CN105828436B

CN105828436B - Paging method, paging device, MME, base station and user equipment

Info

Publication number: CN105828436B
Application number: CN201510615996.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 陈宪明; 戴博; 陆婷; 夏树强; 刘锟; 石靖; 张雯; 方惠英
Original assignee: ZTE Corp
Current assignee: ZTE Corp
Priority date: 2015-01-27
Filing date: 2015-09-24
Publication date: 2020-09-08
Anticipated expiration: 2035-09-24
Also published as: CN105828436A; WO2016119442A1

Abstract

The invention provides a paging method, a paging device, an MME, a base station and user equipment, wherein the method comprises the following steps: receiving indication information sent by a service base station of user equipment; when the state of the user equipment is the wireless resource control idle state, the indication information is sent to the paging base station of the user equipment, wherein the indication information is used for the paging base station to page the user equipment.

Description

Paging method, paging device, MME, base station and user equipment

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a paging method, apparatus, MME, base station, and user equipment.

Background

With the development of technology, User Equipment plays an increasingly important role in our lives, wherein Machine Type Communication (MTC) or Machine to Machine (M2M) User Equipment (UE) is a main application form of the internet of things at present. Low power consumption/low cost is an important guarantee that it can be applied on a large scale. The M2M device currently deployed in the market is mainly based on a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM). In recent years, as the spectrum efficiency of Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems is higher, and more mobile operators have determined LTE as the Evolution direction of future broadband wireless communication systems, various types of data services of M2M based on LTE will be more attractive.

The cost of user equipment (including MTC UEs) comes mainly from two parts: a baseband processing section and a radio frequency section. In order to reduce the cost of the MTC UE, reducing the uplink and/or downlink transmission bandwidth (including the baseband bandwidth and the radio frequency bandwidth) of the UE is a very effective way to reduce the cost of the MTC UE, for example, setting all uplink and/or downlink transmission bandwidths of the MTC UE to be only narrow bandwidths such as 1.4MHz (even if the system bandwidth far exceeds 1.4 MHz). In addition to the above method of reducing bandwidth, the following method can also be used to further reduce MTC UE cost: single receive antenna, reduced transmit power, and reduced maximum Transport Block Size (TBS).

Since some MTC UEs are installed in basements of houses or in places covered by aluminum alloy windows or conventional thick-wall building structures, these UEs experience considerable penetration loss at the radio frequency interface compared to normal MTC UEs, and thus, in order to ensure normal data transmission of the UEs, it is necessary to enhance the coverage of the MTC UEs. Wherein the enhanced channel types include: a Physical Uplink or Downlink Shared Channel (PUSCH/PDSCH for short), a Physical Uplink/Downlink Control Channel (PUCCH/PDCCH for short), and the like. The coverage enhancement of the PDSCH includes System Information Block (SIB) data, coverage enhancement of a paging message, and coverage enhancement of unicast service data. To accumulate more energy to improve coverage, iterative methods are commonly used to achieve transmission enhancements for various channel types.

At present, for a Paging message for Paging MTC UEs, when a UE is in a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connected state, an eNB can provide a Paging procedure adapted to MTC UE characteristics (whether the UE is limited to a narrowband transmission bandwidth, whether the UE operates in a coverage enhancement mode and/or a real-time coverage enhancement level, etc.) by reporting mtue capability in an RRC Connected establishment process, and performing real-time measurement of a network and/or feedback of the MTC UE after the RRC Connected establishment. However, when the MTC UE is in the RRC Idle state, considering that the eNB generally does not store the context of the MTC UE in the RRC Idle state, and the mobility of the MTC UE and the MTC UE no longer transmit any uplink signal, the eNB cannot implement real-time measurement and/or feedback reception based on the mobility of the MTC UE, and thus cannot acquire sufficient characteristics of the paged MTC UE, which eventually results in that the eNB cannot provide a Paging procedure adapted to the characteristics of the MTC UE. So far, there is no good solution on how Paging is in the MTC UE in RRC Idle state.

Aiming at the problem that paging of user equipment in an idle state cannot be realized in the related art, an effective solution is not provided at present.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention provides a paging method, a paging device, an MME, a base station and user equipment, which are used for at least solving the problem that the paging of the user equipment in an idle state can not be realized in the related technology.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging method, including: receiving indication information sent by a service base station of user equipment; and when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, sending the indication information to a paging base station of the user equipment, wherein the indication information is used for the paging base station to page the user equipment.

Further, the indication information includes at least one of: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement; for determining whether the user equipment transmits bandwidth limited narrowband function indication information.

Further, before sending the indication information to the paging base station, the method further includes receiving mobility function indication information sent by the serving base station for determining whether the user equipment supports mobility, wherein when the user equipment supports mobility, the paging base station is all base stations within a tracking area; and when the user equipment does not support mobility, the paging base station is an original service base station of the user equipment.

Further, when the indication information includes coverage enhancement function indication information and the ue supports coverage enhancement, before sending the indication information to the paging base station, the method further includes receiving operating mode indication information of the ue sent by the serving base station, where the operating mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and when the ue operates in the coverage enhancement mode, the operating mode indication information further includes indication information of a coverage enhancement level of the ue.

Further, when the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, the method further comprises: when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, the working mode indication information of the user equipment is sent to the paging base station, and when the user equipment works in a coverage enhancement mode, the working mode indication information is sent to the paging base station, and meanwhile, the indication information of the coverage enhancement level of the user equipment is sent to the paging base station, wherein the paging base station is an original service base station of the user equipment.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging method, including: when the state of the user equipment is a wireless resource control idle state, receiving indication information of the user equipment, which is sent by a Mobility Management Entity (MME); and paging the user equipment according to the indication information.

Further, the indication information includes at least one of: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, narrowband function indication information for determining whether the user equipment transmits bandwidth limited.

Further, the receiving the indication information of the user equipment sent by the MME includes: and receiving, by a paging base station, the indication information sent by the MME, wherein the indication information is sent to the MME by a serving base station of the user equipment after the indication information is acquired, and the acquiring the indication information includes receiving the indication information reported by the user equipment and the indication information acquired according to a manner in which the user equipment accesses the serving base station.

Further, when the user equipment supports mobility, the paging base stations are all base stations within a tracking area; and when the user equipment does not support mobility, the paging base station is an original service base station of the user equipment.

Further, when the ue supports coverage enhancement and the paging base station is an original serving base station of the ue, after the paging base station receives the indication information sent by the MME, the method further includes: receiving, by the paging base station, working mode indication information sent by the MME for determining whether a working mode of the user equipment is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and when the user equipment works in the coverage enhancement mode, further including indication information of a coverage enhancement level of the user equipment in the working mode indication information, where the working mode indication information is sent to the MME by a serving base station of the user equipment; and paging the user equipment according to the working mode indication information.

Further, the serving base station of the ue sends the operating mode indication information and the indication information of the coverage enhancement level of the ue to the MME at the following times: after the user equipment enters the radio resource control idle state and before the serving base station deletes the context of the user equipment.

Further, when the transmission bandwidth of the ue is limited, paging the ue according to the narrowband function indication information of the ue includes: transmitting a paging message for paging the user equipment within a determined narrowband range, wherein the determined narrowband range is a predetermined narrowband range or a narrowband range notified to the user equipment by predetermined signaling.

