WO2022060272A1

WO2022060272A1 - Methods of reporting information collected by a communication device and related devices and nodes

Info

Publication number: WO2022060272A1
Application number: PCT/SE2021/050787
Authority: WO
Inventors: Marco BELLESCHI; Pradeepa Ramachandra
Original assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (Publ)
Priority date: 2020-09-18
Filing date: 2021-08-11
Publication date: 2022-03-24

Abstract

According to first example embodiment, a method of operating a communication device is provided. The method includes receiving (102) a request message from a network node, wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions. The method further includes transmitting (104) response messages autonomously over multiple transmission occasions responsive to receiving the request message from the network node, wherein each response message includes a respective portion of the information collected by the communication device, and wherein each of the response messages is transmitted over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

Description

METHODS OF REPORTING INFORMATION COLLECTED BY A COMMUNICATION DEVICE AND RELATED DEVICES AND NODES

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present disclosure relates generally to communications, and more particularly to communication methods and related devices and nodes supporting wireless communications.

BACKGROUND

[0002] MDT (minimization drive test) reporting has been used in 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3 GPP cellular communication since Release 9 and was recently extended to New Radio NR in 3 GPP Release 16. The purpose of MDT is for the Use Equipment UE to store information about different measurements that the UE may perform both in IDLE mode and in connected mode. Typical measurements that a UE may log include the qualities of the cells the UE traverses when moving, and/or statistics about transmission delays the UE experiences, or events such as Radio Link Failure RLF or handover failures. Such reports may then be requested by the network and used for different purposes, such as coverage improvement/optimization, mobility improvement/optimization, capacity improvement/optimization, QoS verification, and ultimately SON (self-organizing network).

[0003] In particular, MDT includes 2 modes: Logged MDT; and Immediate MDT. In Logged MDT, the UE is configured to perform measurements while being in RRC IDLE mode and/or in RRC INACTIVE mode, including measurement of neighbouring cells, location, timestamps, etc. In Immediate MDT, the UE is configured to perform measurements while in connected mode.

[0004] Both modes are configured by the 0AM (Operations and Management), and they can be requested in the form of signaling-based MDT or management-based MDT. In the case of signaling-based MDT, the MDT is requested by the 0AM for a specific UE, whereas for the management-based MDT the eNB/gNB selects an arbitrary UE. In the latter case, the 0AM just indicates to the Radio Access Network RAN whether MDT is allowed (e.g., on the basis of roaming status, user consent, etc.) for this selected UE. [0005] The MDT can also be area specific, e.g., the UE can be configured to perform logged MDT as long as it is located within such a configured area, wherein the area can span multiple cells possibly belonging to different PLMNs. Similarly, for the immediate MDT, the 0AM can indicate to the RAN an area scope, so that if the UE connects to a cell which is part of such area scope, the RAN can configure the UE for immediate MDT accordingly.

[0006] Along with MDT reporting, the UE may also report to the network other useful information that the network can use for various SON improvements/optimizations, such as mobility improvements/optimizations, RACH improvements/optimizations, coverage improvements/optimizations, etc., and more in general user experience. For example, the UE may be required to store information about possible Radio Link Failure RLF events experienced, handover failures HOFs, connection establishment failures CEFs, successful random access RA procedures, mobility history (i.e., including the visited cells). This information can be exchanged between neighbouring cells as well as with Operation and Management O&M.

[0007] Upon storing the above information, the UE signals the availability of certain MDT/SON data to the network. Such availability flag can be conveyed in various Radio Resource Control RRC messages, such as RRCSetupComplete during the RRC connection establishment procedure, RRCReconfigurationComplete during RRC reconfiguration procedure, RRCReestablishmentComplete during RRC connection re-establishment procedure, RRCResumeComplete during RRC connection resume procedure, and also in the UEInformationReponse.

[0008] Upon receiving such availability flag from the UE, the network can decide at a later point in time to retrieve the MDT/SON information from the UE by sending to the UE a UEInformatioRequest and explicitly indicating the report type to which the network is interested in, e.g., logMeasReportReq.

[0009] The UEInformationRequest message is shown below in Table 1, and the related field definition are shown below in Table 2.

Table 1 - UEInformationRequest message

[0010] UEInformationRequest-IE Field Descriptions for Information Elements IES of the UEInformation Request Message of Table 1 are provided below in Table 2.

Table 2 - UEInformationRequest-IE Field Descriptions

_

[0011] As shown above in Tables 1 and 2, the network can request various elements of MDT/SON information, such as mobility information, RLF information, logged measurement reports, etc. Upon receiving such a request, the UE replies with a UEInformationResponse message including the information explicitly requested by the network.

[0012] In some cases, the UEInformationResponse message may be quite big and all the information that the UE has stored might not fit into a single UEInformationResponse message. That is because the UE can store MDT/SON information for up to 48 hours and in some cases, such as the case of logged measurements, the report to be included in the UEInformationResponse might be very big. In fact, as previously mentioned, when the UE is configured for logged measurements, it shall store a bunch of information related to the cells visited while in IDLE mode as well as information related to whatever the UE has measured from the surrounding radio environment, such as neighbouring cells or radio stations possibly belonging to different Radio Access Technologies RATs, such as New Radio NR, Long Term Evolution LTE, Bluetooth, Wifi, etc.

[0013] Therefore, given the potentially large size of some stored reports, the UE can report as part of one UEInformationResponse message just one sample of a given report, e.g., just one RRC segment of a stored logMeasReport, and at the same time indicate to the network that there are additional samples available for such report, i.e., that there are additional RRC messages to be transmitted associated with such report. In this way, the network can keep scheduling those remaining samples if needed.

[0014] Table 3, provided below, shows the UEInformationResponse for the case of a logged measurement report.

Table 3 - UEInformationResponse

[0015] Operations in unlicensed spectrum is discussed below.

[0016] Allowing unlicensed networks, i.e., networks that operate in shared spectrum (or unlicensed spectrum), to effectively use the available spectrum is an attractive approach to increase system capacity. Although unlicensed spectrum does not match the qualities of the licensed regime, approaches that allow an efficient use of it as a complement to licensed deployments may have the potential to bring great value to the 3 GPP operators, and, ultimately, to the 3 GPP industry as a whole. For this reason, 3 GPP has spent significant effort in specifying operations for LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) in LTE, and NR-U (NR-Unlicensed) in NR.

[0017] When operating in unlicensed spectrum, a given device competes for the radio resources with other devices potentially adopting different radio standards, and hence, that by nature are not designed to coexist. For this reason, in order to provide/ensure a certain degree of coexistence, many regions in the world require a device to sense the medium as free before transmitting. This, operation is often referred to as listen before talk (LBT). There are many different flavors of LBT, depending on which radio technology the device uses and which type of data it wants to transmit at the moment. Common for all flavors is that the sensing is done in a particular channel (corresponding to a defined carrier frequency) and over a predefined bandwidth. For example, in the 5 GHz band, the sensing is done over 20 MHz channels. Many devices are capable of transmitting (and receiving) over a wide bandwidth including multiple sub-bands/channels, e.g., LBT sub-band (i.e., the frequency part with bandwidth equal to LBT bandwidth). A device is only allowed to transmit on the sub-bands where the medium is sensed as free. Such LBT procedures may have to be performed by both the base station, and the UE, whenever they intend to transmit something on the unlicensed spectrum, and that is also applicable to any UL/DL transmission, i.e., both data, and layer-1/2/3 control signaling.

[0018] When it comes to scheduling options, 3 GPP supports the classical dynamic scheduling approach in which each UL Medium Access Control MAC Protocol Data Unit PDU is explicitly scheduled by the gNB via Physical Downlink Control Channel PDCCH signaling. However, such a scheduling scheme may have a drawback of increasing the channel occupancy in the unlicensed spectrum due to PDCCH signaling in the downlink DL. Additionally, even if an uplink UL Medium Access Control MAC Protocol Data Unit PDU is scheduled by PDCCH, such MAC PDU may subject to LBT and hence it might not be transmitted. That in turn may require yet another Uplink UL grant conveyed in PDCCH. Therefore, latency may also be impacted.

[0019] For this reason, semi-persistent scheduling alternatives, such as the usage of configured grants, appears to be a promising alternative. In particular, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 3 GPP has specified a special flavor of semi-persistent scheduling, also known as “autonomous UL”. The autonomous UL grant resembles the configured grant with the difference that the network can indicate the number of consecutive slots within a configured grant period that the UE can use for UL transmissions. Additionally, unlike the classical configured grant, in autonomous UL there is no relationship between Transmission Time Interval TTI and Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request HARQ process Identifier ID. This allows the UE to autonomously select the HARQ process to transmit on a given TH. Therefore even if, for example, a MAC PDU of high priority is blocked in this TH due to LBT, the UE can have the possibility to immediately re-select again the same MAC PDU and try to transmit it in the next TTI, e.g., before other MAC PDUs of lower priorities associated with other HARQ process Identifiers IDs.

[0020] When transmitting lengthy SON/MDT reports using unlicensed spectrum, the reports may need to be transmitted using multiple uplink messages, requiring multiple requests and corresponding LBT procedures. In such environments, it may be useful to reduce signaling overhead and/or delay/failure resulting from requests and/or LBT procedures.

SUMMARY

[0021] According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a method of operating a communication device is provided. A request message is received from a network node, wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions. Response messages are transmitted autonomously over multiple transmission occasions responsive to receiving the request message from the network node. Each response message includes a respective portion of the information collected by the communication device, and each of the response messages is transmitted over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

[0022] According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a method of operating a network node is provided. A request message is transmitted to a communication device, wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions. Response messages are received including respective portions of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions based on the request message. Each of the response messages is received over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions. [0023] By providing autonomous transmission according to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a number of LBT procedures relating to uplink grant signaling may be reduced thereby reducing LBT delay/failure, and/or signaling overhead related to the uplink grants may be reduced.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0024] The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this application, illustrate certain non-limiting embodiments of inventive concepts. In the drawings:

[0025] Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating a communication device UE according to some embodiments of inventive concepts;

[0026] Figure 2 is a block diagram illustrating a network node (e.g., a radio access network RAN node, such as a base station eNB/gNB) according to some embodiments of inventive concepts;

[0027] Figure 3 is a block diagram illustrating a core network CN node (e.g., an AMF node, an SMF node, etc.) according to some embodiments of inventive concepts;

[0028] Figures 4, 6, 7, and 8 are flow charts illustrating operations of a communication device according to some embodiments of inventive concepts;

[0029] Figures 5, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are flow charts illustrating operations of a network node according to some embodiments of inventive concepts;

[0030] Figure 13 is a block diagram of a wireless network in accordance with some embodiments;

[0031] Figure 14 is a block diagram of a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments

[0032] Figure 15 is a block diagram of a virtualization environment in accordance with some embodiments;

[0033] Figure 16 is a block diagram of a telecommunication network connected via an intermediate network to a host computer in accordance with some embodiments;

[0034] Figure 17 is a block diagram of a host computer communicating via a base station with a user equipment over a partially wireless connection in accordance with some embodiments; [0035] Figure 18 is a block diagram of methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments;

[0036] Figure 19 is a block diagram of methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments;

[0037] Figure 20 is a block diagram of methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments; and

[0038] Figure 21 is a block diagram of methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0039] Inventive concepts will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which examples of embodiments of inventive concepts are shown. Inventive concepts may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of present inventive concepts to those skilled in the art. It should also be noted that these embodiments are not mutually exclusive. Components from one embodiment may be tacitly assumed to be present/used in another embodiment.

[0040] The following description presents various embodiments of the disclosed subject matter. These embodiments are presented as teaching examples and are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the disclosed subject matter. For example, certain details of the described embodiments may be modified, omitted, or expanded upon without departing from the scope of the described subject matter.

[0041] Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating elements of a communication device UE 10 (also referred to as a mobile terminal, a mobile communication terminal, a wireless device, a wireless communication device, a wireless terminal, mobile device, a wireless communication terminal, user equipment, UE, a user equipment node/terminal/device, etc.) configured to provide wireless communication according to embodiments of inventive concepts. (Communication device 10 may be provided, for example, as discussed below with respect to wireless device 4110 of Figure 13.) As shown, communication device UE may include an antenna 17 (e.g., corresponding to antenna 4111 of Figure 13), and transceiver circuitry 11 (also referred to as a transceiver, e.g., corresponding to interface 4114 of Figure 13) including a transmitter and a receiver configured to provide uplink and downlink radio communications with a base station(s) (e.g., corresponding to network node 4160 of Figure 13, also referred to as a RAN node) of a radio access network. Communication device UE may also include processing circuitry 13 (also referred to as a processor, e.g., corresponding to processing circuitry 4120 of Figure 13) coupled to the transceiver circuitry, and memory circuitry 15 (also referred to as memory, e.g., corresponding to device readable medium 4130 of Figure 13) coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory circuitry 15 may include computer readable program code that when executed by the processing circuitry 13 causes the processing circuitry to perform operations according to embodiments disclosed herein. According to other embodiments, processing circuitry 13 may be defined to include memory so that separate memory circuitry is not required. Communication device UE may also include an interface (such as a user interface) coupled with processing circuitry 13, and/or communication device UE may be incorporated in a vehicle.

[0042] As discussed herein, operations of communication device UE may be performed by processing circuitry 13 and/or transceiver circuitry 11. For example, processing circuitry 13 may control transceiver circuitry 11 to transmit communications through transceiver circuitry 11 over a radio interface to a radio access network node (also referred to as a base station) and/or to receive communications through transceiver circuitry 11 from a RAN node over a radio interface. Moreover, modules may be stored in memory circuitry 15, and these modules may provide instructions so that when instructions of a module are executed by processing circuitry 13, processing circuitry 13 performs respective operations (e.g., operations discussed below with respect to Example Embodiments relating to wireless communication devices). According to some embodiments, a communication device UE 10 and/or an element(s)/function(s) thereof may be embodied as a virtual node/nodes and/or a virtual machine/ machines . [0043] Figure 2 is a block diagram illustrating elements of a radio access network RAN node 20 (also referred to as a network node, base station, eNodeB/eNB, gNodeB/gNB, etc.) of a Radio Access Network (RAN) configured to provide cellular communication according to embodiments of inventive concepts. (RAN node 20 may be provided, for example, as discussed below with respect to network node 4160 of Figure 13.) As shown, the RAN node may include transceiver circuitry 21 (also referred to as a transceiver, e.g., corresponding to portions of interface 4190 of Figure 13) including a transmitter and a receiver configured to provide uplink and downlink radio communications with mobile terminals. The RAN node may include network interface circuitry 27 (also referred to as a network interface, e.g., corresponding to portions of interface 4190 of Figure 13) configured to provide communications with other nodes (e.g., with other base stations) of the RAN and/or core network CN. The network node may also include processing circuitry 23 (also referred to as a processor, e.g., corresponding to processing circuitry 4170) coupled to the transceiver circuitry, and memory circuitry 25 (also referred to as memory, e.g., corresponding to device readable medium 4180 of Figure 13) coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory circuitry 25 may include computer readable program code that when executed by the processing circuitry 23 causes the processing circuitry to perform operations according to embodiments disclosed herein. According to other embodiments, processing circuitry 23 may be defined to include memory so that a separate memory circuitry is not required.

[0044] As discussed herein, operations of the RAN node may be performed by processing circuitry 23, network interface 27, and/or transceiver 21. For example, processing circuitry 23 may control transceiver 21 to transmit downlink communications through transceiver 21 over a radio interface to one or more mobile terminals UEs and/or to receive uplink communications through transceiver 21 from one or more mobile terminals UEs over a radio interface. Similarly, processing circuitry 23 may control network interface 27 to transmit communications through network interface 27 to one or more other network nodes and/or to receive communications through network interface from one or more other network nodes. Moreover, modules may be stored in memory 25, and these modules may provide instructions so that when instructions of a module are executed by processing circuitry 23, processing circuitry 23 performs respective operations (e.g., operations discussed below with respect to Example Embodiments relating to RAN nodes). According to some embodiments, RAN node 20 and/or an element(s)/function(s) thereof may be embodied as a virtual node/nodes and/or a virtual machine/machines.

