John R. Cartmell
LTE, WiFi AP, seamless offload, IP Flow mobility
IP Flow Mobility (IFOM) is a feature defined in the 3GPP standards. In this paper we propose a Converged Gateway (CGW) which enables IFOM to perform seamless offload from licensed spectrum to unlicensed spectrum. The IFOM functionality within the CGW takes into account the current conditions, rules provisioned from the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) network and local administrator rules that are merged with the rules provisioned from the core network. The CGW will manage IP Flows from their inception until their end. It will decide the optimal link to use for the delivery of data to an end-user device. Routing rules are used to decide the initial access assignment of an IP Flow. Once an IP Flow has been identified by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), it will be placed on the access according to its type and the rule for that type. Periodically, the CGW will perform load balancing and handling link-down scenarios to most effectively utilize the links. We then show a few examples based on a set of rules and flow types.
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