the decision request includes a list of IDs of user terminals to be decided, or a group ID of a preset terminal group to which the user terminals to be decided belong.

24. The storage medium of claim 22, wherein the core network connection pre-restoration further comprises:

25. An access network element comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory has stored therein program instructions, the processor performing the following by invoking the program instructions in the memory:

performing connection pretreatment on the determined user terminal;

The user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment is as follows:

User terminal capable of AS connection pre-recovery;

26. The access network element of claim 25, wherein the performing connection pre-processing for the determined user terminal comprises:

27. The access network element of claim 26, wherein establishing the AS context comprises:

28. The access network element of claim 26, wherein the pre-recovery AS connection comprises:

29. The access network element of claim 26, wherein the pre-recovery AS connection comprises:

30. The access network element of claim 25, wherein the pre-restoration of the AS connection comprises at least: and establishing signaling bearing, data bearing and AS security.

31. A core network element comprising a processor and a memory, wherein the memory has stored therein program instructions, the processor performing the following operations by invoking the program instructions in the memory:

Receiving a decision request sent by a wireless access network, and requesting a core network element to judge whether AS context establishment or AS connection pre-restoration can be carried out for user terminals in a terminal group;

The user terminal capable of performing connection pretreatment is as follows:

User terminal capable of AS connection pre-recovery;

32. The core network element of claim 31, further comprising, after making the decision for the decision request:

33. The core network element of claim 31, wherein the core network connection pre-restoration further comprises:

34. A system comprising an access network element according to any one of claims 25 to 30, a core network element according to any one of claims 31 to 33, and a user terminal.