[0045] According to some other embodiments, a network node may be implemented as a core network CN node without a transceiver. In such embodiments, transmission to a wireless communication device UE may be initiated by the network node so that transmission to the wireless communication device UE is provided through a network node including a transceiver (e.g., through a base station or RAN node). According to embodiments where the network node is a RAN node including a transceiver, initiating transmission may include transmitting through the transceiver.

[0046] Figure 3 is a block diagram illustrating elements of a core network CN node (e.g., an SMF node, an AMF node, etc.) of a communication network configured to provide cellular communication according to embodiments of inventive concepts. As shown, the CN node may include network interface circuitry 37 (also referred to as a network interface) configured to provide communications with other nodes of the core network and/or the radio access network RAN. The CN node may also include a processing circuitry 33 (also referred to as a processor) coupled to the network interface circuitry, and memory circuitry 35 (also referred to as memory) coupled to the processing circuitry. The memory circuitry 35 may include computer readable program code that when executed by the processing circuitry 33 causes the processing circuitry to perform operations according to embodiments disclosed herein. According to other embodiments, processing circuitry 33 may be defined to include memory so that a separate memory circuitry is not required.

[0047] As discussed herein, operations of the CN node may be performed by processing circuitry 33 and/or network interface circuitry 37. For example, processing circuitry 33 may control network interface circuitry 37 to transmit communications through network interface circuitry 37 to one or more other network nodes and/or to receive communications through network interface circuitry from one or more other network nodes. Moreover, modules may be stored in memory 35, and these modules may provide instructions so that when instructions of a module are executed by processing circuitry 33, processing circuitry 33 performs respective operations (e.g., operations discussed below with respect to Example Embodiments relating to core network nodes). According to some embodiments, CN node 30 and/or an element(s)/function(s) thereof may be embodied as a virtual node/nodes and/or a virtual machine/machines.

[0048] The MDT/SON reports stored by the UE can be quite big. That may imply that sending such reports in a single message might not be possible. This may require the UE to generate multiple samples for such reports, and this may require the network to schedule individually each of these samples. While that might not be problematic in a system not subject to heavy interference, in a dense scenario or in communications in unlicensed spectrum that might not be ideal.

[0049] In fact, in case of highly interfered communications, some of such samples might be lost either because they were transmitted by the UE but not received by the network, or because they were blocked at the transmitter side due to, e.g., LBT failures. Hence the network might lose critical pieces of information which could compromise the MDT/SON algorithms. Additionally, from the Downlink DL radio channel perspective, a scheme in which the network is required to explicitly request the MDT/SON reports might also contribute to increase the overall system interference.

[0050] According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a UE could report one or more of elements of UE collected information (such as MDT report(s), RLF report(s), Rando Access RA report, Connection Establishment Failure CEF report(s), etc.) to the network in an efficient way. According to some embodiments, the UE may be allowed to include further relevant information in the RRC messages (e.g., RRCResumeComplete, RRCReconfigurationComplete, RRCSetupComplete, RRCReestablishmentComplete, UEInformationResponse) to aid the network to fetch the UE collection information more efficiently.

[0051] According to some embodiments of the present disclosure, the network may be able to reduce or even avoid the need to explicitly request different samples of a given MDT/SON report, thereby reducing the overhead of the overall MDT/SON report fetching procedure, and/or the UE may be able to retransmit certain critical MDT/SON reports which might be blocked at the physical layer due to LBT failures.

[0052] In the following disclosure, the terminology “autonomous” transmission is adopted to indicate that the UE may be configured to send autonomously any remaining sample of a given concerned report by using the available UL grants, without waiting for explicit network request for each sample.

[0053] In the following disclosure, the “availability message” and the “request message” are introduced, wherein such messages may correspond to the RRC UEInformationResponse message and to the RRC UEInformationRequest message respectively.

[0054] Operations of the communication device 10 (implemented using the structure of the block diagram of Figure 1) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figure 4 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 15 of Figure 1, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective communication device processing circuitry 13, processing circuitry 13 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0055] According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a method performed by a UE 10 comprises:

• Transmitting at operation 101 to a first network node 20 an “availability message”, containing information related to a certain MDT/SON report wherein the information may comprise one or more of: o One or more samples of a report wherein the report could be any MDT/SON related report, such as a logged measurement report, an RLF report, an HOF report, a CEF report, an early measurement report or any other report containing information that the UE has stored in its memory.

■ In one example, some of such samples may have been already previously transmitted, e.g. the network may indicate which samples/bytes shall be retransmitted since missing. o A value indicating the overall number of samples (or bytes) the UE has stored associated with the concerned report o A value indicating the overall number of samples (or bytes) associated with the concerned report that are left to be transmitted by the UE o A value indicating which sample(s) (or bytes), of the concerned report, that the transmitted availability message conveys o A value indicating that the UE has stored new information related to the concerned report since the last transmission of the availability message. o A set of values to indicate one or more of the following. Having these indications allow the network to identify whether to fetch the relevant part of the measurements or not.

■ A set of values indicating which of the samples of the concerned report (e.g., logged MDT report) has measurements related to WLAN access points. This information could be provided individually per sample or for a set of samples. For example, if the UE has 10 samples in the logged MDT report and if the UE has WLAN measurements on 1st, 2nd, 3rd , 8th, 9th and 1 Oth sample, then in one embodiment the UE includes a bitstring (wlanAvailablelnfo) of length 10 as (1110000111) and in another embodiment it includes an information element that encodes 1-3 and 8-10 in a compressed way.

■ A set of values indicating which of the samples of the concerned report (e.g., logged MDT report) has measurements related to Bluetooth beacons.

■ A set of values indicating which of the samples of the concerned report (e.g., logged MDT report) has measurements related to location information.

• Receiving at operation 102 from the first network node 20, a “request message” indicating how to transmit the available information associated with the report, wherein the indication may indicate: o How many samples or bytes of the concerned report the UE shall transmit without any further “request message” from the first network node wherein such transmissions may occur in any subsequent provisioned UL grants

■ In one case, the first network node may indicate that all samples or bytes of the concerned report shall be transmitted without any further “request message” o That the UE shall wait for explicit network request before transmitting each remaining samples/bytes. For example, if the UE previously received a request message indicating to transmit any remaining samples/bytes without any further “request message”, in this case the network may request the UE to stop doing that o The time available for the UE to send the remaining samples/bytes without waiting for a “request message” for such remaining samples. At timer expiry, the UE shall wait for the “request message” before sending any remaining samples o The time the UE shall wait before sending the remaining samples/bytes. At that time the UE can transmit any remaining samples/bytes, without waiting for a “request message” for such remaining samples. o The explicit sequence of samples/bytes that should be transmitted in any subsequent UL grant, wherein some of such samples/bytes may have been already transmitted previously by the UE o The sequence of samples that have been already received by the first network node o A threshold on the measured radio environment, e.g. RSRP/RSRQ/RSSI/Channel occupancy, so that if the quality of the measured radio environment is below such threshold the UE shall stop sending autonomously the remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report o A threshold on the measured radio environment, e.g. RSRP/RSRQ/RSSI/Channel occupancy, so that if the quality of the measured radio environment is above such threshold the UE shall start sending autonomously any remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report o An indicator indicating whether to transmit all measurement samples within a report (e.g., logged MDT report) or only a relevant sub-set of the measurement samples (e.g., only those that have WLAN or Bluetooth or GNSS related information).

• Receiving at operation 103 an UL grant, e.g. a configured grant, which may be used for the transmission of the remaining samples/bytes

• Transmitting at operation 104 the remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report according to the information received at operation 102 and/or at operation 103.

[0056] Various operations from the flow chart of Figure 4 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of communication devices and related methods. Regarding methods of some embodiments (set forth below), for example, operations of block 103 of Figure 4 may be optional. [0057] Operations of a RAN node 20 (implemented using the structure of Figure 2) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figure 5 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 25 of Figure 2, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective RAN node processing circuitry 23, processing circuitry 23 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0058] According to some embodiments of inventive concepts, a method performed by a first network node 20 includes:

• Receiving at operation 201 an “availability message” containing information related to a certain MDT/SON report wherein the information may comprise the information discussed above with respect to operation 101

• Determining at operation 202 whether the remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report stored by the UE should be transmitted autonomously by the UE without sending a “request message” for each samples or whether an explicit “request message” should be transmitted to retrieve each sample from the UE

• determining at operation 203 the proper size of the UL grant(s) for the UE to deliver the remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report

• Transmitting at operation 204 a “request message” to indicate to the UE how to transmit the remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report as determined at operation 202

• Transmitting at 205 the UL grant(s), e.g. (re)configure or (re)activate a configured grant, which may be used by the UE for the transmission of the remaining samples/bytes

• Receiving (operation 206) the remaining samples/bytes of the concerned report as determined at operation 202

• Informing at operation 207 a second network node, e.g. neighboring nodes, or the node to which the UE is handed over, including a set of information such as: o The type of information related to a given MDT/SON report that the UE has stored o Information on whether the UE has been requested to autonomously transmit the corresponding remaining samples/bytes o The latest received sample/bytes of a given MDT/SON report o The missing samples of a given MDT/SON report o The samples already received of a given MDT/SON report

[0059] Various operations from the flow chart of Figure 5 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of RAN nodes and related methods. Regarding methods of some embodiments (set forth below), for example, operations of blocks 202, 203, 205, and/or 207 of Figure 5 may be optional.

[0060] Other network NW embodiments are discussed below according to some embodiments of inventive concepts.

[0061] The network may determine on the basis of the quality of UL/DL channel whether to request the UE to autonomously send the remaining samples/bytes of a concerned MDT/SON report by exploiting any of the subsequent UL grants, or whether instead to request the UE to transmit each remaining sample only upon explicit request from the NW.

[0062] For example, in case of unlicensed spectrum the NW may decide to allow the UE to autonomously send the remaining sample, since the transmission of additional request messages for each and every sample may increase the channel occupancy of the unlicensed spectrum. Therefore, this decision may be based on the level of RSSI/channel occupancy experienced by the radio base station and by the UE. For example, if the channel occupancy is high, the network may decide to postpone the transmission of request message for the MDT/SON report, and then once the channel occupancy goes below a certain value, the network may send to the UE a request message indicating that the UE shall transmit autonomously all the remaining samples/bytes in any of the subsequent UL grants. This may also apply to the case in which the UE previously received a request to autonomously transmit all the remaining samples/bytes, but then due to increased channel occupancy, the network may request the UE to stop transmitting such remaining samples/bytes until the channel occupancy decreases between a certain level.

[0063] In another example, the above decision might depend on the type of the MDT/SON report to be received. If that is of high priority, or if such type of report has not been received for a long time, the network may decide to request the UE to autonomously send the concerned report. That is because avoiding sending the “request message” has only an advantage in terms of reduced latency, i.e. transmitting a request message in the unlicensed spectrum implies performing the LBT procedure whose outcome might be to drop or postpone the transmission of such request message. [0064] In another example, the above decision may be based on the amount of samples/bytes the UE has stored. If that is a lot of information, the network may configure the UE to autonomously transmit those remaining samples, otherwise if it is little information the network may just request those remaining samples explicitly by sending the “request message”. That is because the network may decide to provide a configured grant for the transmission of the remaining samples, but if the UE just has few data to transmit it might not be worthwhile to configure a configured grant.

[0065] In conjunction with the reception of the availability message, and with operation (202), the gNB may carry out operation (203), i.e. it may determine the proper size of one or more UL grants to convey the various samples of the MDT/SON report. That can be determined on the basis of the number of samples/bytes that the UE has stored related to one or more MDT/SON reports available and signaled in the availability message. Such information can be combined with the status of the UE UL buffer, e.g. from the latest received BSR or any other UL buffer estimation method available at the gNB.

[0066] For example, one outcome of operation (203) could be that if the UE is enabled to autonomously send the various samples in operation (202), the gNB may provide a configured grant, i.e. a combination of time/frequency transmission occasions, of proper size to allow the UE to transmit the various stored samples. Alternatively, if a configured grant has been already configured to the UE, the gnB may send a re-activation command containing a new grant size, i.e. a new TBS/MCS (Transport Block Size and/or Modulation and Coding Scheme), for the configured grant.

[0067] The grant size may be readjusted in case the UE signals in the availability message that new data has been stored for a given report compared with last transmission of the availability message, or in case the UE signals a larger number of samples/bytes for a given report compared with last transmission of the availability message.

[0068] The network may also indicate explicitly which samples are missing and hence explicitly request such missing samples.

[0069] In another example, the first network node may inform the second network node that the UE has information available related to one or more MDT/SON reports. For example, it can indicate how many samples/bytes are left to be transmitted, which is the latest received sample/byte, which are the missing samples/bytes, etc. The first network node may also indicate that the UE has been configured to send the remaining samples autonomously. Hence, if the UE is handed-over to the second network node, the second network node does not need to send the “request message” to request the UE to provide the remaining samples. Simply the UE can continue to autonomously send the remaining samples/bytes.

[0070] Other UE embodiments are discussed below according to some embodiments of inventive concepts.

[0071] Before sending the “request message” the UE may indicate the number of bytes related to an MDT/SON that have been stored. It can also indicate the number of samples through an estimation, wherein the estimation on the number of samples can be done on the basis of the amount of information stored for this report, as well as on the UL grants already received.

[0072] In some cases, the UE upon sending a sample may keep this sample stored if the network does not provide an acknowledgment, e.g. an HARQ ACK, on correct reception of such sample. The UE may then retransmit such sample in any following UL transmission occasion.

[0073] Operations of the communication device 10 (implemented using the structure of the block diagram of Figure 1) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figure 6 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 15 of Figure 1, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective communication device processing circuitry 13, processing circuitry 13 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0074] According to some embodiments at block 805, processing circuitry 13 transmits (through transceiver 11) an availability message to the network node (20), wherein the availability message indicates availability of information collected by the communication device.

[0075] According to some embodiments at block 809, processing circuitry 13 receives (through transceiver 11) a request message from network node 20, wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions. According to some embodiments of Figure 6, the request message is received after transmitting the availability message of block 805.

[0076] According to some embodiments at block 815, processing circuitry 13 receives (through transceiver 11) a first dynamic uplink grant defining a first transmission occasion. [0077] According to some embodiments, at the first transmission occasion occurring at block 819 as defined by the first dynamic uplink grant of block 815, processing circuitry 13 autonomously transmits (through transceiver 11) a first response message at block 825 including a first portion of the information using the first transmission occasion responsive to the request message and responsive to the first dynamic uplink grant.

[0078] According to some embodiments, provided that no stop instruction is received at block 829 and that portions of the information collected by the communication device are remaining at block 835 (i.e., that not all portions of the information collected by the communication device have been transmitted), operations of block 815, 819, and 825 may proceed for transmission of a next portion of the information.

[0079] According to some embodiments at block 815, processing circuitry 13 may thus receive (through transceiver 11) a second dynamic uplink grant defining a second transmission occasion after autonomously transmitting the first response message and/or after receiving the first dynamic uplink grant.

[0080] According to some embodiments, at the second transmission occasion occurring at block 819 as defined by the second dynamic uplink grant of block 815, processing circuitry 13 autonomously transmits (through transceiver 11) a second response message at block 825 including a second portion of the information using the second transmission occasion responsive to the request message and responsive to the second dynamic uplink grant.