Further, the predetermined narrow band range is determined by the following formula: i.e. i_paging＝UE_IDmodN_pagingEither, or,

wherein, UE _ ID is the ID of the user equipment, N_pagingNumber of narrow bands, i, configured for the network that can be used for paging the user equipment_pagingAnd for sending the index of the paging narrow band of the paging message to the user equipment, nB is the time number which is configured by the network and can be used for paging, and floor () is an integer operation.

Further, when the indication information includes coverage enhancement function indication information and the ue supports coverage enhancement, paging the ue according to the indication information includes one of: paging the user equipment in a non-coverage enhancement mode and a coverage enhancement mode in sequence until a response of the user equipment is received, wherein the coverage enhancement mode is a coverage enhancement mode using a maximum coverage enhancement level; always paging the user equipment in a coverage enhancement mode, wherein the coverage enhancement mode is a coverage enhancement mode using a maximum coverage enhancement level.

Further, when the user equipment is always paged in coverage enhanced mode, the transmission in the coverage enhanced mode is a repetition of the transmission in the non-coverage enhanced mode; the set of subframes occupied by the transmission in the coverage enhancement mode for paging the user equipment includes the subframes occupied by the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode for paging the user equipment.

Further, the repeating of the transmission in the coverage enhancement mode and the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode includes: the transmission of the paging data in the coverage enhancement mode is a repetition of the transmission of the paging data in the non-coverage enhancement mode, and the transmission of the scheduling control information in the coverage enhancement mode is a repetition of the transmission of the scheduling control information in the non-coverage enhancement mode, wherein the scheduling control information is control information for scheduling the paging data; and/or the set of subframes occupied by the transmission in the coverage enhancement mode includes the subframes occupied by the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode, including: the method comprises the steps that a subframe set occupied by paging data transmission in a coverage enhancement mode comprises a subframe occupied by paging data transmission in a non-coverage enhancement mode, a subframe set occupied by scheduling control information transmission in a coverage enhancement mode comprises a subframe occupied by scheduling control information transmission in a non-coverage enhancement mode, wherein the scheduling control information is control information used for scheduling the paging data.

Further, paging the ue according to the working mode indication information includes: when the working mode is the coverage enhancement mode, paging the user equipment according to the working mode and the non-coverage enhancement mode in sequence; and when the working mode is the non-coverage enhancement mode, paging the user equipment according to the working mode and the coverage enhancement mode in sequence.

Further, when the user equipment is paged according to the coverage enhancement mode, the user equipment is paged according to the maximum coverage enhancement level or is paged according to the coverage enhancement level indicated by the user equipment working mode indication information and the coverage enhancement level above the coverage enhancement level in sequence.

Further, when the indication information includes coverage enhancement function indication information and the ue does not support coverage enhancement, paging the ue according to the indication information includes: and paging the user equipment according to the non-coverage enhanced mode.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging method, including: sending indication information for paging user equipment to a serving base station of the user equipment, wherein the indication information is used for the serving base station to send the indication information to a Mobility Management Entity (MME), so that the paging base station receives the indication information from the MME to page the user equipment when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state.

Further, the indication information includes at least one of: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement; mobility function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports mobility.

Further, after sending the indication information to the serving base station, the method further includes: and when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, receiving a paging message sent by the paging base station according to at least one of narrowband function indication information and coverage enhancement function indication information of the user equipment, wherein the narrowband function indication information is used for determining whether transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited.

Further, when the ue supports mobility, the paging base station is a base station where the ue currently resides; or, when the user equipment does not support mobility, the paging base station is an original serving base station of the user equipment.

Further, the base station where the ue currently resides is a base station with the largest downlink reference signal received power among all base stations around the ue or a base station with the largest downlink received signal energy among all base stations around the ue.

Further, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the narrowband function indication information includes: when the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station in a determined narrow-band range, wherein the determined narrow-band range is a predetermined narrow-band range or a narrow-band range informed by predetermined signaling.

Further, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the coverage enhancement function indication information includes one of: when the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, determining a working mode of the user equipment according to a downlink reference signal sent by the paging base station, wherein the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and the downlink reference signal comprises at least one of the following: synchronization signals, physical broadcast channels, cell-specific reference signals; receiving paging messages which are sequentially sent by the paging base station in a non-coverage enhancement mode and a coverage enhancement mode according to the determined working mode; when the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to a coverage enhancement mode; and when the user equipment does not support coverage enhancement, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to a non-coverage enhancement mode.

Further, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the coverage enhancement mode includes: and receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the maximum coverage enhancement level supported by the user equipment.

Further, when the paging base station is an original serving base station of the ue, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the coverage enhancement mode includes: starting from the current coverage enhancement grade of the user equipment, receiving paging messages which are sent by the paging base station according to the current coverage enhancement of the user equipment and the coverage enhancement grade above the current coverage enhancement grade in sequence according to the coverage enhancement grade indicated by the working mode indication information and the coverage enhancement grade above the coverage enhancement grade until the paging messages are correctly received, wherein the current coverage enhancement grade of the user equipment is obtained by measuring a downlink reference signal of the original service base station, and the downlink reference signal comprises at least one of the following signals: synchronization signals, physical broadcast channels, cell-specific reference signals.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging apparatus, including: a first receiving module, configured to receive indication information sent by a serving base station of a user equipment; a first sending module, configured to send the indication information to a paging base station of the ue when the status of the ue is an idle status of radio resource control, where the indication information is used for the paging base station to page the ue.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mobility management entity MME comprising the apparatus of any one of the above.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging apparatus, including: a second receiving module, configured to receive, when a state of a user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, indication information of the user equipment sent by a mobility management entity MME; and the paging module is used for paging the user equipment according to the indication information.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a base station comprising the apparatus of any one of the above.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a paging apparatus, including: a second sending module, configured to send indication information used for paging a user equipment to a serving base station of the user equipment, where the indication information is used for the serving base station to send the indication information to a mobility management entity MME, so that the paging base station receives the indication information from the MME to page the user equipment when a state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state.

Further, the apparatus further comprises: a third receiving module, configured to receive, when the state of the ue is an idle radio resource control state, a paging message sent by the paging base station according to at least one of narrowband function indication information and coverage enhancement function indication information of the ue, where the narrowband function indication information is used to determine whether transmission bandwidth of the ue is limited.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a user equipment comprising the apparatus of any one of the above.

According to the invention, the indication information sent by the service base station of the user equipment is received; and when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, sending the indication information to a paging base station of the user equipment, wherein the indication information is used for the paging base station to page the user equipment, so that the problem that the paging of the user equipment in the idle state cannot be realized in the related technology is solved, and the effect of realizing the paging of the user equipment in the idle state is further achieved.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate embodiment(s) of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the invention without limiting the invention. In the drawings:

fig. 1 is a flowchart of a first paging method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a flowchart of a second paging method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 3 is a flowchart of a third paging method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 4 is a block diagram illustrating a first paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 5 is a block diagram of a mobility management entity MME according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 6 is a block diagram of a second paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a block diagram of a base station according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a block diagram of a third paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 9 is a block diagram of a preferred structure of a third paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 10 is a block diagram of a structure of a user equipment according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 11 is a diagram illustrating paging of an MTC UE in an RRC Idle state according to a first embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 12 is a diagram illustrating a serving eNB of a UE reporting UE coverage enhancement related indication information to an MME according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of an original serving eNB that notifies, by an MME according to a second embodiment of the present invention, UE coverage enhancement related indication information to the UE;

fig. 14 is a schematic diagram of a coverage enhanced transmission being a repetition of a non-coverage enhanced transmission according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings in conjunction with embodiments. It should be noted that the embodiments and features of the embodiments in the present application may be combined with each other without conflict.