[0081] According to some embodiments, operations of blocks 815, 819, and 825 may thus be repeated for any number of portions of the information collected by the communication device until, for example, a stop instruction is received at block 829 or all portions of the information collected by the communication device have been transmitted at block 835. Accordingly, a plurality of response messages may be transmitted autonomously over respective transmission occasions at operation 825 so that the response messages of block 825 are separated in time. Because a plurality of response messages are transmitted autonomously over respective transmission occasions at block 825 responsive to a single request message of block 809, signaling overhead may be reduced because multiple request messages (i.e., one request message for each response message) are not required.

[0082] According to some embodiments at block 829, processing circuitry 13 may receive (through transceiver 11) a stop instruction from the network node after receiving the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously.

[0083] According to some embodiments at block 839, processing circuitry 13 may terminate transmitting response messages autonomously responsive to receiving the stop instruction. While the decision block 829 for the stop instruction 829 is shown after block 825 for transmission of response messages, the order of these blocks may be reversed so that a stop instruction could be received before transmitting even an initial response message so that no response messages are transmitted responsive to the request message being received before a first response message is transmitted.

[0084] According to some embodiments at block 835, processing circuitry 13 may determine whether any remaining portions of the information collected by the communication device have not yet been transmitted to the network node. If all portions of the information collected by the communication device have been transmitted in respective response messages of block 825 (i.e., no portions of the information remain for transmission), processing circuitry 13 may terminate transmitting response messages at block 839.

[0085] According to some embodiments, processing circuitry 13 may transmit (through transceiver 11) an additional availability message in one of response messages of block 825, and/or processing circuitry 13 may transmit (through transceiver 11) an additional availability message in each of the response messages of block 825 (indicating continuing availability of information collected by the communication device). Such additional availability messages could be used by the network node to determine whether another uplink grant should be provided for the communication device to schedule a next response message.

[0086] According to some embodiments, the availability message of block 805 (and/or any subsequent availability message) may include an indication that the information collected by the communication device includes new information collected by the communication device since a previous availability message transmitted by the communication device.

[0087] According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may be a report, the report may include a plurality of samples, and each of the portions of the information may be/include a respective sample of the report. According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may include a plurality of reports including the report, and the information may include a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports.

[0088] The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples of the information that are available at the communication device. The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples of the information that remain to be transmitted.

[0089] The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network WLAN access points, and/or the availability message may include an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or the availability message include an indication of samples related to location information. The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples of the information that have been previously transmitted.

[0090] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of a number of samples to transmit during the autonomous transmission, and at block 825, processing circuitry 13 may transmit the response messages autonomously including respective ones of the samples based on the indication of the number of samples.

[0091] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication to transmit all samples of the information collected by the communication device, and at block 825, processing circuitry 13 may transmit the response messages autonomously including respective ones of the samples so that all samples of the information are transmitted over respective ones of the multiple transmission occasions based on the indication to transmit all samples of the information.

[0092] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of a subset of the samples, and at block 825, processing circuitry 13 may transmit the response messages autonomously including respective ones of the subset of the samples over the respective transmission occasions.

[0093] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of samples that have been received by the network node, and at block 825, processing circuitry 13 may transmit the response messages autonomously without including the samples that have been received by the network node. [0094] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of a signal quality termination threshold, and processing circuitry 13 may terminate transmitting the response messages autonomously responsive to a measured signal quality falling below the signal quality termination threshold. For example, the stop instruction decision block 829 may be modified to also select termination of transmission (at block 839) based on the measured signal quality falling below the signal quality termination threshold.

[0095] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of a signal quality initiation threshold, and processing circuitry 13 may initiate transmitting the response messages autonomously responsive to a measurement signal quality exceeding the signal quality initiation threshold. For example, processing circuitry 13 may institute a delay after receiving the request message so that response messages are not transmitted autonomously at block 825 until the measurement signal quality exceeds the signal quality initiation threshold. Uplink grants received and/or transmission occasions occurring during the delay may be used for other purposes or disregarded.

[0096] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of a time limit defining a time period allowed to transmit the response messages autonomously, processing circuitry 13 may terminate transmitting the response messages autonomously after expiration of the time limit. For example, the stop instruction decision block 829 may be modified to also select termination of transmission (at block 839) based on expiration of the time limit.

[0097] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 809 may include an indication of a time delay defining a time period after which the response messages are transmitted autonomously, and processing circuitry 13 may initiate transmitting the response messages autonomously after expiration of the time delay. For example, processing circuitry 13 may institute a delay (based on the time delay) after receiving the request message so that response messages are not transmitted autonomously at block 825 until after expiration of the time delay. Uplink grants received and/or transmission occasions occurring during the delay may be used for other purposes or disregarded.

[0098] According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of Minimization of Drive Tests MDT information and/or Self Optimizing Network SON information. [0099] According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of a logged measurement report, an early measurement report, a Minimization of Drive Tests MDT report, a Radio Link Failure RLF report, a Random Access RA report, a Handover Failure HOF report, a Connection Establishment Failure CEF report, and/or a mobility history report.

[0100] Various operations from the flow chart of Figure 6 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of communication devices and related methods. Regarding methods of example embodiment 1 (set forth below), for example, operations of blocks 805, 815, 819, 829, 835, and/or 839 of Figure 6 may be optional.

[0101] Operations of the communication device 10 (implemented using the structure of the block diagram of Figure 1) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figure 7 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 15 of Figure 1, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective communication device processing circuitry 13, processing circuitry 13 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0102] Some operations of embodiments of Figure 7 are similar to those of embodiments of Figure 6. According, further discussion of operations of Figure 7 that are similar to (or the same as) corresponding operations of Figure 6 may be omitted/abbreviated below for the sake of conciseness. For example, operations of blocks 805, 809, 825, 829, and/ 835 of Figure 7 may be similar to (or the same as) corresponding operations of Figure 6. In Figure 7, however, a single configured uplink grant may be received at block 815’ so that separate dynamic uplink grants are not required for each response message. Accordingly, signaling overhead may be further reduced relative to embodiments of Figure 6.

[0103] According to some embodiments at block 805, processing circuitry 13 transmits (through transceiver 11) an availability message as discussed above with respect to Figure 6, and at block 809, processing circuitry 13 receives (through transceiver 11) a request message as discussed above with respect to Figure 6.

[0104] According to some embodiments at block 815’, processing circuitry 13 receives (through transceiver 11) a configured uplink grant, wherein the configured uplink grant defines multiple transmission occasions including a first transmission occasion and a second transmission occasion. [0105] According to some embodiments, at the first transmission occasion occurring at block 819’ as defined by the configured uplink grant of block 815’, processing circuitry 13 autonomously transmits (through transceiver 11) a first response message at block 825 including a first portion of the information using the first transmission occasion responsive to the request message and responsive to the configured uplink grant.

[0106] According to some embodiments, provided that no stop instruction is received at block 829 and that portions of the information collected by the communication device are remaining at block 835 (i.e., that not all portions of the information collected by the communication device have been transmitted), operations of block 819’ and 825 may proceed for transmission of a next portion of the information.

[0107] According to some embodiments, at the second transmission occasion occurring at block 819’ as defined by the configured uplink grant of block 815’, processing circuitry 13 autonomously transmits (through transceiver 11) a second response message at block 825 including a second portion of the information using the second transmission occasion responsive to the request message and responsive to the second dynamic uplink grant.

[0108] According to some embodiments, operations of blocks 819’ and 825 may thus be repeated for any number of portions of the information collected by the communication device until, for example, a stop instruction is received at block 829 or all portions of the information collected by the communication device have been transmitted at block 835. Accordingly, a plurality of response messages may be transmitted autonomously over respective transmission occasions at operation 825 so that the response messages of block 825 are separated in time. Because a plurality of response messages are transmitted autonomously over respective transmission occasions at block 825 responsive to a single request message of block 809, signaling overhead may be reduced because multiple request messages (i.e., one request message for each response message) are not required. Moreover, by using a single configured uplink grant to define multiple transmission occasions to be used for response messages, signaling overhead may be further reduced.

[0109] Various operations from the flow chart of Figure 7 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of communication devices and related methods. Regarding methods of example embodiment 1 (set forth below), for example, operations of blocks 805, 815’, 819’, 829, 835, and/or 839 of Figure 7 may be optional. [0110] Operations of the communication device 10 (implemented using the structure of the block diagram of Figure 1) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figure 6 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 15 of Figure 1, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective communication device processing circuitry 13, processing circuitry 13 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0111] According to some embodiments at block 809’, processing circuitry 13 receives (through transceiver 11) a request message from network node 20. The request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions.

[0112] According to some embodiments at block 825’, processing circuitry 13 transmits (through transceiver 11) response messages autonomously over multiple transmission occasions responsive to receiving the request message from the network node. Each response message includes a respective portion of the information collected by the communication device, and each of the response messages is transmitted over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

[0113] Various operations from the flow chart of Figure 8 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of communication devices and related methods.

[0114] Operations of a RAN node 20 (implemented using the structure of Figure 2) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figures 9 and 12 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 25 of Figure 2, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective RAN node processing circuitry 23, processing circuitry 23 performs respective operations of the flow chart(s).

[0115] According to some embodiments at block 1003, processing circuitry 23 receives (through transceiver 21) an availability message from the communication device 10, wherein the availability message indicates availability of information collected by the communication device.

[0116] According to some embodiments at block 1005, processing circuitry 23 determines to apply autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device responsive to receiving the availability message. [0117] According to some embodiments at block 1007, processing circuitry 23 determines sizes of multiple transmission occasions based on information included in the availability message.

[0118] According to some embodiments at block 1009, processing circuitry 23 transmits (through transceiver 21) a request message to a communication device (10), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions responsive to determining at block 1005 to apply autonomous transmission. Moreover, the request message may include an indication of sizes of multiple transmission occasions based on the determination of block 1007.

[0119] According to some embodiments at block 1015, processing circuitry 23 transmits (through transceiver 21) a first dynamic uplink grant, wherein the first dynamic uplink grant defines a first transmission occasion. According to some embodiments, a size of the first dynamic uplink grant (and/or subsequent dynamic uplink grants) may be determined based on the determination at block 1007.

[0120] According to some embodiments, at the first transmission occasion at block 1019 defined by the first dynamic uplink grant, processing circuitry 23 receives a first response message at block 1025, wherein the first response message includes a first portion of the information using the first transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission.

[0121] According to some embodiments, provided that there has been no decision to stop at block 1029, operations of blocks 1015, 1019, and 1025 may proceed for a next response message.

[0122] According to some embodiments at block 1015, processing circuitry 23 transmits (through transceiver 21) a second dynamic uplink grant after receiving the first response message and/or after transmitting the first dynamic uplink grant, wherein the second dynamic uplink grant defines a second transmission occasion.

[0123] According to some embodiments, at the second transmission occasion at block 1019 defined by the second dynamic uplink grant, processing circuitry 23 receives a second response message at block 1025, wherein the second response message includes a second portion of the information using the second transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission. [0124] According to some embodiments, operations of blocks 1015, 1019, and 1025 may thus be repeated for any number of response messages until, for example, there is a decision to stop at block 1029.

[0125] Accordingly, a plurality of response messages may be received (based on autonomous transmission from the communication device) over respective transmission occasions at operation 1025 so that the response messages of block 1025 are separated in time. Because a plurality of response messages are received over respective transmission occasions at block 1025 based on a single request message of block 1009, signaling overhead may be reduced because multiple request messages (i.e., one request message for each response message) are not required.

[0126] According to some embodiments at block 1029, processing circuitry 23 may determine to terminate further response messages. Responsive to a determination to terminate further response messages at block 1029, processing circuitry 23 may transmit (through transceiver 21) a stop instruction to the communication device after transmitting the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously.

[0127] While the decision block 1029 for the stop instruction 1039 is shown after block 1025 for reception of response messages, the order of these blocks may be reversed so that a stop instruction could be transmitted before receiving even an initial response message so that no response messages based on the request message are received.

[0128] According to some embodiments, processing circuitry 23 may receive (through transceiver 21) an additional availability message in one of the response messages of block 1025, and/or processing circuitry 23 may receive (through transceiver 21) an additional availability message in each of the response messages of block 1025 (indicating continuing availability of information collected by the communication device). Processing circuitry 23 may use such additional availability messages to determine whether another uplink grant should be provided for the communication device to schedule a next response message.

[0129] According to some embodiments, the availability message of block 1003 (and/or any subsequent availability messages) may include an indication that the information collected by the communication device includes new information collected by the communication device since a previous availability message received from the communication device.

[0130] According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may be a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report. According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may include a plurality of reports including the report, and the information may include a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports.

[0131] The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples of the information that are available at the communication device. The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples of the information that remain to be transmitted. The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network WLAN access points, the availability message/messages may include an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or the availability message/messages may include an indication of samples related to location information. The availability message/messages may include an indication of samples of the information that have been previously transmitted.

[0132] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of a number of samples for the communication device to transmit during the autonomous transmission.

[0133] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication to autonomously transmit all samples of the information collected by the communication device.

[0134] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of a subset of the samples to transmit autonomously. According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of samples that have been received by the network node.

[0135] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of a signal quality termination threshold indicating that the communication device is to terminate transmitting response messages autonomously responsive to a measured signal quality falling below the signal quality termination threshold. [0136] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of a signal quality initiation threshold indicating that the communication device is to initiate transmitting response messages autonomously responsive to a measurement signal quality exceeding the signal quality initiation threshold.

[0137] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of a time limit defining a time period allowed to transmit response messages autonomously.

[0138] According to some embodiments, the request message of block 1009 may include an indication of a time delay defining a time period after which response messages are transmitted autonomously.

[0139] According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of Minimization of Drive Tests MDT information and/or Self Optimizing Network SON information.

[0140] According to some embodiments, the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of a logged measurement report, an early measurement report, a Minimization of Drive Tests MDT report, a Radio Link Failure RLF report, a Random Access RA report, a Handover Failure HOF report, a Connection Establishment Failure CEF report, and/or a mobility history report.

[0141] Further operations of the network node are illustrated in Figure 12 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts.

[0142] According to some embodiments, responsive to a decision to perform a handover of the communication device to a second network node at operation 1105 of Figure 12, processing circuitry 23 at block 1109 transmits (through transceiver 21) to a second network node information relating to the request message/messages and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device. For example, the information relating to the request message and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of: a type of the information collected by the communication device; an indication that the request message was transmitted to the communication device; at least one of the portions of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages; an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has not been received; and/or an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages.

[0143] Various operations from the flow charts of Figure 9 and 12 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of RAN nodes and related methods. Regarding methods of example embodiment 26 (set forth below), for example, operations of blocks 1003, 1005, 1007, 1015, 1019, 1029, 1039, 1105, and/or 1109 of Figures 9 and/or 12 may be optional.

[0144] Operations of a RAN node 20 (implemented using the structure of Figure 2) will now be discussed with reference to the flow charts of Figures 10 and 12 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 25 of Figure 2, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective RAN node processing circuitry 23, processing circuitry 23 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0145] Some operations of embodiments of Figure 10 are similar to those of embodiments of Figure 9. According, further discussion of operations of Figure 10 that are similar to (or the same as) corresponding operations of Figure 9 may be omitted/abbreviated below for the sake of conciseness. For example, operations of blocks 1003, 1005, 1007, 1009, 1025, 1029, and/ 1039 of Figure 10 may be similar to (or the same as) corresponding operations of Figure 9. In Figure 10, however, a single configured uplink grant may be transmitted at block 1015’ so that separate dynamic uplink grants are not required for each response message. Accordingly, signaling overhead may be further reduced relative to embodiments of Figure 9.

[0146] According to some embodiments at block 1003, processing circuitry 23 receives (through transceiver 21) an availability message as discussed above with respect to Figure 9. According to some embodiments at block 1005, processing circuitry 23 determines to apply autonomous transmission as discussed above with respect to Figure 9. According to some embodiments at block 1007, processing circuitry 23 determines sizes of multiple transmission occasions as discussed above with respect to Figure 9. According to some embodiments at block 1009, processing circuitry 23 transmits a request message as discussed above with respect to Figure 9.

[0147] According to some embodiments at block 1015’, processing circuitry 23 transmits (through transceiver 21) a configured uplink grant, wherein the configured uplink grant defines multiple transmission occasions including a first transmission occasion and a second transmission occasion.

[0148] According to some embodiments, at the first transmission occasion occurring at block 1019’, processing circuitry 23 receives (through transceiver 21) a first response message including a first respective portion of the information using the first transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission.

[0149] According to some embodiments, provided that there is no decision to stop at block 1029, operations of block 1019’ and 1025 may proceed for transmission of a next portion of the information.

[0150] According to some embodiments, at the second transmission occasion occurring at block 1019’, processing circuitry 23 receives (through transceiver 21) a second response message including a second respective portion of the information using the second transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission.

[0151] According to some embodiments, operations of blocks 1019’ and 1025 may thus be repeated for any number of response messages until, for example, the is a decision to stop at block 1029. Accordingly, a plurality of response messages may be received over respective transmission occasions at operation 1025 so that the response messages of block 8025 are separated in time. Because a plurality of response messages are received over respective transmission occasions at block 1025 responsive to a single request message of block 1009, signaling overhead may be reduced because multiple request messages (i.e., one request message for each response message) are not required. Moreover, by using a single configured uplink grant to define multiple transmission occasions to be used for response messages, signaling overhead may be further reduced.

[0152] Further operations of the network node are illustrated in Figure 12 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts.

[0153] According to some embodiments, responsive to a decision to perform a handover of the communication device to a second network node at operation 1105 of Figure 12, processing circuitry 23 at block 1109 transmits (through transceiver 21) to a second network node information relating to the request message/messages and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device. For example, the information relating to the request message and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of: a type of the information collected by the communication device; an indication that the request message was transmitted to the communication device; at least one of the portions of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages; an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has not been received; and/or an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages.

[0154] Various operations from the flow charts of Figures 10 and 12 may be optional with respect to some embodiments of RAN nodes and related methods. Regarding methods of example embodiment 26 (set forth below), for example, operations of blocks 1003, 1005, 1007, 1015’, 1019’, 1029, 1039, 1105, and/or 1109 of Figure 10 and Figure 12 may be optional.

[0155] Operations of a RAN node 20 (implemented using the structure of Figure 2) will now be discussed with reference to the flow chart of Figure 11 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts. For example, modules may be stored in memory 25 of Figure 2, and these modules may provide instructions so that when the instructions of a module are executed by respective RAN node processing circuitry 23, processing circuitry 23 performs respective operations of the flow chart.

[0156] According to some embodiments at block 1009’, processing circuitry 23 transmits (through transceiver 21) a request message to a communication device (10), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions.

[0157] According to some embodiments at block 1025’, processing circuitry 23 receives (through transceiver 21) response messages including respective portions of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions based on the request message, wherein each of the response messages is received over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

[0158] Further operations of the network node are illustrated in Figure 12 according to some embodiments of inventive concepts.

[0159] According to some embodiments, responsive to a decision to perform a handover of the communication device to a second network node at operation 1105 of Figure 12, processing circuitry 23 at block 1109 transmits (through transceiver 21) to a second network node information relating to the request message/messages and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device. For example, the information relating to the request message and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device may include at least one of: a type of the information collected by the communication device; an indication that the request message was transmitted to the communication device; at least one of the portions of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages; an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has not been received; and/or an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages.

[0160] Various operations from the flow charts of Figures 11 and may be optional with respect to some embodiments of RAN nodes and related methods. Regarding methods of example embodiment 26 (set forth below), for example, operations of blocks 1105 and/or 1109 of Figure 12 may be optional.

[0161] Example embodiments are discussed below.

Embodiment 1. A method of operating a communication device (10), the method comprising: receiving (809, 809’, 102) a request message from the network node (20), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions; and transmitting (825, 825’, 104) response messages autonomously over multiple transmission occasions responsive to receiving the request message from the network node, wherein each response message includes a respective portion of the information collected by the communication device, and wherein each of the response messages is transmitted over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

Embodiment 2. The method of Embodiment 1 , wherein transmitting the response messages including the portions of the information collected by the communication device comprises transmitting a first response message including a first portion of the information using a first transmission occasion responsive to the request message and transmitting a second response message including a second portion of the information using a second transmission occasion responsive to the request message, wherein the first and second transmission occasions are separated in time.

Embodiment 3. The method of Embodiment 2 further comprising: receiving (815, 103) a first dynamic uplink grant defining the first transmission occasion before transmitting the first response message; and receiving (815, 103) a second dynamic uplink grant defining the second transmission occasion before transmitting the second response message and after transmitting the first response message.

Embodiment 4. The method of Embodiment 2 further comprising: receiving (815’, 103) a configured uplink grant before transmitting the first and second response messages, wherein the configured uplink grant defines the multiple transmission occasions including the first transmission occasion and the second transmission occasion.

Embodiment 5. The method of any of Embodiments 2-4 further comprising: receiving (829) a stop instruction from the network node after receiving the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously; and terminating (839) transmitting response messages including the remaining portions of the information autonomously responsive to receiving the stop instruction.

Embodiment 6. The method of any of Embodiments 1-5 further comprising: transmitting (805) an availability message to the network node (20), wherein the availability message indicates availability of the information collected by the communication device.

Embodiment 7. The method of Embodiment 6, wherein the availability message is transmitted before receiving the request message. Embodiment 8. The method of Embodiment 6, wherein the availability message is transmitted as an element of one of the response messages.

Embodiment 9. The method of any of Embodiments 6-8, wherein the availability message includes an indication that the information collected by the communication device includes new information collected by the communication device since a previous availability message transmitted by the communication device.

Embodiment 10. The method of any of Embodiments 6-9, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report.

Embodiment 11. The method of Embodiment 10, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples of the information that are available at the communication device.

Embodiment 12. The method of any of Embodiments 10-11, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples of the information that remain to be transmitted.

Embodiment 13. The method of any of Embodiments 10-12, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN, access points, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to location information.

Embodiment 14. The method of any of Embodiments 10-13, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples of the information that have been previously transmitted.

Embodiment 15. The method of Embodiments 10-14, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a plurality of reports including the report, and wherein the information includes a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports. Embodiment 16. The method of any of Embodiments 10-15, wherein the request message includes an indication of a number of samples to transmit during the autonomous transmission, and wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously comprises transmitting the response messages including respective ones of the samples based on the indication of the number of samples.

Embodiment 17. The method of any of Embodiments 10-16, wherein the request message includes an indication to transmit all samples of the information collected by the communication device, and wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously comprises transmitting the response messages including respective ones of the samples so that all samples of the information are transmitted over respective ones of the multiple transmission occasions based on the indication to transmit all samples of the information.

Embodiment 18. The method of any of Embodiments 10-17, wherein the request message includes an indication of a subset of the samples, and wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously comprises transmitting the response messages including respective ones of the subset of the samples over the multiple transmission occasions.

Embodiment 19. The method of any of Embodiments 10-18, wherein the request message includes an indication of samples that have been received by the network node, wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously comprises transmitting the response messages autonomously without including the samples that have been received by the network node.

Embodiment 20. The method of any of Embodiments 1-19, wherein the request message includes an indication of a signal quality termination threshold, and wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously is terminated responsive to a measured signal quality falling below the signal quality termination threshold.

Embodiment 21. The method of any of Embodiments 1-20, wherein the request message includes an indication of a signal quality initiation threshold, and wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously is initiated responsive to a measurement signal quality exceeding the signal quality initiation threshold. Embodiment 22. The method of any of Embodiments 1-21, wherein the request message includes an indication of a time limit defining a time period allowed to transmit the response messages autonomously, wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously is terminated after expiration of the time limit.

Embodiment 23. The method of any of Embodiments 1-22, wherein the request message includes an indication of a time delay defining a time period after which the response messages are transmitted autonomously, wherein transmitting the response messages autonomously is initiated after expiration of the time delay.

Embodiment 24. The method of any of Embodiments 1-23, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises at least one of Minimization of Drive Tests, MDT, information and/or Self Optimizing Network, SON, information.

Embodiment 25. The method of any of Embodiments 1-24, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises at least one of a logged measurement report, an early measurement report, a Minimization of Drive Tests, MDT, report, a Radio Link Failure, RLF, report, a Random Access, RA, report, a Handover Failure, HOF, report, a Connection Establishment Failure, CEF, report, and/or a mobility history report.

Embodiment 26. A method of operating a network node (20), the method comprising: transmitting (1009, 1009’, 204) a request message to a communication device (10), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions; and receiving (1025, 1025’, 206) response messages including respective portions of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions based on the request message, wherein each of the response messages is received over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

Embodiment 27. The method of Embodiment 26, wherein receiving the response messages including the portions of the information collected by the communication device comprises receiving a first response message including a first portion of the information using a first transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission and receiving a second response message including a second portion of the information using a second transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission, wherein the first and second transmission occasions are separated in time.

Embodiment 28. The method of Embodiment 27 further comprising: transmitting (1015, 205) a first dynamic uplink grant before receiving the first response message, wherein the first dynamic uplink grant defines the first transmission occasion; and transmitting (1015, 205) a second dynamic uplink grant before receiving the second response message and after receiving the first response message, wherein the second dynamic uplink grant defines the second transmission occasion.

Embodiment 29. The method of Embodiment 27 further comprising: transmitting (1015’, 205) a configured uplink grant before receiving the first and second response messages, wherein the configured uplink grant defines the multiple transmission occasions including the first transmission occasion and the second transmission occasion.

Embodiment 30. The method of any of Embodiments 26-29 further comprising: transmitting (1039) a stop instruction to the communication device after transmitting the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously.

Embodiment 31. The method of any of Embodiments 26-30 further comprising: receiving (1003, 201) an availability message from the communication device (10), wherein the availability message indicates availability of the information collected by the communication device.

Embodiment 32. The method of Embodiment 31, wherein the availability message is received before transmitting the request message.

Embodiment 33. The method of Embodiment 31, wherein the availability message is received as an element of one of the response messages.

Embodiment 34. The method of any of Embodiments 31-33 further comprising: determining (1007, 203) sizes of the multiple transmission occasions based on information included in the availability message, wherein the request message includes an indication of the sizes of the multiple transmission occasions.

Embodiment 35. The method of any of Embodiments 31-34 further comprising: determining (1005, 202) to apply autonomous transmission of the information responsive to receiving the availability message; wherein the request message is transmitted responsive to determining to apply autonomous transmission of the information.

Embodiment 36. The method of any of Embodiments 31-35, wherein the availability message includes an indication that the information collected by the communication device includes new information collected by the communication device since a previous availability message received from the communication device.

Embodiment 37. The method of any of Embodiments 31-36, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report.

Embodiment 38. The method of Embodiment 37, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples of the information that are available at the communication device.

Embodiment 39. The method of any of Embodiments 37-38, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples of the information that remain to be transmitted.

Embodiment 40. The method of any of Embodiments 37-39, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN, access points, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to location information. Embodiment 41. The method of any of Embodiments 37-40, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples of the information that have been previously transmitted.

Embodiment 42. The method of Embodiments 37-41, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a plurality of reports including the report, and wherein the information includes a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports.

Embodiment 43. The method of any of Embodiments 37-42, wherein the request message includes an indication of a number of samples to transmit during the autonomous transmission.

Embodiment 44. The method of any of Embodiments 37-43, wherein the request message includes an indication to autonomously transmit all samples of the information collected by the communication device.

Embodiment 45. The method of any of Embodiments 37-44, wherein the request message includes an indication of a subset of the samples to transmit autonomously.

Embodiment 46. The method of any of Embodiments 37-45, wherein the request message includes an indication of samples that have been received by the network node.

Embodiment 47. The method of any of Embodiments 26-46, wherein the request message includes an indication of a signal quality termination threshold indicating that the communication device is to terminate transmitting response messages autonomously responsive to a measured signal quality falling below the signal quality termination threshold.

Embodiment 48. The method of any of Embodiments 26-47, wherein the request message includes an indication of a signal quality initiation threshold indicating that the communication device is to initiate transmitting response messages autonomously responsive to a measurement signal quality exceeding the signal quality initiation threshold.

Embodiment 49. The method of any of Embodiments 26-48, wherein the request message includes an indication of a time limit defining a time period allowed to transmit response messages autonomously. Embodiment 50. The method of any of Embodiments 26-49, wherein the request message includes an indication of a time delay defining a time period after which response messages are transmitted autonomously.

Embodiment 51. The method of any of Embodiments 26-50, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises at least one of Minimization of Drive Tests, MDT, information and/or Self Optimizing Network, SON, information.

Embodiment 52. The method of any of Embodiments 26-51, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises at least one of a logged measurement report, an early measurement report, a Minimization of Drive Tests, MDT, report, a Radio Link Failure, RLF, report, a Random Access, RA, report, a Handover Failure, HOF, report, a Connection Establishment Failure, CEF, report, and/or a mobility history report.

Embodiment 53. The method of any of Embodiments 26-52 further comprising: transmitting (1109) to a second network node information relating to the request message and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device.

Embodiment 54. The method of Embodiments 53, wherein the information is transmitted to the second network node responsive to a decision to perform a handover of the communication device to the second network node.

Embodiment 55. The method of any of Embodiments 53-54, wherein the information relating to the request message and/or relating to the information collected by the communication device includes at least one of,

• a type of the information collected by the communication device,

• an indication that the request message was transmitted to the communication device,

• at least one of the portions of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages,

• an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has not been received, and/or

• an indication of a portion of the information collected by the communication device that has been received in at least one of the response messages. Embodiment 56. A communication device (10) comprising: processing circuitry (13); and memory (15) coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the communication device to perform operations according to any of Embodiments 1-25.

Embodiment 57. A communication device (300) adapted to perform according to any of Embodiments 1-25.

Embodiment 58. A computer program comprising program code to be executed by processing circuitry (13) of a communication device (10), whereby execution of the program code causes the communication device (10) to perform operations according to any of embodiments 1-25.

Embodiment 59. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium including program code to be executed by processing circuitry (13) of a communication device (10), whereby execution of the program code causes the communication device (10) to perform operations according to any of embodiments 1-25.

Embodiment 60. A radio access network, RAN, node (20) comprising: processing circuitry (23); and memory (25) coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the RAN node to perform operations according to any of Embodiments 26-55.

Embodiment 61. A radio access network, RAN, node (20) adapted to perform according to any of Embodiments 26-55.

Embodiment 62. A computer program comprising program code to be executed by processing circuitry (23) of a radio access network, RAN, node (20), whereby execution of the program code causes the RAN node (20) to perform operations according to any of embodiments 26-55. Embodiment 63. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium including program code to be executed by processing circuitry (23) of a radio access network, RAN, node (400), whereby execution of the program code causes the RAN node (20) to perform operations according to any of embodiments 26-55.

[0162] Explanations are provided below for various abbreviations/acronyms used in the present disclosure.