In the present embodiment, a paging method is provided, and fig. 1 is a flowchart of a first paging method according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 1, the flowchart includes the following steps:

step S102, receiving indication information sent by a service base station of user equipment;

step S104, when the state of the user equipment is the wireless resource control idle state, the indication information is sent to the paging base station of the user equipment, wherein the indication information is used for the paging base station to page the user equipment.

Through the steps, when the user equipment is idle, the user equipment can be paged by utilizing the pre-received indication information sent by the service base station of the user equipment, so that the purpose that enough characteristics of the user equipment can be obtained when the user equipment is in an idle state is achieved, the success rate of paging the user equipment is improved, the problem that the paging of the user equipment in the idle state cannot be achieved in the related technology is solved, and the effect of paging the user equipment in the idle state is achieved.

The type of the indication information may be various, and in an alternative embodiment, the indication information may include at least one of the following: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement; for determining whether the user equipment transmits the bandwidth limited narrowband function indication information.

In an optional embodiment, before sending the indication information to the paging base station, the method further includes receiving mobility function indication information sent by a serving base station of the user equipment for determining whether the user equipment supports mobility, where when the user equipment supports mobility, the paging base station is all base stations within a tracking area; and when the user equipment does not support mobility, the paging base station is the original service base station of the user equipment. So that the decision to which base stations to send the indication information can be made depending on whether the user equipment supports mobility.

When the indication information includes indication information of a coverage enhancement function and the ue supports coverage enhancement, before sending the indication information to the paging base station, the method further includes receiving indication information of an operation mode of the ue sent by the serving base station, where the operation mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and when the ue operates in the coverage enhancement mode, the indication information of a coverage enhancement level of the ue is also included in the operation mode indication information.

In an optional embodiment, when the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, the method further includes: when the state of the user equipment is a wireless resource control idle state, the work mode indication information of the user equipment is sent to a paging base station, and when the user equipment works in a coverage enhancement mode, the work mode indication information is sent to the paging base station, and meanwhile, the coverage enhancement level indication information of the user equipment is also sent to the paging base station, wherein the paging base station is an original service base station of the user equipment.

Fig. 2 is a flowchart of a second paging method according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 2, the method includes the following steps:

step S202, when the state of the user equipment is a wireless resource control idle state, receiving indication information of the user equipment sent by a mobility management entity MME;

step S204, paging the user equipment according to the indication information.

Through the steps, when the user equipment is idle, the user equipment is paged according to the indication information sent by the MME, so that the sufficient characteristics of the user equipment can be obtained when the user equipment is in an idle state, the success rate of paging the user equipment is improved, the problem that the paging of the user equipment in the idle state cannot be realized in the related technology is solved, and the effect of paging the user equipment in the idle state is realized.

The type of the indication information may be various, and in an alternative embodiment, the indication information may include at least one of the following: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, narrowband function indication information for determining whether the user equipment transmits bandwidth limited.

In an optional embodiment, the receiving the indication information of the user equipment sent by the MME includes: and receiving indication information sent by the MME by the paging base station, wherein the indication information is sent to the MME by a service base station of the user equipment after the indication information is acquired, and the acquired indication information comprises the indication information reported by the user equipment and the indication information acquired according to the mode of accessing the service base station by the user equipment.

When the user equipment supports mobility, paging base stations are all base stations in the range of a tracking area; and when the user equipment does not support mobility, the paging base station is the original service base station of the user equipment.

In an optional embodiment, when the ue supports coverage enhancement and the paging base station is an original serving base station of the ue, after the paging base station receives the indication information sent by the MME, the method further includes: receiving, by a paging base station, working mode indication information sent by an MME for determining whether a working mode of a user equipment is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and when the user equipment works in the coverage enhancement mode, further including indication information of a coverage enhancement level of the user equipment in the working mode indication information, where the working mode indication information is sent to the MME by a serving base station of the user equipment; and paging the user equipment according to the working mode indication information.

In an alternative embodiment, the serving base station of the ue sends the operating mode indication information and the indication information of the coverage enhancement level of the ue to the MME at the following times: after the user equipment enters the radio resource control idle state and before the serving base station deletes the context of the user equipment.

In an alternative embodiment, when the transmission bandwidth of the ue is limited, paging the ue according to the narrowband function indication information of the ue includes: transmitting a paging message for paging the user equipment within a determined narrowband range, wherein the determined narrowband range is a predetermined narrowband range or a narrowband range notified to the user equipment by predetermined signaling. The paging message is actual paging data or a control message for scheduling paging data.

In an alternative embodiment, the predetermined narrow band range may be determined by the following equation: i.e. i_paging＝UE_IDmodN_pagin，_gOr the like, or, alternatively,

wherein, the UE _ ID is an identifier of the UE (for example, may be an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) specific to the UE), and N is an identifier of the UE_pagingThe number of narrow bands configured for the network that can be used to page the user equipment (where user equipments in non-coverage enhanced and coverage enhanced modes can share the same N)_pagingA single paging narrowband, or user equipments in non-coverage enhanced and coverage enhanced modes use different sets of paging narrowbands, respectively, in which case the location and/or number of narrowbands used for paging user equipments in non-coverage enhanced mode is different from the location and/or number of narrowbands used for paging user equipments in coverage enhanced mode)_pagingFor the index of the paging narrowband for transmitting the paging message to the ue, nB is the number of available paging occasions configured by the network (for example, in the existing LTE system, 4T paging occasions can be configured at most, T/32 paging occasions can be configured at least, T represents the number of radio frames included in one paging cycle), and floor () is an integer operation. Of course, this determination is merely an example, and other formulas may be used to determine the narrow band range.

When the indication information comprises coverage enhancement function indication information and the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, paging the user equipment according to the indication information comprises one of the following steps: paging the user equipment in a non-coverage enhancement mode and a coverage enhancement mode in sequence until a response of the user equipment is received, wherein the coverage enhancement mode is a coverage enhancement mode using the maximum coverage enhancement level; the user equipment is always paged in a coverage enhancement mode, wherein the coverage enhancement mode is a coverage enhancement mode using a maximum coverage enhancement level.

Wherein, when the user equipment is always paged in the coverage enhancement mode, the transmission in the coverage enhancement mode is the repetition of the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode; the set of subframes for paging the user equipment occupied by the transmission in the coverage enhanced mode includes subframes for paging the user equipment occupied by the transmission in the non-coverage enhanced mode.

In an optional embodiment, the repeating that the transmission in the coverage enhancement mode is the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode may include: the transmission of paging data in a coverage enhanced mode is the repetition of the transmission of paging data in a non-coverage enhanced mode, and the transmission of scheduling control information in the coverage enhanced mode is the repetition of the transmission of scheduling control information in the non-coverage enhanced mode, wherein the scheduling control information is control information for scheduling the paging data; and/or the subframe set occupied by the transmission in the coverage enhancement mode comprises the subframes occupied by the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode, and the subframe set occupied by the transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode comprises the following steps: the subframe set occupied by paging data transmission in the coverage enhancement mode comprises subframes occupied by paging data transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode, and the subframe set occupied by scheduling control information transmission in the coverage enhancement mode comprises subframes occupied by scheduling control information transmission in the non-coverage enhancement mode, wherein the scheduling control information is control information for scheduling paging data.