Abbreviation Explanation

ACK (positive) Acknowledgment

AUL Autonomous uplink

BH Backhaul

BLER Block error rate

BSR Buffer Status Report

BWP Bandwidth Part

CAPC Channel access priority class

CBG Code block group

CCA Clear channel assessment

CEF Connection Establishment Failure

CO Channel occupancy

COT Channel occupancy time

CSI-RS Channel State Information - Reference Signal

CWS Contention window size

DL Downlink

ED Energy detection eNB Base station supporting the LTE air interface

GHz Giga Hertz gNB Base station supporting the NR air interface

GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System

GPS Global Positioning System

HARQ Hybrid automatic repeat request

HOF Handover Failure

IAB Integrated Access Backhaul

IS In synch

LAA Licensed assisted access

LBT Listen before talk

LTE Long Term Evolution, 3 GPP defined 4G radio access technology

MAC Medium access control

MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme

MDT Minimization Drive Test

MHz MegaHertz

NACK Negative acknowledgment

NDI New data indicator

NR New Radio, 3GPP defined 5G radio access technology

NR-U NR unlicensed NW Network

OAM Operation and Maintenance

(or O&M)

OOS out of synch

PCell Primary cell

PCI Physical cell identity

PDCCH A downlink control channel

PDU Protocol data unit

PHI CH Physical channel Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel

PLMN Public land mobile network

PSCell Primary SCG cell

PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel

PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel

QCI QoS class identifier

QoS Quality of service

RA Random Access

RACH Random Access Channel

RAN Random Access Network

RAT Radio access technology

RLF Radio link failure

RUM Radio link monitoring

RLC Radio link control

RRC Radio resource control

RS Reference signal

RSRP Reference Signals Received Power

RSRQ Reference Signals Received Quality

RSSI Received Signal Strength Indication

Scell Secondary Cell

SCG Secondary cell group

SDU Service data unit

SMTC SSB — based measurement timing configuration

SON Self-Organizing Network

SpCell Special cell (PCell or PSCell)

SPS Semi persistent scheduling

TBS Transport Block Size

TTI Transmission time interval

UCI Uplink Control Information

UE User equipment

UL Uplink

WLAN Wireless Local Area Network

[0163] Additional explanation is provided below.

[0164] Generally, all terms used herein are to be interpreted according to their ordinary meaning in the relevant technical field, unless a different meaning is clearly given and/or is implied from the context in which it is used. All references to a/an/the element, apparatus, component, means, step, etc. are to be interpreted openly as referring to at least one instance of the element, apparatus, component, means, step, etc., unless explicitly stated otherwise. The steps of any methods disclosed herein do not have to be performed in the exact order disclosed, unless a step is explicitly described as following or preceding another step and/or where it is implicit that a step must follow or precede another step. Any feature of any of the embodiments disclosed herein may be applied to any other embodiment, wherever appropriate. Likewise, any advantage of any of the embodiments may apply to any other embodiments, and vice versa. Other objectives, features and advantages of the enclosed embodiments will be apparent from the following description.

[0165] Some of the embodiments contemplated herein will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings. Other embodiments, however, are contained within the scope of the subject matter disclosed herein, the disclosed subject matter should not be construed as limited to only the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of example to convey the scope of the subject matter to those skilled in the art.

[0166] Figure 13 illustrates a wireless network in accordance with some embodiments.

[0167] Although the subject matter described herein may be implemented in any appropriate type of system using any suitable components, the embodiments disclosed herein are described in relation to a wireless network, such as the example wireless network illustrated in Figure 13. For simplicity, the wireless network of Figure 13 only depicts network 4106, network nodes 4160 and 4160b, and WDs 4110, 4110b, and 4110c (also referred to as mobile terminals). In practice, a wireless network may further include any additional elements suitable to support communication between wireless devices or between a wireless device and another communication device, such as a landline telephone, a service provider, or any other network node or end device. Of the illustrated components, network node 4160 and wireless device (WD) 4110 are depicted with additional detail. The wireless network may provide communication and other types of services to one or more wireless devices to facilitate the wireless devices’ access to and/or use of the services provided by, or via, the wireless network.

[0168] The wireless network may comprise and/or interface with any type of communication, telecommunication, data, cellular, and/or radio network or other similar type of system. In some embodiments, the wireless network may be configured to operate according to specific standards or other types of predefined rules or procedures. Thus, particular embodiments of the wireless network may implement communication standards, such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Long Term Evolution (LTE), and/or other suitable 2G, 3G, 4G, or 5G standards; wireless local area network (WLAN) standards, such as the IEEE 802.11 standards; and/or any other appropriate wireless communication standard, such as the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), Bluetooth, Z-Wave and/or ZigBee standards.

[0169] Network 4106 may comprise one or more backhaul networks, core networks, IP networks, public switched telephone networks (PSTNs), packet data networks, optical networks, wide-area networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), wireless local area networks (WLANs), wired networks, wireless networks, metropolitan area networks, and other networks to enable communication between devices.

[0170] Network node 4160 and WD 4110 comprise various components described in more detail below. These components work together in order to provide network node and/or wireless device functionality, such as providing wireless connections in a wireless network. In different embodiments, the wireless network may comprise any number of wired or wireless networks, network nodes, base stations, controllers, wireless devices, relay stations, and/or any other components or systems that may facilitate or participate in the communication of data and/or signals whether via wired or wireless connections.

[0171] As used herein, network node refers to equipment capable, configured, arranged and/or operable to communicate directly or indirectly with a wireless device and/or with other network nodes or equipment in the wireless network to enable and/or provide wireless access to the wireless device and/or to perform other functions (e.g., administration) in the wireless network. Examples of network nodes include, but are not limited to, access points (APs) (e.g., radio access points), base stations (BSs) (e.g., radio base stations, Node Bs, evolved Node Bs (eNBs) and NR NodeBs (gNBs)). Base stations may be categorized based on the amount of coverage they provide (or, stated differently, their transmit power level) and may then also be referred to as femto base stations, pico base stations, micro base stations, or macro base stations. A base station may be a relay node or a relay donor node controlling a relay. A network node may also include one or more (or all) parts of a distributed radio base station such as centralized digital units and/or remote radio units (RRUs), sometimes referred to as Remote Radio Heads (RRHs). Such remote radio units may or may not be integrated with an antenna as an antenna integrated radio. Parts of a distributed radio base station may also be referred to as nodes in a distributed antenna system (DAS). Yet further examples of network nodes include multi-standard radio (MSR) equipment such as MSR BSs, network controllers such as radio network controllers (RNCs) or base station controllers (BSCs), base transceiver stations (BTSs), transmission points, transmission nodes, multi-cell/multicast coordination entities (MCEs), core network nodes (e.g., MSCs, MMEs), O&M nodes, OSS nodes, SON nodes, positioning nodes (e.g., E-SMLCs), and/or MDTs. As another example, a network node may be a virtual network node as described in more detail below. More generally, however, network nodes may represent any suitable device (or group of devices) capable, configured, arranged, and/or operable to enable and/or provide a wireless device with access to the wireless network or to provide some service to a wireless device that has accessed the wireless network.

[0172] In Figure 13, network node 4160 includes processing circuitry 4170, device readable medium 4180, interface 4190, auxiliary equipment 4184, power source 4186, power circuitry 4187, and antenna 4162. Although network node 4160 illustrated in the example wireless network of Figure 13 may represent a device that includes the illustrated combination of hardware components, other embodiments may comprise network nodes with different combinations of components. It is to be understood that a network node comprises any suitable combination of hardware and/or software needed to perform the tasks, features, functions and methods disclosed herein. Moreover, while the components of network node 4160 are depicted as single boxes located within a larger box, or nested within multiple boxes, in practice, a network node may comprise multiple different physical components that make up a single illustrated component (e.g., device readable medium 4180 may comprise multiple separate hard drives as well as multiple RAM modules).

[0173] Similarly, network node 4160 may be composed of multiple physically separate components (e.g., a NodeB component and a RNC component, or a BTS component and a BSC component, etc.), which may each have their own respective components. In certain scenarios in which network node 4160 comprises multiple separate components (e.g., BTS and BSC components), one or more of the separate components may be shared among several network nodes. For example, a single RNC may control multiple NodeB’s. In such a scenario, each unique NodeB and RNC pair, may in some instances be considered a single separate network node. In some embodiments, network node 4160 may be configured to support multiple radio access technologies (RATs). In such embodiments, some components may be duplicated (e.g., separate device readable medium 4180 for the different RATs) and some components may be reused (e.g., the same antenna 4162 may be shared by the RATs). Network node 4160 may also include multiple sets of the various illustrated components for different wireless technologies integrated into network node 4160, such as, for example, GSM, WCDMA, LTE, NR, WiFi, or Bluetooth wireless technologies. These wireless technologies may be integrated into the same or different chip or set of chips and other components within network node 4160.

[0174] Processing circuitry 4170 is configured to perform any determining, calculating, or similar operations (e.g., certain obtaining operations) described herein as being provided by a network node. These operations performed by processing circuitry 4170 may include processing information obtained by processing circuitry 4170 by, for example, converting the obtained information into other information, comparing the obtained information or converted information to information stored in the network node, and/or performing one or more operations based on the obtained information or converted information, and as a result of said processing making a determination.

[0175] Processing circuitry 4170 may comprise a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application-specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, software and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction with other network node 4160 components, such as device readable medium 4180, network node 4160 functionality. For example, processing circuitry 4170 may execute instructions stored in device readable medium 4180 or in memory within processing circuitry 4170. Such functionality may include providing any of the various wireless features, functions, or benefits discussed herein. In some embodiments, processing circuitry 4170 may include a system on a chip (SOC).

[0176] In some embodiments, processing circuitry 4170 may include one or more of radio frequency (RF) transceiver circuitry 4172 and baseband processing circuitry 4174. In some embodiments, radio frequency (RF) transceiver circuitry 4172 and baseband processing circuitry 4174 may be on separate chips (or sets of chips), boards, or units, such as radio units and digital units. In alternative embodiments, part or all of RF transceiver circuitry 4172 and baseband processing circuitry 4174 may be on the same chip or set of chips, boards, or units

[0177] In certain embodiments, some or all of the functionality described herein as being provided by a network node, base station, eNB or other such network device may be performed by processing circuitry 4170 executing instructions stored on device readable medium 4180 or memory within processing circuitry 4170. In alternative embodiments, some or all of the functionality may be provided by processing circuitry 4170 without executing instructions stored on a separate or discrete device readable medium, such as in a hard-wired manner. In any of those embodiments, whether executing instructions stored on a device readable storage medium or not, processing circuitry 4170 can be configured to perform the described functionality. The benefits provided by such functionality are not limited to processing circuitry 4170 alone or to other components of network node 4160, but are enjoyed by network node 4160 as a whole, and/or by end users and the wireless network generally.

[0178] Device readable medium 4180 may comprise any form of volatile or nonvolatile computer readable memory including, without limitation, persistent storage, solid-state memory, remotely mounted memory, magnetic media, optical media, random access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), mass storage media (for example, a hard disk), removable storage media (for example, a flash drive, a Compact Disk (CD) or a Digital Video Disk (DVD)), and/or any other volatile or non-volatile, non-transitory device readable and/or computerexecutable memory devices that store information, data, and/or instructions that may be used by processing circuitry 4170. Device readable medium 4180 may store any suitable instructions, data or information, including a computer program, software, an application including one or more of logic, rules, code, tables, etc. and/or other instructions capable of being executed by processing circuitry 4170 and, utilized by network node 4160. Device readable medium 4180 may be used to store any calculations made by processing circuitry 4170 and/or any data received via interface 4190. In some embodiments, processing circuitry 4170 and device readable medium 4180 may be considered to be integrated.

[0179] Interface 4190 is used in the wired or wireless communication of signalling and/or data between network node 4160, network 4106, and/or WDs 4110. As illustrated, interface 4190 comprises port(s)/terminal(s) 4194 to send and receive data, for example to and from network 4106 over a wired connection. Interface 4190 also includes radio front end circuitry 4192 that may be coupled to, or in certain embodiments a part of, antenna 4162. Radio front end circuitry 4192 comprises filters 4198 and amplifiers 4196. Radio front end circuitry 4192 may be connected to antenna 4162 and processing circuitry 4170. Radio front end circuitry may be configured to condition signals communicated between antenna 4162 and processing circuitry 4170. Radio front end circuitry 4192 may receive digital data that is to be sent out to other network nodes or WDs via a wireless connection. Radio front end circuitry 4192 may convert the digital data into a radio signal having the appropriate channel and bandwidth parameters using a combination of filters 4198 and/or amplifiers 4196. The radio signal may then be transmitted via antenna 4162. Similarly, when receiving data, antenna 4162 may collect radio signals which are then converted into digital data by radio front end circuitry 4192. The digital data may be passed to processing circuitry 4170. In other embodiments, the interface may comprise different components and/or different combinations of components.

[0180] In certain alternative embodiments, network node 4160 may not include separate radio front end circuitry 4192, instead, processing circuitry 4170 may comprise radio front end circuitry and may be connected to antenna 4162 without separate radio front end circuitry 4192. Similarly, in some embodiments, all or some of RF transceiver circuitry 4172 may be considered a part of interface 4190. In still other embodiments, interface 4190 may include one or more ports or terminals 4194, radio front end circuitry 4192, and RF transceiver circuitry 4172, as part of a radio unit (not shown), and interface 4190 may communicate with baseband processing circuitry 4174, which is part of a digital unit (not shown).

[0181] Antenna 4162 may include one or more antennas, or antenna arrays, configured to send and/or receive wireless signals. Antenna 4162 may be coupled to radio front end circuitry 4192 and may be any type of antenna capable of transmitting and receiving data and/or signals wirelessly. In some embodiments, antenna 4162 may comprise one or more omnidirectional, sector or panel antennas operable to transmit/receive radio signals between, for example, 2 GHz and 66 GHz. An omni-directional antenna may be used to transmit/receive radio signals in any direction, a sector antenna may be used to transmit/receive radio signals from devices within a particular area, and a panel antenna may be a line of sight antenna used to transmit/receive radio signals in a relatively straight line. In some instances, the use of more than one antenna may be referred to as MIMO. In certain embodiments, antenna 4162 may be separate from network node 4160 and may be connectable to network node 4160 through an interface or port.

[0182] Antenna 4162, interface 4190, and/or processing circuitry 4170 may be configured to perform any receiving operations and/or certain obtaining operations described herein as being performed by a network node. Any information, data and/or signals may be received from a wireless device, another network node and/or any other network equipment. Similarly, antenna 4162, interface 4190, and/or processing circuitry 4170 may be configured to perform any transmitting operations described herein as being performed by a network node. Any information, data and/or signals may be transmitted to a wireless device, another network node and/or any other network equipment.

[0183] Power circuitry 4187 may comprise, or be coupled to, power management circuitry and is configured to supply the components of network node 4160 with power for performing the functionality described herein. Power circuitry 4187 may receive power from power source 4186. Power source 4186 and/or power circuitry 4187 may be configured to provide power to the various components of network node 4160 in a form suitable for the respective components (e.g., at a voltage and current level needed for each respective component). Power source 4186 may either be included in, or external to, power circuitry 4187 and/or network node 4160. For example, network node 4160 may be connectable to an external power source (e.g., an electricity outlet) via an input circuitry or interface such as an electrical cable, whereby the external power source supplies power to power circuitry 4187. As a further example, power source 4186 may comprise a source of power in the form of a battery or battery pack which is connected to, or integrated in, power circuitry 4187. The battery may provide backup power should the external power source fail. Other types of power sources, such as photovoltaic devices, may also be used.

[0184] Alternative embodiments of network node 4160 may include additional components beyond those shown in Figure 13 that may be responsible for providing certain aspects of the network node’s functionality, including any of the functionality described herein and/or any functionality necessary to support the subject matter described herein. For example, network node 4160 may include user interface equipment to allow input of information into network node 4160 and to allow output of information from network node 4160. This may allow a user to perform diagnostic, maintenance, repair, and other administrative functions for network node 4160.

[0185] As used herein, wireless device (WD) refers to a device capable, configured, arranged and/or operable to communicate wirelessly with network nodes and/or other wireless devices. Unless otherwise noted, the term WD may be used interchangeably herein with user equipment (UE). Communicating wirelessly may involve transmitting and/or receiving wireless signals using electromagnetic waves, radio waves, infrared waves, and/or other types of signals suitable for conveying information through air. In some embodiments, a WD may be configured to transmit and/or receive information without direct human interaction. For instance, a WD may be designed to transmit information to a network on a predetermined schedule, when triggered by an internal or external event, or in response to requests from the network. Examples of a WD include, but are not limited to, a smart phone, a mobile phone, a cell phone, a voice over IP (VoIP) phone, a wireless local loop phone, a desktop computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wireless cameras, a gaming console or device, a music storage device, a playback appliance, a wearable terminal device, a wireless endpoint, a mobile station, a tablet, a laptop, a laptop-embedded equipment (LEE), a laptop-mounted equipment (LME), a smart device, a wireless customer-premise equipment (CPE), a vehicle-mounted wireless terminal device, etc. A WD may support device-to-device (D2D) communication, for example by implementing a 3 GPP standard for sidelink communication, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle- to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) and may in this case be referred to as a D2D communication device. As yet another specific example, in an Internet of Things (loT) scenario, a WD may represent a machine or other device that performs monitoring and/or measurements, and transmits the results of such monitoring and/or measurements to another WD and/or a network node. The WD may in this case be a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, which may in a 3GPP context be referred to as an MTC device. As one particular example, the WD may be a UE implementing the 3 GPP narrow band internet of things (NB-IoT) standard. Particular examples of such machines or devices are sensors, metering devices such as power meters, industrial machinery, or home or personal appliances (e.g. refrigerators, televisions, etc.) personal wearables (e.g., watches, fitness trackers, etc.). In other scenarios, a WD may represent a vehicle or other equipment that is capable of monitoring and/or reporting on its operational status or other functions associated with its operation. A WD as described above may represent the endpoint of a wireless connection, in which case the device may be referred to as a wireless terminal. Furthermore, a WD as described above may be mobile, in which case it may also be referred to as a mobile device or a mobile terminal.

[0186] As illustrated, wireless device 4110 includes antenna 4111, interface 4114, processing circuitry 4120, device readable medium 4130, user interface equipment 4132, auxiliary equipment 4134, power source 4136 and power circuitry 4137. WD 4110 may include multiple sets of one or more of the illustrated components for different wireless technologies supported by WD 4110, such as, for example, GSM, WCDMA, LTE, NR, WiFi, WiMAX, or Bluetooth wireless technologies, just to mention a few. These wireless technologies may be integrated into the same or different chips or set of chips as other components within WD 4110.

[0187] Antenna 4111 may include one or more antennas or antenna arrays, configured to send and/or receive wireless signals, and is connected to interface 4114. In certain alternative embodiments, antenna 4111 may be separate from WD 4110 and be connectable to WD 4110 through an interface or port. Antenna 4111, interface 4114, and/or processing circuitry 4120 may be configured to perform any receiving or transmitting operations described herein as being performed by a WD. Any information, data and/or signals may be received from a network node and/or another WD. In some embodiments, radio front end circuitry and/or antenna 4111 may be considered an interface.

[0188] As illustrated, interface 4114 comprises radio front end circuitry 4112 and antenna 4111. Radio front end circuitry 4112 comprise one or more filters 4118 and amplifiers 4116. Radio front end circuitry 4112 is connected to antenna 4111 and processing circuitry 4120, and is configured to condition signals communicated between antenna 4111 and processing circuitry 4120. Radio front end circuitry 4112 may be coupled to or a part of antenna 4111. In some embodiments, WD 4110 may not include separate radio front end circuitry 4112; rather, processing circuitry 4120 may comprise radio front end circuitry and may be connected to antenna 4111. Similarly, in some embodiments, some or all of RF transceiver circuitry 4122 may be considered a part of interface 4114. Radio front end circuitry 4112 may receive digital data that is to be sent out to other network nodes or WDs via a wireless connection. Radio front end circuitry 4112 may convert the digital data into a radio signal having the appropriate channel and bandwidth parameters using a combination of filters 4118 and/or amplifiers 4116. The radio signal may then be transmitted via antenna 4111. Similarly, when receiving data, antenna 4111 may collect radio signals which are then converted into digital data by radio front end circuitry 4112. The digital data may be passed to processing circuitry 4120. In other embodiments, the interface may comprise different components and/or different combinations of components.

[0189] Processing circuitry 4120 may comprise a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller, microcontroller, central processing unit, digital signal processor, application-specific integrated circuit, field programmable gate array, or any other suitable computing device, resource, or combination of hardware, software, and/or encoded logic operable to provide, either alone or in conjunction with other WD 4110 components, such as device readable medium 4130, WD 4110 functionality. Such functionality may include providing any of the various wireless features or benefits discussed herein. For example, processing circuitry 4120 may execute instructions stored in device readable medium 4130 or in memory within processing circuitry 4120 to provide the functionality disclosed herein.

[0190] As illustrated, processing circuitry 4120 includes one or more of RF transceiver circuitry 4122, baseband processing circuitry 4124, and application processing circuitry 4126. In other embodiments, the processing circuitry may comprise different components and/or different combinations of components. In certain embodiments processing circuitry 4120 of WD 4110 may comprise a SOC. In some embodiments, RF transceiver circuitry 4122, baseband processing circuitry 4124, and application processing circuitry 4126 may be on separate chips or sets of chips. In alternative embodiments, part or all of baseband processing circuitry 4124 and application processing circuitry 4126 may be combined into one chip or set of chips, and RF transceiver circuitry 4122 may be on a separate chip or set of chips. In still alternative embodiments, part or all of RF transceiver circuitry 4122 and baseband processing circuitry 4124 may be on the same chip or set of chips, and application processing circuitry 4126 may be on a separate chip or set of chips. In yet other alternative embodiments, part or all of RF transceiver circuitry 4122, baseband processing circuitry 4124, and application processing circuitry 4126 may be combined in the same chip or set of chips. In some embodiments, RF transceiver circuitry 4122 may be a part of interface 4114. RF transceiver circuitry 4122 may condition RF signals for processing circuitry 4120.

[0191] In certain embodiments, some or all of the functionality described herein as being performed by a WD may be provided by processing circuitry 4120 executing instructions stored on device readable medium 4130, which in certain embodiments may be a computer- readable storage medium. In alternative embodiments, some or all of the functionality may be provided by processing circuitry 4120 without executing instructions stored on a separate or discrete device readable storage medium, such as in a hard-wired manner. In any of those particular embodiments, whether executing instructions stored on a device readable storage medium or not, processing circuitry 4120 can be configured to perform the described functionality. The benefits provided by such functionality are not limited to processing circuitry 4120 alone or to other components of WD 4110, but are enjoyed by WD 4110 as a whole, and/or by end users and the wireless network generally.

[0192] Processing circuitry 4120 may be configured to perform any determining, calculating, or similar operations (e.g., certain obtaining operations) described herein as being performed by a WD. These operations, as performed by processing circuitry 4120, may include processing information obtained by processing circuitry 4120 by, for example, converting the obtained information into other information, comparing the obtained information or converted information to information stored by WD 4110, and/or performing one or more operations based on the obtained information or converted information, and as a result of said processing making a determination.

[0193] Device readable medium 4130 may be operable to store a computer program, software, an application including one or more of logic, rules, code, tables, etc. and/or other instructions capable of being executed by processing circuitry 4120. Device readable medium 4130 may include computer memory (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM) or Read Only Memory (ROM)), mass storage media (e.g., a hard disk), removable storage media (e.g., a Compact Disk (CD) or a Digital Video Disk (DVD)), and/or any other volatile or non-volatile, non-transitory device readable and/or computer executable memory devices that store information, data, and/or instructions that may be used by processing circuitry 4120. In some embodiments, processing circuitry 4120 and device readable medium 4130 may be considered to be integrated.

[0194] User interface equipment 4132 may provide components that allow for a human user to interact with WD 4110. Such interaction may be of many forms, such as visual, audial, tactile, etc. User interface equipment 4132 may be operable to produce output to the user and to allow the user to provide input to WD 4110. The type of interaction may vary depending on the type of user interface equipment 4132 installed in WD 4110. For example, if WD 4110 is a smart phone, the interaction may be via a touch screen; if WD 4110 is a smart meter, the interaction may be through a screen that provides usage (e.g., the number of gallons used) or a speaker that provides an audible alert (e.g., if smoke is detected). User interface equipment 4132 may include input interfaces, devices and circuits, and output interfaces, devices and circuits. User interface equipment 4132 is configured to allow input of information into WD 4110, and is connected to processing circuitry 4120 to allow processing circuitry 4120 to process the input information. User interface equipment 4132 may include, for example, a microphone, a proximity or other sensor, keys/buttons, a touch display, one or more cameras, a USB port, or other input circuitry. User interface equipment 4132 is also configured to allow output of information from WD 4110, and to allow processing circuitry 4120 to output information from WD 4110. User interface equipment 4132 may include, for example, a speaker, a display, vibrating circuitry, a USB port, a headphone interface, or other output circuitry. Using one or more input and output interfaces, devices, and circuits, of user interface equipment 4132, WD 4110 may communicate with end users and/or the wireless network, and allow them to benefit from the functionality described herein.

[0195] Auxiliary equipment 4134 is operable to provide more specific functionality which may not be generally performed by WDs. This may comprise specialized sensors for doing measurements for various purposes, interfaces for additional types of communication such as wired communications etc. The inclusion and type of components of auxiliary equipment 4134 may vary depending on the embodiment and/or scenario.

[0196] Power source 4136 may, in some embodiments, be in the form of a battery or battery pack. Other types of power sources, such as an external power source (e.g., an electricity outlet), photovoltaic devices or power cells, may also be used. WD 4110 may further comprise power circuitry 4137 for delivering power from power source 4136 to the various parts of WD 4110 which need power from power source 4136 to carry out any functionality described or indicated herein. Power circuitry 4137 may in certain embodiments comprise power management circuitry. Power circuitry 4137 may additionally or alternatively be operable to receive power from an external power source; in which case WD 4110 may be connectable to the external power source (such as an electricity outlet) via input circuitry or an interface such as an electrical power cable. Power circuitry 4137 may also in certain embodiments be operable to deliver power from an external power source to power source 4136. This may be, for example, for the charging of power source 4136. Power circuitry 4137 may perform any formatting, converting, or other modification to the power from power source 4136 to make the power suitable for the respective components of WD 4110 to which power is supplied.

[0197] Figure 14 illustrates a user Equipment in accordance with some embodiments.

[0198] Figure 14 illustrates one embodiment of a UE in accordance with various aspects described herein. As used herein, a user equipment or UE may not necessarily have a user in the sense of a human user who owns and/or operates the relevant device. Instead, a UE may represent a device that is intended for sale to, or operation by, a human user but which may not, or which may not initially, be associated with a specific human user (e.g., a smart sprinkler controller). Alternatively, a UE may represent a device that is not intended for sale to, or operation by, an end user but which may be associated with or operated for the benefit of a user (e.g., a smart power meter). UE 42200 may be any UE identified by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), including a NB-IoT UE, a machine type communication (MTC) UE, and/or an enhanced MTC (eMTC) UE. UE 4200, as illustrated in Figure 14, is one example of a WD configured for communication in accordance with one or more communication standards promulgated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), such as 3GPP’s GSM, UMTS, LIE, and/or 5G standards. As mentioned previously, the term WD and UE may be used interchangeable. Accordingly, although Figure 14 is a UE, the components discussed herein are equally applicable to a WD, and vice-versa.

[0199] In Figure 14, UE 4200 includes processing circuitry 4201 that is operatively coupled to input/output interface 4205, radio frequency (RF) interface 4209, network connection interface 4211, memory 4215 including random access memory (RAM) 4217, read-only memory (ROM) 4219, and storage medium 4221 or the like, communication subsystem 4231, power source 4213, and/or any other component, or any combination thereof. Storage medium 4221 includes operating system 4223, application program 4225, and data 4227. In other embodiments, storage medium 4221 may include other similar types of information. Certain UEs may utilize all of the components shown in Figure 14, or only a subset of the components. The level of integration between the components may vary from one UE to another UE. Further, certain UEs may contain multiple instances of a component, such as multiple processors, memories, transceivers, transmitters, receivers, etc. [0200] In Figure 14, processing circuitry 4201 may be configured to process computer instructions and data. Processing circuitry 4201 may be configured to implement any sequential state machine operative to execute machine instructions stored as machine-readable computer programs in the memory, such as one or more hardware-implemented state machines (e.g., in discrete logic, FPGA, ASIC, etc.); programmable logic together with appropriate firmware; one or more stored program, general-purpose processors, such as a microprocessor or Digital Signal Processor (DSP), together with appropriate software; or any combination of the above. For example, the processing circuitry 4201 may include two central processing units (CPUs). Data may be information in a form suitable for use by a computer.

[0201] In the depicted embodiment, input/output interface 4205 may be configured to provide a communication interface to an input device, output device, or input and output device. UE 4200 may be configured to use an output device via input/output interface 4205. An output device may use the same type of interface port as an input device. For example, a USB port may be used to provide input to and output from UE 4200. The output device may be a speaker, a sound card, a video card, a display, a monitor, a printer, an actuator, an emitter, a smartcard, another output device, or any combination thereof. UE 4200 may be configured to use an input device via input/output interface 4205 to allow a user to capture information into UE 4200. The input device may include a touch-sensitive or presence-sensitive display, a camera (e.g., a digital camera, a digital video camera, a web camera, etc.), a microphone, a sensor, a mouse, a trackball, a directional pad, a trackpad, a scroll wheel, a smartcard, and the like. The presence-sensitive display may include a capacitive or resistive touch sensor to sense input from a user. A sensor may be, for instance, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a tilt sensor, a force sensor, a magnetometer, an optical sensor, a proximity sensor, another like sensor, or any combination thereof. For example, the input device may be an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a digital camera, a microphone, and an optical sensor.

[0202] In Figure 14, RF interface 4209 may be configured to provide a communication interface to RF components such as a transmitter, a receiver, and an antenna. Network connection interface 4211 may be configured to provide a communication interface to network 4243a. Network 4243a may encompass wired and/or wireless networks such as a localarea network (LAN), a wide-area network (WAN), a computer network, a wireless network, a telecommunications network, another like network or any combination thereof. For example, network 4243a may comprise a Wi-Fi network. Network connection interface 4211 may be configured to include a receiver and a transmitter interface used to communicate with one or more other devices over a communication network according to one or more communication protocols, such as Ethernet, TCP/IP, SONET, ATM, or the like. Network connection interface 4211 may implement receiver and transmitter functionality appropriate to the communication network links (e.g., optical, electrical, and the like). The transmitter and receiver functions may share circuit components, software or firmware, or alternatively may be implemented separately.

[0203] RAM 4217 may be configured to interface via bus 4202 to processing circuitry 4201 to provide storage or caching of data or computer instructions during the execution of software programs such as the operating system, application programs, and device drivers. ROM 4219 may be configured to provide computer instructions or data to processing circuitry 4201. For example, ROM 4219 may be configured to store invariant low-level system code or data for basic system functions such as basic input and output (I/O), startup, or reception of keystrokes from a keyboard that are stored in a non-volatile memory. Storage medium 4221 may be configured to include memory such as RAM, ROM, programmable read-only memory (PROM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), magnetic disks, optical disks, floppy disks, hard disks, removable cartridges, or flash drives. In one example, storage medium 4221 may be configured to include operating system 4223, application program 4225 such as a web browser application, a widget or gadget engine or another application, and data file 4227. Storage medium 4221 may store, for use by UE 4200, any of a variety of various operating systems or combinations of operating systems.

[0204] Storage medium 4221 may be configured to include a number of physical drive units, such as redundant array of independent disks (RAID), floppy disk drive, flash memory, USB flash drive, external hard disk drive, thumb drive, pen drive, key drive, high- density digital versatile disc (HD-DVD) optical disc drive, internal hard disk drive, Blu-Ray optical disc drive, holographic digital data storage (HDDS) optical disc drive, external mini-dual in-line memory module (DIMM), synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), external micro-DIMM SDRAM, smartcard memory such as a subscriber identity module or a removable user identity (SIM/RUIM) module, other memory, or any combination thereof. Storage medium 4221 may allow UE 4200 to access computer-executable instructions, application programs or the like, stored on transitory or non-transitory memory media, to offload data, or to upload data. An article of manufacture, such as one utilizing a communication system may be tangibly embodied in storage medium 4221, which may comprise a device readable medium.