Paging the user equipment according to the operating mode indication information, comprising: when the working mode is the coverage enhancement mode, paging the user equipment according to the working mode and the non-coverage enhancement mode in sequence; and when the working mode is the non-coverage enhancement mode, paging the user equipment according to the working mode and the coverage enhancement mode in sequence.

When the user equipment is paged according to the coverage enhancement mode, the user equipment is paged according to the maximum coverage enhancement level or the coverage enhancement level indicated by the user equipment working mode indication information and the coverage enhancement level above the coverage enhancement level in sequence.

When the indication information includes coverage enhancement function indication information and the user equipment does not support coverage enhancement, paging the user equipment according to the indication information includes: the user equipment is paged according to the non-coverage enhanced mode.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a third paging method according to an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 3, the method includes the following steps:

step S302, sending indication information for paging the user equipment to a serving base station of the user equipment, wherein the indication information is used for the serving base station to send the indication information to a mobility management entity MME, so that the paging base station receives the indication information from the MME to page the user equipment when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state.

Through the steps, the indication information for paging the user equipment is sent to the serving base station before the user equipment is in the idle state, and then the serving base station sends the indication information to the MME, and the MME sends the paging message to the paging base station, so that the paging base station can page the user equipment according to the indication information when the user equipment is idle, and therefore, the sufficient characteristics of the user equipment can be obtained when the user equipment is in the idle state, the success rate of paging the user equipment is improved, the problem that the paging of the user equipment in the idle state cannot be realized in the related technology is solved, and the effect of paging the user equipment in the idle state is further achieved.

The indication information may include at least one of: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement; mobility function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports mobility.

In an optional embodiment, after sending the indication information to the serving base station, the method further includes: when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, receiving a paging message sent by a paging base station according to at least one of narrowband function indication information and coverage enhancement function indication information of the user equipment, wherein the narrowband function indication information is used for determining whether the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited.

When the user equipment supports mobility, the paging base station is a base station where the user equipment is currently resident; or, when the user equipment does not support mobility, the paging base station is an original serving base station of the user equipment.

The base station where the user equipment currently resides is a base station with the largest downlink reference signal received power among all base stations around the user equipment or a base station with the largest downlink received signal energy among all base stations around the user equipment.

In an optional embodiment, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the narrowband function indication information includes: when the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited, receiving a paging message sent by a paging base station within a determined narrow-band range, wherein the determined narrow-band range is a predetermined narrow-band range or a narrow-band range informed by predetermined signaling. The paging message is actual paging data or a control message for scheduling paging data.

In an alternative embodiment, the predetermined narrow band range may be determined by the following equation: i.e. i_paging＝UE_IDmodN_pagingEither, or,

wherein, the UE _ ID is an identifier of the UE (for example, may be an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) specific to the UE), and N is an identifier of the UE_pagingThe number of narrow bands configured for the network that can be used to page the user equipment (where user equipments in non-coverage enhanced and coverage enhanced modes can share the same N)_pagingA single paging narrowband, or user equipments in non-coverage enhanced and coverage enhanced modes use different sets of paging narrowbands, respectively, in which case the location and/or number of narrowbands used for paging user equipments in non-coverage enhanced mode is different from the location and/or number of narrowbands used for paging user equipments in coverage enhanced mode)_pagingnB is index of paging narrow band configured for network to transmit paging message to the user equipmentThe number of paging occasions (for example, in the existing LTE system, 4T paging occasions can be configured at most, and T/32 paging occasions can be configured at minimum, where T represents the number of radio frames included in one paging cycle), and floor () is an integer operation. Of course, this determination is merely an example, and other formulas may be used to determine the narrow band range.

In an alternative embodiment, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the coverage enhancement function indication information may include one of: when the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, determining a working mode of the user equipment according to a downlink reference signal sent by a paging base station, wherein the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and the downlink reference signal comprises at least one of the following: synchronization signals, physical broadcast channels, cell-specific reference signals; receiving paging messages which are sequentially sent by a paging base station in a non-coverage enhancement mode and a coverage enhancement mode according to the determined working mode; when the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, receiving a paging message sent by a paging base station according to a coverage enhancement mode; and when the user equipment does not support coverage enhancement, receiving a paging message sent by the paging base station according to the non-coverage enhancement mode.

Wherein, receiving the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the coverage enhancement mode comprises: and receiving a paging message sent by the paging base station according to the maximum coverage enhancement grade supported by the user equipment.

When the paging base station is an original service base station of the user equipment, the receiving of the paging message sent by the paging base station according to the coverage enhancement mode comprises: starting from the current coverage enhancement grade of the user equipment, receiving paging messages which are sent by a paging base station according to the current coverage enhancement grade of the user equipment and the coverage enhancement grade above the current coverage enhancement grade in sequence according to the coverage enhancement grade indicated by the working mode indication information and the coverage enhancement grade above the coverage enhancement grade until the paging messages are correctly received, wherein the current coverage enhancement grade of the user equipment is obtained by measuring a downlink reference signal of an original service base station, and the downlink reference signal comprises at least one of the following signals: synchronization signals, physical broadcast channels, cell-specific reference signals.

In this embodiment, a paging device is further provided, and the device is used to implement the foregoing embodiments and preferred embodiments, and details are not described again after the description is given. As used below, the term "module" may be a combination of software and/or hardware that implements a predetermined function. Although the means described in the embodiments below are preferably implemented in software, an implementation in hardware, or a combination of software and hardware is also possible and contemplated.

Fig. 4 is a block diagram of a first paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 4, the device includes a first receiving module 42 and a first transmitting module 44, which will be described below.

A first receiving module 42, configured to receive indication information sent by a serving base station of a user equipment; a first sending module 44, connected to the first receiving module 42, configured to send indication information to a paging base station of the user equipment when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state, where the indication information is used for the paging base station to page the user equipment.

Wherein, the indication information comprises at least one of the following: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement; for determining whether the user equipment transmits the bandwidth limited narrowband function indication information.

Fig. 5 is a block diagram of a mobility management entity MME according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 5, the MME52 includes the first paging device 54 of any one of the above.

Fig. 6 is a block diagram of a second paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 6, the device includes a second receiving module 62 and a paging module 64, which will be described below.

A second receiving module 62, configured to receive, when the state of the ue is a radio resource control idle state, indication information of the ue sent by a mobility management entity MME; and a paging module 64, connected to the second receiving module 62, for paging the user equipment according to the indication information.

Wherein, the indication information comprises at least one of the following: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement, narrowband function indication information for determining whether the user equipment transmits bandwidth limited.

Fig. 7 is a block diagram of a base station according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 7, the base station 72 includes the second paging device 74 of any one of the above.

Fig. 8 is a block diagram of a third paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 8, the device includes a second sending module 82, which is described below.

A second sending module 82, configured to send, to a serving base station of the user equipment, indication information for paging the user equipment, where the indication information is used for the serving base station to send the indication information to a mobility management entity MME, so that the paging base station receives the indication information from the MME to page the user equipment when the state of the user equipment is a radio resource control idle state.

Wherein, the indication information may include at least one of the following: coverage enhancement function indication information for determining whether the user equipment supports coverage enhancement; for determining whether the user equipment transmits the bandwidth limited narrowband function indication information.