[0205] In Figure 14, processing circuitry 4201 may be configured to communicate with network 4243b using communication subsystem 4231. Network 4243a and network 4243b may be the same network or networks or different network or networks. Communication subsystem 4231 may be configured to include one or more transceivers used to communicate with network 4243b. For example, communication subsystem 4231 may be configured to include one or more transceivers used to communicate with one or more remote transceivers of another device capable of wireless communication such as another WD, UE, or base station of a radio access network (RAN) according to one or more communication protocols, such as IEEE 802.11, CDMA, WCDMA, GSM, LTE, UTRAN, WiMax, or the like. Each transceiver may include transmitter 4233 and/or receiver 4235 to implement transmitter or receiver functionality, respectively, appropriate to the RAN links (e.g., frequency allocations and the like). Further, transmitter 4233 and receiver 4235 of each transceiver may share circuit components, software or firmware, or alternatively may be implemented separately.

[0206] In the illustrated embodiment, the communication functions of communication subsystem 4231 may include data communication, voice communication, multimedia communication, short-range communications such as Bluetooth, near-field communication, location-based communication such as the use of the global positioning system (GPS) to determine a location, another like communication function, or any combination thereof. For example, communication subsystem 4231 may include cellular communication, Wi-Fi communication, Bluetooth communication, and GPS communication. Network 4243b may encompass wired and/or wireless networks such as a local-area network (LAN), a wide-area network (WAN), a computer network, a wireless network, a telecommunications network, another like network or any combination thereof. For example, network 4243b may be a cellular network, a Wi-Fi network, and/or a near-field network. Power source 4213 may be configured to provide alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) power to components of UE 4200.

[0207] The features, benefits and/or functions described herein may be implemented in one of the components of UE 4200 or partitioned across multiple components of UE 4200. Further, the features, benefits, and/or functions described herein may be implemented in any combination of hardware, software or firmware. In one example, communication subsystem 4231 may be configured to include any of the components described herein. Further, processing circuitry 4201 may be configured to communicate with any of such components over bus 4202. In another example, any of such components may be represented by program instructions stored in memory that when executed by processing circuitry 4201 perform the corresponding functions described herein. In another example, the functionality of any of such components may be partitioned between processing circuitry 4201 and communication subsystem 4231. In another example, the non-computationally intensive functions of any of such components may be implemented in software or firmware and the computationally intensive functions may be implemented in hardware.

[0208] Figure 15 illustrates a virtualization environment in accordance with some embodiments.

[0209] Figure 15 is a schematic block diagram illustrating a virtualization environment 4300 in which functions implemented by some embodiments may be virtualized. In the present context, virtualizing means creating virtual versions of apparatuses or devices which may include virtualizing hardware platforms, storage devices and networking resources. As used herein, virtualization can be applied to a node (e.g., a virtualized base station or a virtualized radio access node) or to a device (e.g., a UE, a wireless device or any other type of communication device) or components thereof and relates to an implementation in which at least a portion of the functionality is implemented as one or more virtual components (e.g., via one or more applications, components, functions, virtual machines or containers executing on one or more physical processing nodes in one or more networks).

[0210] In some embodiments, some or all of the functions described herein may be implemented as virtual components executed by one or more virtual machines implemented in one or more virtual environments 4300 hosted by one or more of hardware nodes 4330. Further, in embodiments in which the virtual node is not a radio access node or does not require radio connectivity (e.g., a core network node), then the network node may be entirely virtualized.

[0211] The functions may be implemented by one or more applications 4320 (which may alternatively be called software instances, virtual appliances, network functions, virtual nodes, virtual network functions, etc.) operative to implement some of the features, functions, and/or benefits of some of the embodiments disclosed herein. Applications 4320 are run in virtualization environment 4300 which provides hardware 4330 comprising processing circuitry 4360 and memory 4390. Memory 4390 contains instructions 4395 executable by processing circuitry 4360 whereby application 4320 is operative to provide one or more of the features, benefits, and/or functions disclosed herein.

[0212] Virtualization environment 4300, comprises general-purpose or specialpurpose network hardware devices 4330 comprising a set of one or more processors or processing circuitry 4360, which may be commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) processors, dedicated Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), or any other type of processing circuitry including digital or analog hardware components or special purpose processors. Each hardware device may comprise memory 4390-1 which may be non-persistent memory for temporarily storing instructions 4395 or software executed by processing circuitry 4360. Each hardware device may comprise one or more network interface controllers (NICs) 4370, also known as network interface cards, which include physical network interface 4380. Each hardware device may also include non-transitory, persistent, machine-readable storage media 4390-2 having stored therein software 4395 and/or instructions executable by processing circuitry 4360. Software 4395 may include any type of software including software for instantiating one or more virtualization layers 4350 (also referred to as hypervisors), software to execute virtual machines 4340 as well as software allowing it to execute functions, features and/or benefits described in relation with some embodiments described herein.

[0213] Virtual machines 4340 comprise virtual processing, virtual memory, virtual networking or interface and virtual storage, and may be run by a corresponding virtualization layer 4350 or hypervisor. Different embodiments of the instance of virtual appliance 4320 may be implemented on one or more of virtual machines 4340, and the implementations may be made in different ways.

[0214] During operation, processing circuitry 4360 executes software 4395 to instantiate the hypervisor or virtualization layer 4350, which may sometimes be referred to as a virtual machine monitor (VMM). Virtualization layer 4350 may present a virtual operating platform that appears like networking hardware to virtual machine 4340.

[0215] As shown in Figure 15, hardware 4330 may be a standalone network node with generic or specific components. Hardware 4330 may comprise antenna 43225 and may implement some functions via virtualization. Alternatively, hardware 4330 may be part of a larger cluster of hardware (e.g. such as in a data center or customer premise equipment (CPE)) where many hardware nodes work together and are managed via management and orchestration (MANO) 43100, which, among others, oversees lifecycle management of applications 4320.

[0216] Virtualization of the hardware is in some contexts referred to as network function virtualization (NFV). NFV may be used to consolidate many network equipment types onto industry standard high volume server hardware, physical switches, and physical storage, which can be located in data centers, and customer premise equipment.

[0217] In the context of NFV, virtual machine 4340 may be a software implementation of a physical machine that runs programs as if they were executing on a physical, non-virtualized machine. Each of virtual machines 4340, and that part of hardware 4330 that executes that virtual machine, be it hardware dedicated to that virtual machine and/or hardware shared by that virtual machine with others of the virtual machines 4340, forms a separate virtual network elements (VNE).

[0218] Still in the context of NFV, Virtual Network Function (VNF) is responsible for handling specific network functions that run in one or more virtual machines 4340 on top of hardware networking infrastructure 4330 and corresponds to application 4320 in Figure 15.

[0219] In some embodiments, one or more radio units 43200 that each include one or more transmitters 43220 and one or more receivers 43210 may be coupled to one or more antennas 43225. Radio units 43200 may communicate directly with hardware nodes 4330 via one or more appropriate network interfaces and may be used in combination with the virtual components to provide a virtual node with radio capabilities, such as a radio access node or a base station.

[0220] In some embodiments, some signalling can be effected with the use of control system 43230 which may alternatively be used for communication between the hardware nodes 4330 and radio units 43200.

[0221] Figure 16 illustrates a telecommunication network connected via an intermediate network to a host computer in accordance with some embodiments.

[0222] With reference to Figure 16, in accordance with an embodiment, a communication system includes telecommunication network 4410, such as a 3 GPP -type cellular network, which comprises access network 4411, such as a radio access network, and core network 4414. Access network 4411 comprises a plurality of base stations 4412a, 4412b, 4412c, such as NBs, eNBs, gNBs or other types of wireless access points, each defining a corresponding coverage area 4413a, 4413b, 4413c. Each base station 4412a, 4412b, 4412c is connectable to core network 4414 over a wired or wireless connection 4415. A first UE 4491 located in coverage area 4413c is configured to wirelessly connect to, or be paged by, the corresponding base station 4412c. A second UE 4492 in coverage area 4413a is wirelessly connectable to the corresponding base station 4412a. While a plurality of UEs 4491, 4492 are illustrated in this example, the disclosed embodiments are equally applicable to a situation where a sole UE is in the coverage area or where a sole UE is connecting to the corresponding base station 4412.

[0223] Telecommunication network 4410 is itself connected to host computer 4430, which may be embodied in the hardware and/or software of a standalone server, a cloud- implemented server, a distributed server or as processing resources in a server farm. Host computer 4430 may be under the ownership or control of a service provider, or may be operated by the service provider or on behalf of the service provider. Connections 4421 and 4422 between telecommunication network 4410 and host computer 4430 may extend directly from core network 4414 to host computer 4430 or may go via an optional intermediate network 4420. Intermediate network 4420 may be one of, or a combination of more than one of, a public, private or hosted network; intermediate network 4420, if any, may be a backbone network or the Internet; in particular, intermediate network 4420 may comprise two or more sub-networks (not shown).

[0224] The communication system of Figure 16 as a whole enables connectivity between the connected UEs 4491, 4492 and host computer 4430. The connectivity may be described as an over-the-top (OTT) connection 4450. Host computer 4430 and the connected UEs 4491, 4492 are configured to communicate data and/or signaling via OTT connection 4450, using access network 4411, core network 4414, any intermediate network 4420 and possible further infrastructure (not shown) as intermediaries. OTT connection 4450 may be transparent in the sense that the participating communication devices through which OTT connection 4450 passes are unaware of routing of uplink and downlink communications. For example, base station 4412 may not or need not be informed about the past routing of an incoming downlink communication with data originating from host computer 4430 to be forwarded (e.g., handed over) to a connected UE 4491. Similarly, base station 4412 need not be aware of the future routing of an outgoing uplink communication originating from the UE 4491 towards the host computer 4430.

[0225] Figure 17 illustrates a host computer communicating via a base station with a user equipment over a partially wireless connection in accordance with some embodiments.

[0226] Example implementations, in accordance with an embodiment, of the UE, base station and host computer discussed in the preceding paragraphs will now be described with reference to Figure 17. In communication system 4500, host computer 4510 comprises hardware 4515 including communication interface 4516 configured to set up and maintain a wired or wireless connection with an interface of a different communication device of communication system 4500. Host computer 4510 further comprises processing circuitry 4518, which may have storage and/or processing capabilities. In particular, processing circuitry 4518 may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions. Host computer 4510 further comprises software 4511, which is stored in or accessible by host computer 4510 and executable by processing circuitry 4518. Software 4511 includes host application 4512. Host application 4512 may be operable to provide a service to a remote user, such as UE 4530 connecting via OTT connection 4550 terminating at UE 4530 and host computer 4510. In providing the service to the remote user, host application 4512 may provide user data which is transmitted using OTT connection 4550.

[0227] Communication system 4500 further includes base station 4520 provided in a telecommunication system and comprising hardware 4525 enabling it to communicate with host computer 4510 and with UE 4530. Hardware 4525 may include communication interface 4526 for setting up and maintaining a wired or wireless connection with an interface of a different communication device of communication system 4500, as well as radio interface 4527 for setting up and maintaining at least wireless connection 4570 with UE 4530 located in a coverage area (not shown in Figure 17) served by base station 4520. Communication interface 4526 may be configured to facilitate connection 4560 to host computer 4510. Connection 4560 may be direct or it may pass through a core network (not shown in Figure 17) of the telecommunication system and/or through one or more intermediate networks outside the telecommunication system. In the embodiment shown, hardware 4525 of base station 4520 further includes processing circuitry 4528, which may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions. Base station 4520 further has software 4521 stored internally or accessible via an external connection.

[0228] Communication system 4500 further includes UE 4530 already referred to. Its hardware 4535 may include radio interface 4537 configured to set up and maintain wireless connection 4570 with a base station serving a coverage area in which UE 4530 is currently located. Hardware 4535 of UE 4530 further includes processing circuitry 4538, which may comprise one or more programmable processors, application-specific integrated circuits, field programmable gate arrays or combinations of these (not shown) adapted to execute instructions. UE 4530 further comprises software 4531, which is stored in or accessible by UE 4530 and executable by processing circuitry 4538. Software 4531 includes client application 4532. Client application 4532 may be operable to provide a service to a human or non-human user via UE 4530, with the support of host computer 4510. In host computer 4510, an executing host application 4512 may communicate with the executing client application 4532 via OTT connection 4550 terminating at UE 4530 and host computer 4510. In providing the service to the user, client application 4532 may receive request data from host application 4512 and provide user data in response to the request data. OTT connection 4550 may transfer both the request data and the user data. Client application 4532 may interact with the user to generate the user data that it provides.

[0229] It is noted that host computer 4510, base station 4520 and UE 4530 illustrated in Figure 17 may be similar or identical to host computer 4430, one of base stations 4412a, 4412b, 4412c and one of UEs 4491, 4492 of Figure 16, respectively. This is to say, the inner workings of these entities may be as shown in Figure 17 and independently, the surrounding network topology may be that of Figure 16.

[0230] In Figure 17, OTT connection 4550 has been drawn abstractly to illustrate the communication between host computer 4510 and UE 4530 via base station 4520, without explicit reference to any intermediary devices and the precise routing of messages via these devices. Network infrastructure may determine the routing, which it may be configured to hide from UE 4530 or from the service provider operating host computer 4510, or both. While OTT connection 4550 is active, the network infrastructure may further take decisions by which it dynamically changes the routing (e.g., on the basis of load balancing consideration or reconfiguration of the network).

[0231] Wireless connection 4570 between UE 4530 and base station 4520 is in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. One or more of the various embodiments may improve the performance of OTT services provided to UE

4530 using OTT connection 4550, in which wireless connection 4570 forms the last segment. More precisely, the teachings of these embodiments may improve the random access speed and/or reduce random access failure rates and thereby provide benefits such as faster and/or more reliable random access.

[0232] A measurement procedure may be provided for the purpose of monitoring data rate, latency and other factors on which the one or more embodiments improve. There may further be an optional network functionality for reconfiguring OTT connection 4550 between host computer 4510 and UE 4530, in response to variations in the measurement results. The measurement procedure and/or the network functionality for reconfiguring OTT connection 4550 may be implemented in software 4511 and hardware 4515 of host computer 4510 or in software

4531 and hardware 4535 of UE 4530, or both. In embodiments, sensors (not shown) may be deployed in or in association with communication devices through which OTT connection 4550 passes; the sensors may participate in the measurement procedure by supplying values of the monitored quantities exemplified above, or supplying values of other physical quantities from which software 4511, 4531 may compute or estimate the monitored quantities. The reconfiguring of OTT connection 4550 may include message format, retransmission settings, preferred routing etc.; the reconfiguring need not affect base station 4520, and it may be unknown or imperceptible to base station 4520. Such procedures and functionalities may be known and practiced in the art. In certain embodiments, measurements may involve proprietary UE signaling facilitating host computer 4510’s measurements of throughput, propagation times, latency and the like. The measurements may be implemented in that software 4511 and 4531 causes messages to be transmitted, in particular empty or ‘dummy’ messages, using OTT connection 4550 while it monitors propagation times, errors etc.

[0233] Figure 18 illustrates methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments. [0234] Figure 18 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figures 16 and 17. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Figure

18 will be included in this section. In step 4610, the host computer provides user data. In substep 4611 (which may be optional) of step 4610, the host computer provides the user data by executing a host application. In step 4620, the host computer initiates a transmission carrying the user data to the UE. In step 4630 (which may be optional), the base station transmits to the UE the user data which was carried in the transmission that the host computer initiated, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. In step 4640 (which may also be optional), the UE executes a client application associated with the host application executed by the host computer.