Fig. 9 is a block diagram of a preferred structure of a third paging device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 9, the device further includes a third receiving module 92 in addition to all the modules shown in fig. 8, and the device is described below.

A third receiving module 92, connected to the second sending module 82, configured to receive, when the status of the ue is in an idle status of radio resource control, a paging message sent by the paging base station according to at least one of narrowband function indication information and coverage enhancement function indication information of the ue, where the narrowband function indication information is used to determine whether the transmission bandwidth of the ue is limited.

Fig. 10 is a block diagram of a user equipment according to an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 10, the user equipment 102 includes the third paging device 104 of any one of the above.

The following describes the present invention by taking a paging method applied to MTC devices as an example.

At a Mobility Management Entity (MME), when a UE (i.e. the user equipment) is in an RRC Connected state, the MME receives at least one of indication information of a UE narrowband function, coverage enhancement, and a Mobility function of a serving eNB from the UE;

when the UE is in an RRC Idle state, the MME informs at least one of indication information of a narrow band function and a coverage enhancement function of the UE to a paging eNB of the UE; the indication information of the narrowband function, the coverage enhancement function and the mobility function is used for determining whether the UE is limited in transmission bandwidth, supports coverage enhancement and supports mobility respectively.

To control MTC device cost, some MTC UEs may be limited to narrow-band transmission bandwidth; to achieve extended coverage goals, certain MTC UEs must support coverage enhancement functions; given that certain MTC devices may no longer be mobile after installation, it is not necessary for this type of MTC UE to support mobility. By enabling the MME to receive at least one of indication information of a UE narrowband function, coverage enhancement and mobility function of a serving eNB from the UE when the UE is in an RRC Connected state and enabling the MME to inform at least one of the indication information of the UE narrowband function and the coverage enhancement function to a Paging eNB of the UE when the UE is in an RRC Idle state, the Paging eNB can obtain enough UE characteristics to a certain extent when the UE is in the RRC Idle state, so that the eNB can provide a Paging process adaptive to the MTC UE characteristics, and the success probability of the Paging process is finally improved; in addition, the method simultaneously avoids introducing a large amount of storage overhead for storing the MTC UE context in the RRC Idle state on the eNB side.

Notifying at least one of indication information of a narrowband function and a coverage enhancement function of the UE to a paging eNB of the UE includes: paging the enbs for all enbs within a tracking area (TrackingArea) when the UE supports mobility; otherwise, paging the eNB as the original serving eNB of the UE.

Wherein the TrackingArea is a set of a plurality of neighboring enbs, and the neighboring enbs may have the same or different tracking area codes (TrackingArea codes); when the UE supports mobility, the UE may be in the coverage of one of the enbs, but the MME does not determine which eNB is specific, and therefore the enbs are required to page the UE simultaneously. The original service eNB is a service eNB for providing service for the UE before the UE enters the RRC Idle state; when the UE does not support mobility, the UE will always be in the coverage of the original serving eNB, so only the original serving eNB needs to page the UE.

The method, while receiving indication information of the UE coverage enhancement function from the serving eNB, further comprises:

when the UE supports coverage enhancement, receiving working mode indication information of the UE from a serving eNB, wherein the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode;

and receiving indication information of the UE coverage enhancement level from the serving eNB when the UE operates in the coverage enhancement mode.

When the UE supports coverage enhancement, the MME can know whether the UE is currently operated in a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode and what the specific coverage enhancement level of the UE is if the UE is operated in the coverage enhancement mode by the method.

Wherein different retransmission times are applied at different coverage enhancement levels; the higher the coverage enhancement level, the greater the number of repeated transmissions required. Wherein the maximum number of repeated transmissions is applied at the maximum coverage enhancement level.

After the UE enters the RRC Idle state, the above information (including the operating mode and/or coverage enhancement level) may be utilized by the MME to assist the UE's original serving eNB to provide a Paging procedure that is more adaptable to MTC UE characteristics.

When the indication information of the UE coverage enhancement function is notified to the paging eNB, the method further comprises the following steps:

for an original service eNB of the UE, when the UE supports coverage enhancement, informing the eNB of UE working mode indication information, wherein the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode; and when the UE works in the coverage enhancement mode, informing the UE of indication information of the coverage enhancement level to the eNB.

When the UE supports coverage enhancement, the original service eNB of the UE can know whether the UE history works in a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode by the method, and what the coverage enhancement level of the UE history is specific if the UE history works in the coverage enhancement mode. After the UE enters the RRC Idle state, the above information (including the operation mode and/or coverage enhancement level) may be utilized by the UE's original serving eNB to provide a Paging (Paging) procedure that is more adaptable to MTC UE characteristics.

In consideration of environmental differences of coverage areas of different eNBs, in the process of moving across eNBs, the reference meaning of the historical work mode and/or coverage enhancement level indication information of the UE in one eNB to other follow-up eNBs is not large or has no reference meaning, so that it is advisable to inform the original service eNB of the UE of the work mode and/or coverage enhancement level indication information of the UE.

In order to solve the technical problem that paging of user equipment in an idle state cannot be realized in the related art, embodiments of the present invention further provide a paging method, which is used for machine type communication MTC equipment, in a base station eNB side, when a UE is in an RRC Connected state, a serving eNB sends indication information of a UE narrowband function to an MME, or receives and sends at least one of indication information of a coverage enhancement function and a mobility function from the UE to the MME, or receives and sends at least one of indication information of the coverage enhancement function and the mobility function from the UE and indication information of the UE narrowband function to the MME;

when the UE is in an RRC Idle state, paging the eNB according to at least one of indication information of a UE narrowband function and a coverage enhancement function from an MME; the indication information of the narrowband function, the coverage enhancement function and the mobility function is used for determining whether the UE is limited in transmission bandwidth, supports coverage enhancement and supports mobility respectively.

To control MTC device cost, some MTC UEs may be limited to narrow-band transmission bandwidth; to achieve extended coverage goals, certain MTC UEs must support coverage enhancement functions; given that certain MTC devices may no longer be mobile after installation, it is not necessary for this type of MTC UE to support mobility. By enabling the serving eNB to send at least one of indication information of a UE narrowband function, coverage enhancement and mobility function to the MME when the UE is in an RRC Connected state, and enabling the Paging eNB to page the UE according to at least one of the indication information of the UE narrowband function and the coverage enhancement function from the MME when the UE is in an RRC Idle state, the Paging eNB can also obtain enough UE characteristics when the UE is in the RRC Idle state, so that the Paging eNB can provide a Paging process adaptive to the MTC UE characteristics, and the success probability of the Paging process is finally improved; in addition, the method simultaneously avoids introducing a large amount of storage overhead for storing the MTC UE context in the RRC Idle state on the eNB side.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned narrowband function does not need explicit indication information, that is, the serving eNB does not need to receive indication information of the narrowband function from the UE, because the eNB can determine the manner in which the UE accesses the eNB, that is, whether the UE successfully accesses the narrowband subsystem of the eNB according to the narrowband access rule or resource, and if so, the eNB can confirm that the UE is limited to the narrowband transmission bandwidth.

When the UE transmission bandwidth is limited, the paging eNB pages the UE according to the narrowband transmission mode. Wherein the narrowband transmission mode comprises: the Paging message is transmitted within a narrow band range either predefined or indicated by the eNB.

When the UE supports the mobility function, paging the eNB to be one of all eNBs within the scope of TrackingArea; otherwise, paging the eNB as the original serving eNB of the UE.

When the indication information of the UE coverage enhancement function is sent to the MME, the method further comprises the following steps: when the UE supports coverage enhancement, sending UE working mode indication information to an MME, wherein the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode; and when the UE works in the coverage enhancement mode, sending indication information of the coverage enhancement level of the UE to the MME.

After the UE enters the RRC Idle state, the above information (including the operating mode and/or coverage enhancement level) may be utilized by the MME to assist the original serving eNB for the UE to provide a Paging procedure that is more adaptable to MTC UE characteristics.

The serving eNB may send the indication of the operation mode and the coverage enhancement level to the MME at the following times: after the UE enters the RRC Idle state and before the serving eNB deletes the UE context. The method ensures that the working mode and the coverage enhancement level information which are sent to the MME for storage are up-to-date and have the minimum control overhead (the repeated reporting of the working mode and the coverage enhancement level information is avoided).

Paging the UE according to the UE coverage enhancement function indication information from the MME, comprising: when the UE supports the coverage enhancement function, the paging eNB pages in a non-coverage enhancement mode and a coverage enhancement mode in sequence until uplink data from the UE is received; paging the eNB for X times (X is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1) in a non-coverage enhanced mode, and paging in a coverage enhanced mode if uplink data from the UE is not received; when paging eNB pages UE in a coverage enhancement mode, always paging UE according to a maximum coverage enhancement grade; the method ensures the success of paging the UE regardless of whether the UE is operating in coverage enhancement mode or non-coverage enhancement mode, and when the UE is operating in coverage enhancement mode, regardless of the coverage enhancement level at which the UE is located.

Or always paging the UE in a coverage enhancement mode and according to the maximum coverage enhancement level; the coverage enhancement transmission mode is a repetition of a non-coverage enhancement transmission, and a set of subframes occupied by the coverage enhancement transmission includes subframes occupied by the non-coverage enhancement transmission. The method ensures that the UE in the non-coverage enhancement mode can also correctly receive the Paging data transmitted in the coverage enhancement mode, and finally ensures the success of Paging the UE regardless of whether the UE works in the coverage enhancement mode or the non-coverage enhancement mode and the coverage enhancement level of the UE when the UE works in the coverage enhancement mode.

Paging the UE according to the UE coverage enhancement function indication information from the MME, comprising: and when the paging eNB is the original service eNB of the UE and the UE supports coverage enhancement, paging the UE according to the indication information of the UE working mode and the coverage enhancement grade from the MME, wherein the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode.

When the UE supports coverage enhancement, the original service eNB of the UE can know whether the UE history works in a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode by the method, and what the coverage enhancement level of the UE history is specific if the UE history works in the coverage enhancement mode. After the UE enters the RRC Idle state, the above information (including the operating mode and/or coverage enhancement level) may be utilized by the UE's original serving eNB to provide a Paging (Paging) procedure that is more able to adapt to MTC UE characteristics.

Considering the environmental difference of coverage areas of different eNBs, the historical work mode and/or coverage enhancement level indication information of the UE in one eNB is not much or has no reference meaning to other follow-up eNBs in the process of moving across eNBs, so that it is advisable that the original service eNB only receives the work mode and/or coverage enhancement level indication information of the UE from the MME.

And the original service eNB of the UE pages the UE according to the working mode indicated by the UE working mode indication information and other working modes in sequence until receiving the uplink data from the UE. The original service eNB of the UE firstly pages for Y times (Y is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1) in the indicated working mode, and if uplink data from the UE are not received, pages in other working modes. Considering that the UE is likely to remain in the historical operating mode, unnecessary paging overhead and delay are avoided to some extent by prioritizing the paging of the UE according to the historical operating mode.

When the UE is paged in the coverage enhancement mode, the UE is always paged according to the maximum coverage enhancement level, or the UE is sequentially tried according to the indicated coverage enhancement level and all coverage enhancement levels above the indicated coverage enhancement level from the coverage enhancement level indicated by the coverage enhancement level indication information (for example, for any one of the indicated coverage enhancement level and all coverage enhancement levels above the coverage enhancement level, the UE original service eNB pages Z times according to the coverage enhancement level, where Z is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1 and satisfies Z × L ═ Y, where L is the number of coverage enhancement levels greater than or equal to the indicated coverage enhancement level and Y is the number of times of paging in the coverage enhancement mode), until uplink data from the UE is received. Considering that it is highly likely that the UE will maintain a historical coverage enhancement level if operating in the coverage enhancement mode, unnecessary paging overhead and delay are further avoided to some extent by prioritizing the paging of the UE according to the historical coverage enhancement level.

Paging the UE according to the UE coverage enhancement function indication information from the MME, comprising: when the UE does not support coverage enhancement function, the paging eNB always pages the UE in non-coverage enhancement mode.

In order to solve the existing problem that paging of user equipment in an idle state cannot be realized, the embodiment of the invention also provides a method for Machine Type Communication (MTC) equipment, wherein at a terminal side: transmitting at least one of indication information of coverage enhancement and mobility functions to the eNB when the UE is in an RRC Connected state; receiving a Paging message according to a degree of support of at least one of a narrowband function, coverage enhancement, and mobility function when the UE is in an RRC Idle state; the indication information of the narrowband function, the coverage enhancement function and the mobility function is used for determining whether the UE is limited in transmission bandwidth, supports coverage enhancement and supports mobility respectively.

By enabling the UE to send at least one of the indication information of the coverage enhancement and the mobility function to the eNB when the UE is in the RRC Connected state, the eNB can be ensured to timely forward at least one of the indication information and the indication information of the UE narrowband function to the MME, so that the eNB can also obtain enough UE characteristics from the MME when the UE is in the RRC Idle state to a certain extent, the eNB can provide a Paging process adaptive to the MTC UE characteristics, and finally the success probability of the Paging process is improved. When the UE is in the RRC Idle state, the UE receives the Paging message according to the support degree of at least one of the narrow band function, the coverage enhancement function and the mobility function, so that the UE can provide an adaptive Paging message receiving process according to the characteristics of the UE, and the success probability of Paging receiving is finally improved.

Receiving a Paging message according to the support degree of the narrowband function, comprising: and when the transmission bandwidth of the UE is limited, the UE receives the Paging message according to the narrow-band transmission mode. Wherein, the narrowband transmission mode comprises: the Paging message is received within a narrow band range either predefined or indicated by the eNB.

Receiving a Paging message according to the support degree of the coverage enhancement and mobility functions, comprising: when the UE supports the coverage enhancement function, the UE determines a current working mode according to a downlink reference signal from the eNB, and receives a Paging message according to the working mode, where the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode, and the downlink reference signal includes: synchronization signals, physical broadcast channels, cell-specific reference signals. For example, the UE may obtain Reference Signal Receive Power (RSRP) by measuring a cell-specific Reference Signal, and when the RSRP is lower than a certain threshold, the UE receives the Paging message in the coverage enhanced mode, otherwise, the UE receives the Paging message in the non-coverage enhanced mode. The method ensures that the UE can select a proper working mode according to the real-time channel environment.

When the UE supports mobility, the eNB is the eNB where the UE currently resides; otherwise, the eNB is the original serving eNB of the UE. Wherein the currently camped eNB is one of all enbs around the UE that has the largest downlink RSRP or downlink received signal energy. When the UE supports mobility, the eNB where the UE resides is not fixed, so that the UE receives the Paging message from the currently residing eNB, and the receiving performance of the Paging message is ensured; when the UE does not support mobility, the eNB where the UE resides is always the original serving eNB for the UE.

When the UE receives the Paging message in coverage enhancement mode, it always receives according to the maximum coverage enhancement level. When the eNB transmits the Paging message in the coverage enhancement mode and always according to the maximum coverage enhancement level, the method provides a receiving mode adaptive to the transmission mode, and finally ensures the success rate of receiving the Paging message once.

When the eNB is the original serving eNB of the UE and receives the Paging message according to the coverage enhancement mode, the current coverage enhancement level and all coverage enhancement levels above the current coverage enhancement level are tried in turn from the current coverage enhancement level until the Paging message is correctly received. And for any one of the current coverage enhancement level and all coverage enhancement levels above the current coverage enhancement level, the UE receives the Paging message for G times according to the coverage enhancement level until the Paging message is correctly received, wherein G is a positive integer greater than or equal to 1.

In a preferred embodiment, Z is substantially greater than G.

When the eNB attempts to transmit the Paging message in the coverage enhancement mode and in sequence from the historical coverage enhancement level to all the coverage enhancement levels above the historical coverage enhancement level, the method provides a receiving mode adaptive to the transmission mode, and finally ensures the success rate of receiving the Paging message once, the Paging control overhead and the Paging delay at the same time. The current coverage enhancement grade is obtained based on the measurement of a downlink reference signal from an original service eNB of the UE; for example, the UE may obtain reference signal received power RSRP through measurement of a cell-specific reference signal, where when the RSRP is in a first value interval, the current coverage enhancement level is a first coverage enhancement level, and when the RSRP is in a second value interval, the current coverage enhancement level is a second coverage enhancement level, and so on.

Receiving a Paging message according to the support degree of the coverage enhancement and mobility functions, comprising: when the UE does not support the coverage enhancement function, the UE always receives the Paging message in the non-coverage enhancement mode.

In the above embodiments, by enabling the MME to receive at least one of the indication information of the UE narrowband function, the coverage enhancement, and the mobility function from the eNB when the UE is in the RRC Connected state, and enabling the MME to notify at least one of the indication information of the UE narrowband function and the coverage enhancement function to the eNB when the UE is in the RRC Idle state, it is ensured to a certain extent that the eNB can obtain sufficient UE characteristics also when the UE is in the RRC Idle state, and finally the success probability of the Paging procedure is improved.

It should be noted that, in the actual implementation process, there may not be direct or explicit indication information of the narrowband, coverage enhancement and/or mobility function, and at this time, the indication information is indirectly indicated by the indication information of the UE type; for example, the existing Rel-12 Low Cost (Low Cost) UE type (i.e., Category0) means that narrowband and coverage enhancement functions are not supported, while the Rel-13 Low Complexity (Low Complexity) UE type, which may be introduced in the future, means that narrowband functions are supported, and the coverage enhancement Rel-13 Low Complexity UE type means that both narrowband and coverage enhancement functions are supported.

The invention is illustrated below with reference to specific examples:

example one

Fig. 11 is a diagram illustrating paging of an MTC UE in an RRC Idle state according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 11, the paging method includes the following steps:

step S1102, when the UE is in the RRC Connected state, the UE reports indication information of the coverage enhancement and mobility function to the serving eNB to indicate whether the serving eNB supports coverage enhancement and mobility.

Step S1104, after the serving eNB receives the indication information of the coverage enhancement and mobility function from the UE, the serving eNB forwards the indication information of the coverage enhancement and mobility function and the indication information of the narrowband function to the MME.

The indication information of the narrowband function, the coverage enhancement function and the mobility function is respectively used for determining whether the transmission bandwidth of the UE is limited, whether coverage enhancement is supported and whether mobility is supported; and, the narrowband function does not require explicit indication information, i.e. the serving eNB does not need to receive indication information of the narrowband function from the UE, since the eNB can determine whether the UE successfully accesses the narrowband subsystem according to the narrowband access rules or resources, and if so, the eNB can confirm that the UE is limited to the narrowband transmission bandwidth.

Step S1106, when the UE is in the RRC Idle state, the MME notifies the paging eNB of the indication information of the narrowband and coverage enhancement function of the UE, so as to indicate to the paging eNB whether the UE supports coverage enhancement and mobility.

Step S1108, after the paging eNB receives the indication information of the narrowband and coverage enhancement function from the MME, the paging eNB pages the UE according to the indication information of the UE narrowband and coverage enhancement function. Wherein, when the UE supports mobility, the paging eNB is one of all enbs within a tracking area (TrackingArea); otherwise, the paging eNB is only the only original service eNB of the UE.

When the UE transmission bandwidth is limited, the Paging eNB pages the UE within a certain narrow band range predefined or indicated by the eNB (transmission Paging message).

When the UE supports coverage enhancement, assuming that all paging enbs adopt the same operation (without distinguishing an original serving eNB of the UE from other enbs except the original serving eNB), specifically, the paging enbs sequentially page in a non-coverage enhancement mode and a coverage enhancement mode until receiving uplink data from the UE; or, always page in coverage enhanced mode; when the paging eNB pages the UE in a coverage enhancement mode, paging is always according to a maximum coverage enhancement level; and when the paging eNB is always paged in the coverage enhancement mode, the coverage enhancement transmission mode is the repetition of the non-coverage enhancement transmission. When the UE does not support coverage enhancement, specifically, the paging eNB always pages in a non-coverage enhancement mode.

Example two

as shown in fig. 12, when the UE is in the RRC Connected state, after forwarding the indication information from the UE coverage enhancement function to the MME, the serving eNB determines whether the UE supports coverage enhancement; if so, the serving eNB continues to determine whether the UE is operating in coverage enhancement mode. If the UE is operating in the coverage enhancement mode, the serving eNB transmits, to the MME, indication information of the operating mode (specifically, the coverage enhancement mode) of the UE and indication information of a corresponding coverage enhancement level at a subsequent determination time; otherwise, the serving eNB transmits only the indication information of the operating mode (specifically, the non-coverage enhanced mode) of the UE to the MME at a subsequent determined time. Wherein, the indication information of the coverage enhancement function is used for determining whether the UE supports coverage enhancement; the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode; the determination time is after the UE enters the RRC Idle state and before the serving eNB deletes the UE context.

Fig. 13 is a schematic diagram of an original serving eNB that notifies, by an MME according to a second embodiment of the present invention, UE coverage enhancement related indication information to the UE; as shown in fig. 13, when the UE is in the RRC Idle state, after the MME notifies the original serving eNB of the UE of the indication information of the UE coverage enhancement function, it is determined whether the UE supports coverage enhancement; if so, the MME continues to determine whether the UE previously operates in coverage enhancement mode. If the UE is previously operating in the coverage enhancement mode, the MME continues to transmit the indication information of the operating mode (specifically, the coverage enhancement mode) of the UE and the indication information of the corresponding coverage enhancement level to the original serving eNB of the UE; otherwise, the MME only continues to transmit the indication information of the operating mode (specifically, the non-coverage enhanced mode) of the UE to the original serving eNB of the UE. Wherein, the indication information of the coverage enhancement function is used for determining whether the UE supports coverage enhancement; the working mode is a coverage enhancement mode or a non-coverage enhancement mode.

When an original service eNB of the UE receives indication information from an MME indicating that the UE works in a non-coverage enhancement mode, paging the UE in the non-coverage enhancement mode and the coverage enhancement mode in sequence until uplink data from the UE are received; wherein, the paging in the coverage enhancement working mode is always paging according to the maximum coverage enhancement grade. When an original service eNB of the UE receives indication information from an MME indicating that the UE works in a coverage enhancement mode and a corresponding coverage enhancement grade, paging the UE in the coverage enhancement working mode and a non-coverage enhancement working mode in sequence until uplink data from the UE are received; the paging in the coverage enhancement mode is to try all coverage enhancement levels above the coverage enhancement level in sequence from the coverage enhancement level indicated by the coverage enhancement level indication information until the maximum coverage enhancement level or the reception of uplink data from the UE is confirmed.

EXAMPLE III

Fig. 14 is a schematic diagram of a coverage enhanced transmission being a repetition of a non-coverage enhanced transmission according to an embodiment of the present invention, wherein (a), (b), and (c) in fig. 14 are respectively a schematic diagram of a coverage enhanced transmission being a repetition of a non-coverage enhanced transmission according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in fig. 14 (a), for non-coverage enhanced transmission, there is no scheduling control information, also referred to as no control transmission; in this case, the effect of the repetition of the coverage enhanced transmission and the non-coverage enhanced transmission is: the coverage enhanced Paging data transmission is only N repetitions of the non-coverage enhanced Paging data transmission, and one of N subframes for the coverage enhanced Paging data transmission (in the present embodiment, the 5 th of the N subframes) is a subframe for the non-coverage enhanced transmission.

As shown in fig. 14 (b), for non-coverage enhanced transmission, Paging data and corresponding scheduling control information exist in the same subframe, also called same-subframe scheduling; in this case, the effect of the repetition of the coverage enhanced transmission and the non-coverage enhanced transmission is: the coverage enhanced Paging data transmission is N repetitions of non-coverage enhanced Paging data transmission, and the transmission of the coverage enhanced scheduling control information is M repetitions of the transmission of the non-coverage enhanced scheduling control information, and one of M subframes for the coverage enhanced scheduling control information transmission (in the present embodiment, 2 nd of the M subframes) is a subframe for the non-coverage enhanced scheduling control information transmission, and one of N subframes for the coverage enhanced Paging data transmission (in the present embodiment, 2 nd of the N subframes) is a subframe for the non-coverage enhanced Paging data transmission.

As shown in fig. 14 (c), for non-coverage enhanced transmission, Paging data and corresponding scheduling control information exist in different subframes (the number of subframes K offset from the corresponding scheduling control information is equal to 2 subframes in this embodiment), also referred to as cross-subframe scheduling; in this case, the effect of the repetition of the coverage enhanced transmission and the non-coverage enhanced transmission is: the coverage enhanced Paging data transmission is N repetitions of non-coverage enhanced Paging data transmission, and the coverage enhanced scheduling control information transmission is M repetitions of non-coverage enhanced scheduling control information transmission, and one of M subframes for the coverage enhanced scheduling control information transmission (in this embodiment, 2 nd of the M subframes) is a subframe for the non-coverage enhanced scheduling control information transmission, and one of N subframes for the coverage enhanced Paging data transmission (in this embodiment, 2 nd of the N subframes, to ensure that the 2 nd of the M subframes is still K (equal to 2) offset from the subframe) by the number of subframes) is a subframe for the non-coverage enhanced Paging data transmission.

It should be noted that, in (c) in fig. 14 of this embodiment, the number of subframes mutually offset from the first transmission of N repetitions of coverage enhancement Paging data and the first transmission of M repetitions of coverage enhancement scheduling control information is still K equal to 2 subframes, but in practice, the number of subframes is not limited to this; wherein N and M are positive integers greater than 1 and are associated with a maximum coverage enhancement level.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that all or part of the steps of the above methods may be implemented by instructing the relevant hardware through a program, and the program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as a read-only memory, a magnetic or optical disk, and the like. Alternatively, all or part of the steps of the foregoing embodiments may also be implemented by using one or more integrated circuits, and accordingly, each module/unit in the foregoing embodiments may be implemented in the form of hardware, and may also be implemented in the form of a software functional module. The present invention is not limited to any specific form of combination of hardware and software.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention, and various modifications and changes may be made by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A paging method applied to a base station, the method comprising:

receiving first indication information sent by a Mobility Management Entity (MME); the first indication information indicates that the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited;

sending a paging message to the user equipment within a predetermined narrow-band range;

the narrowband index of the predetermined narrowband range is determined by:

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

and receiving second indication information sent by the MME, wherein the second indication information is used for indicating that the working mode of the user equipment is a coverage enhancement mode, and the second indication information is also used for indicating the coverage enhancement grade of the user equipment.

3. A paging method applied to a base station, the method comprising:

receiving second indication information sent by a Mobility Management Entity (MME); the second indication information indicates that the user equipment supports a coverage enhancement function of coverage enhancement;

the narrowband index of the predetermined narrowband range is determined by:

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the second indication information is further used for indicating a coverage enhancement level of the UE.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising: receiving first indication information sent by the MME, wherein the first indication information is used for indicating that the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited.

6. A method for paging, comprising:

the method comprises the steps that RRC connection is established between user equipment and a first base station, wherein the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited;

the user equipment is switched from an RRC connected state with the first base station to an RRC idle state;

the user equipment receives a paging message sent by a second base station in a preset narrow-band range;

the predetermined narrow band range is determined by:

7. A paging device, comprising:

the first processing module is used for receiving first indication information sent by a Mobility Management Entity (MME); the first indication information indicates that the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited;

the second processing module is used for sending paging messages to the user equipment in a preset narrow-band range;

the narrowband index of the predetermined narrowband range is determined by:

8. The apparatus of claim 7, further comprising:

a third processing module, configured to receive second indication information sent by the MME, where the second indication information is used to indicate that the working mode of the user equipment is a coverage enhancement mode, and the second indication information is also used to indicate a coverage enhancement level of the user equipment.

9. A base station, characterized in that it comprises the device as claimed in claim 7 or 8.

10. A paging device, comprising:

the fourth processing module is configured to receive second indication information sent by the mobility management entity MME; the second indication information indicates that the user equipment supports a coverage enhancement function of coverage enhancement;

a fifth processing module, configured to send a paging message to the ue within a predetermined narrowband range;

the narrowband index of the predetermined narrowband range is determined by:

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the second indication information is further used for indicating a coverage enhancement level of the user equipment.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:

a sixth processing module, configured to receive first indication information sent by the MME, where the first indication information is used to indicate that the transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited.

13. A base station, characterized in that it comprises the apparatus of any of claims 10 to 12.

14. An apparatus, characterized in that the apparatus comprises:

an establishing module, configured to establish an RRC connection between a user equipment and a first base station, where a transmission bandwidth of the user equipment is limited;

a switching module, configured to switch the ue from an RRC connected state with the first base station to an RRC idle state;

a receiving module, configured to receive, by the ue, a paging message sent by a second base station within a predetermined narrowband range;

the predetermined narrow band range is determined by:

15. A user equipment, characterized in that it comprises the apparatus as claimed in claim 14.