[0235] Figure 19 illustrates methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments.

[0236] Figure 19 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figures 16 and 17. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Figure

19 will be included in this section. In step 4710 of the method, the host computer provides user data. In an optional substep (not shown) the host computer provides the user data by executing a host application. In step 4720, the host computer initiates a transmission carrying the user data to the UE. The transmission may pass via the base station, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure. In step 4730 (which may be optional), the UE receives the user data carried in the transmission.

[0237] Figure 20 illustrates methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments

[0238] Figure 20 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figures 16 and 17. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Figure

20 will be included in this section. In step 4810 (which may be optional), the UE receives input data provided by the host computer. Additionally or alternatively, in step 4820, the UE provides user data. In substep 4821 (which may be optional) of step 4820, the UE provides the user data by executing a client application. In substep 4811 (which may be optional) of step 4810, the UE executes a client application which provides the user data in reaction to the received input data provided by the host computer. In providing the user data, the executed client application may further consider user input received from the user. Regardless of the specific manner in which the user data was provided, the UE initiates, in substep 4830 (which may be optional), transmission of the user data to the host computer. In step 4840 of the method, the host computer receives the user data transmitted from the UE, in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure.

[0239] Figure 21 illustrates methods implemented in a communication system including a host computer, a base station and a user equipment in accordance with some embodiments

[0240] Figure 21 is a flowchart illustrating a method implemented in a communication system, in accordance with one embodiment. The communication system includes a host computer, a base station and a UE which may be those described with reference to Figures 16 and 17. For simplicity of the present disclosure, only drawing references to Figure

21 will be included in this section. In step 4910 (which may be optional), in accordance with the teachings of the embodiments described throughout this disclosure, the base station receives user data from the UE. In step 4920 (which may be optional), the base station initiates transmission of the received user data to the host computer. In step 4930 (which may be optional), the host computer receives the user data carried in the transmission initiated by the base station.

[0241] Any appropriate steps, methods, features, functions, or benefits disclosed herein may be performed through one or more functional units or modules of one or more virtual apparatuses. Each virtual apparatus may comprise a number of these functional units. These functional units may be implemented via processing circuitry, which may include one or more microprocessor or microcontrollers, as well as other digital hardware, which may include digital signal processors (DSPs), special-purpose digital logic, and the like. The processing circuitry may be configured to execute program code stored in memory, which may include one or several types of memory such as read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), cache memory, flash memory devices, optical storage devices, etc. Program code stored in memory includes program instructions for executing one or more telecommunications and/or data communications protocols as well as instructions for carrying out one or more of the techniques described herein. In some implementations, the processing circuitry may be used to cause the respective functional unit to perform corresponding functions according one or more embodiments of the present disclosure.

[0242] The term unit may have conventional meaning in the field of electronics, electrical devices and/or electronic devices and may include, for example, electrical and/or electronic circuitry, devices, modules, processors, memories, logic solid state and/or discrete devices, computer programs or instructions for carrying out respective tasks, procedures, computations, outputs, and/or displaying functions, and so on, as such as those that are described herein.

[0243] At least some of the following abbreviations may be used in this disclosure.

If there is an inconsistency between abbreviations, preference should be given to how it is used above. If listed multiple times below, the first listing should be preferred over any subsequent listing(s). lx RTT CDMA2000 lx Radio Transmission Technology

3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project

5G 5th Generation

ABS Almost Blank Subframe

ARQ Automatic Repeat Request

AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise

BCCH Broadcast Control Channel

BCH Broadcast Channel

CA Carrier Aggregation

CC Carrier Component

CCCH SDU Common Control Channel SDU

CDMA Code Division Multiplexing Access

CGI Cell Global Identifier

CIR Channel Impulse Response

CP Cyclic Prefix

CPI CH Common Pilot Channel

CPI CH Ec/No CPICH Received energy per chip divided by the power density in the band CQI Channel Quality information C-RNTI Cell RNTI CSI Channel State Information DCCH Dedicated Control Channel DM Demodulation DMRS Demodulation Reference Signal DRX Discontinuous Reception DTX Discontinuous Transmission DTCH Dedicated Traffic Channel DUT Device Under Test E-CID Enhanced Cell-ID (positioning method) E-SMLC Evolved-Serving Mobile Location Centre ECGI Evolved CGI ePDCCH enhanced Physical Downlink Control Channel E-SMLC evolved Serving Mobile Location Center E-UTRA Evolved UTRA E-UTRAN Evolved UTRAN FDD Frequency Division Duplex FFS For Further Study GERAN GSM EDGE Radio Access Network gNB Base station in NR GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System GSM Global System for Mobile communication HO Handover HSPA High Speed Packet Access HRPD High Rate Packet Data LOS Line of Sight LPP LTE Positioning Protocol MBMS Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services MBSFN Multimedia Broadcast multicast service Single Frequency Network MBSFN ABS MBSFN Almost Blank Subframe MDT Minimization of Drive Tests MIB Master Information Block MME Mobility Management Entity MSC Mobile Switching Center NPDCCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Control Channel OCNG OFDMA Channel Noise Generator OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access OSS Operations Support System OTDOA Observed Time Difference of Arrival PBCH Physical Broadcast Channel P-CCPCH Primary Common Control Physical Channel PCFICH Physical Control Format Indicator Channel PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel PDP Profile Delay Profile PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel PGW Packet Gateway

PMI Precoder Matrix Indicator

PRACH Physical Random Access Channel

PRS Positioning Reference Signal

PSS Primary Synchronization Signal

RACH Random Access Channel

QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

RNC Radio Network Controller

RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier

RRM Radio Resource Management

RSCP Received Signal Code Power

RSTD Reference Signal Time Difference

SCH Synchronization Channel

SFN System Frame Number

SGW Serving Gateway

SI System Information

SIB System Information Block

SNR Signal to Noise Ratio

SS Synchronization Signal

SSS Secondary Synchronization Signal

TDD Time Division Duplex

TDOA Time Difference of Arrival

TO A Time of Arrival

TSS Tertiary Synchronization Signal

TTI Transmission Time Interval

UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunication System

USIM Universal Subscriber Identity Module

UTDOA Uplink Time Difference of Arrival

UTRA Universal Terrestrial Radio Access

UTRAN Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network

WCDMA Wide CDMA

[0244] Further definitions and embodiments are discussed below.

[0245] In the above-description of various embodiments of present inventive concepts, it is to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of present inventive concepts. Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which present inventive concepts belong. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of this specification and the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein. [0246] When an element is referred to as being "connected", "coupled", "responsive", or variants thereof to another element, it can be directly connected, coupled, or responsive to the other element or intervening elements may be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being "directly connected", "directly coupled", "directly responsive", or variants thereof to another element, there are no intervening elements present. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Furthermore, "coupled", "connected", "responsive", or variants thereof as used herein may include wirelessly coupled, connected, or responsive. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity. The term "and/or" (abbreviated “/”) includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

[0247] It will be understood that although the terms first, second, third, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements/operations, these elements/operations should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element/operation from another element/operation. Thus a first element/operation in some embodiments could be termed a second element/operation in other embodiments without departing from the teachings of present inventive concepts. The same reference numerals or the same reference designators denote the same or similar elements throughout the specification.

[0248] As used herein, the terms "comprise", "comprising", "comprises", "include", "including", "includes", "have", "has", "having", or variants thereof are open-ended, and include one or more stated features, integers, elements, steps, components or functions but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, elements, steps, components, functions or groups thereof. Furthermore, as used herein, the common abbreviation "e.g.", which derives from the Latin phrase "exempli gratia," may be used to introduce or specify a general example or examples of a previously mentioned item, and is not intended to be limiting of such item. The common abbreviation "i.e.", which derives from the Latin phrase "id est," may be used to specify a particular item from a more general recitation.

[0249] Example embodiments are described herein with reference to block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations of computer-implemented methods, apparatus (systems and/or devices) and/or computer program products. It is understood that a block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustrations, can be implemented by computer program instructions that are performed by one or more computer circuits. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor circuit of a general purpose computer circuit, special purpose computer circuit, and/or other programmable data processing circuit to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer and/or other programmable data processing apparatus, transform and control transistors, values stored in memory locations, and other hardware components within such circuitry to implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks, and thereby create means (functionality) and/or structure for implementing the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block(s).

[0250] These computer program instructions may also be stored in a tangible computer-readable medium that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer- readable medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the functions/acts specified in the block diagrams and/or flowchart block or blocks. Accordingly, embodiments of present inventive concepts may be embodied in hardware and/or in software (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) that runs on a processor such as a digital signal processor, which may collectively be referred to as "circuitry," "a module" or variants thereof.

[0251] It should also be noted that in some alternate implementations, the functions/acts noted in the blocks may occur out of the order noted in the flowcharts. For example, two blocks shown in succession may in fact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality/acts involved. Moreover, the functionality of a given block of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be separated into multiple blocks and/or the functionality of two or more blocks of the flowcharts and/or block diagrams may be at least partially integrated. Finally, other blocks may be added/inserted between the blocks that are illustrated, and/or blocks/operations may be omitted without departing from the scope of inventive concepts. Moreover, although some of the diagrams include arrows on communication paths to show a primary direction of communication, it is to be understood that communication may occur in the opposite direction to the depicted arrows. [0252] Many variations and modifications can be made to the embodiments without substantially departing from the principles of the present inventive concepts. All such variations and modifications are intended to be included herein within the scope of present inventive concepts. Accordingly, the above disclosed subject matter is to be considered illustrative, and not restrictive, and the examples of embodiments are intended to cover all such modifications, enhancements, and other embodiments, which fall within the spirit and scope of present inventive concepts. Thus, to the maximum extent allowed by law, the scope of present inventive concepts are to be determined by the broadest permissible interpretation of the present disclosure including the examples of embodiments and their equivalents, and shall not be restricted or limited by the foregoing detailed description.

Claims

78 CLAIMS

1. A method of operating a communication device (10), the method comprising: receiving (809, 809’, 102) a request message from a network node (20), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions; and transmitting (825, 825’, 104) response messages autonomously over multiple transmission occasions responsive to receiving the request message from the network node, wherein each response message includes a respective portion of the information collected by the communication device, and wherein each of the response messages is transmitted over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

2. The method of Claim 1, further comprising: transmitting (805) an availability message to the network node (20), wherein the availability message indicates availability of the information collected by the communication device.

3. The method of Claim 2, wherein the availability message is transmitted before receiving the request message.

4. The method of any of Claims 2-3, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report.

5. The method of Claim 4, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN, access points, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to location information.

6. The method of any of Claims 4-5, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a plurality of reports including the report, and wherein the information includes a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports. 79

7. The method of any of Claims 1-6, wherein transmitting the response messages including the portions of the information collected by the communication device comprises transmitting a first response message including a first portion of the information using a first transmission occasion responsive to the request message and transmitting a second response message including a second portion of the information using a second transmission occasion responsive to the request message, wherein the first and second transmission occasions are separated in time.

8. The method of Claim 7 further comprising: receiving (829) a stop instruction from the network node after receiving the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously; and terminating (839) transmitting response messages including the remaining portions of the information autonomously responsive to receiving the stop instruction.

9. A method of operating a network node (20), the method comprising: transmitting (1009, 1009’, 204) a request message to a communication device (10), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions; and receiving (1025, 1025’, 206) response messages including respective portions of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions based on the request message, wherein each of the response messages is received over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

10. The method of Claim 9 further comprising: receiving (1003, 201) an availability message from the communication device (10), wherein the availability message indicates availability of the information collected by the communication device.

11. The method of Claim 10, wherein the availability message is received before transmitting the request message. 80

12. The method of any of Embodiments 10-11, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report.

13. The method of Claim 12, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN, access points, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to location information.

14. The method of any of Claims 12-13, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a plurality of reports including the report, and wherein the information includes a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports.

15. The method of any of Claims 9-14, wherein receiving the response messages including the portions of the information collected by the communication device comprises receiving a first response message including a first portion of the information using a first transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission and receiving a second response message including a second portion of the information using a second transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission, wherein the first and second transmission occasions are separated in time.

16. The method of any of Claims 9-15 further comprising: transmitting (1039) a stop instruction to the communication device after transmitting the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously.

17. A communication device (300) adapted to perform according to any of Claims 1-8.

18. A network node (20) adapted to perform according to any of Claims 9-16.

19. A communication device (10) comprising: processing circuitry (13); and 81 memory (15) coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the communication device to perform operations comprising: receiving (809, 809’, 102) a request message from a network node (20), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions; and transmitting (825, 825’, 104) response messages autonomously over multiple transmission occasions responsive to receiving the request message from the network node, wherein each response message includes a respective portion of the information collected by the communication device, and wherein each of the response messages is transmitted over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

20. The communication device (10) of Claim 19, wherein the memory includes further instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the communication device to perform operations further comprising: transmitting (805) an availability message to the network node (20), wherein the availability message indicates availability of the information collected by the communication device.

21. The communication device (10) of Claim 20 wherein the availability message is transmitted before receiving the request message.

22. The communication device (10) of any of Claims 20-21, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report.

23. The communication device (10) of Claim 22, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN, access points, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to location information. 82

24. The communication device (10) of any of Claims 22-23, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a plurality of reports including the report, and wherein the information includes a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports.

25. The communication device (10) of any of Claims 19-24, wherein transmitting the response messages including the portions of the information collected by the communication device comprises transmitting a first response message including a first portion of the information using a first transmission occasion responsive to the request message and transmitting a second response message including a second portion of the information using a second transmission occasion responsive to the request message, wherein the first and second transmission occasions are separated in time.

26. The communication device (10) of Claim 25, wherein the memory includes further instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the communication device to perform operations further comprising: receiving (829) a stop instruction from the network node after receiving the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously; and terminating (839) transmitting response messages including the remaining portions of the information autonomously responsive to receiving the stop instruction.

27. A network node (20) comprising: processing circuitry (23); and memory (25) coupled with the processing circuitry, wherein the memory includes instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the network node to perform operations comprising: transmitting (1009, 1009’, 204) a request message to a communication device (10), wherein the request message indicates autonomous transmission of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions; and 83 receiving (1025, 1025’, 206) response messages including respective portions of the information collected by the communication device over multiple transmission occasions based on the request message, wherein each of the response messages is received over a respective one of the multiple transmission occasions.

28. The network node (20) of Claim 27, wherein the memory includes further instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the network node to perform operations further comprising: receiving (1003, 201) an availability message from the communication device (10), wherein the availability message indicates availability of the information collected by the communication device.

29. The network node (20) of Claim 28, wherein the availability message is received before transmitting the request message.

30. The network node (20) of any of Embodiments 28-29, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a report, wherein the report comprises a plurality of samples, and wherein each of the portions of the information comprises a respective sample of the report.

31. The network node (20) of Claim 30, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Wireless Local Area Network, WLAN, access points, wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to Bluetooth beacons, and/or wherein the availability message includes an indication of samples related to location information.

32. The network node (20) of any of Claims 30-31, wherein the information collected by the communication device comprises a plurality of reports including the report, and wherein the information includes a respective plurality of samples for each of the plurality of reports.

33. The network node (20) of any of Claims 27-32, wherein receiving the response messages including the portions of the information collected by the communication device comprises receiving a first response message including a first portion of the information using a first transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission and 84 receiving a second response message including a second portion of the information using a second transmission occasion based on the request message indicating autonomous transmission, wherein the first and second transmission occasions are separated in time.

34. The network node (20) of any of Claims 27-33, wherein the memory includes further instructions that when executed by the processing circuitry causes the network node to perform operations further comprising: transmitting (1039) a stop instruction to the communication device after transmitting the request message, wherein the stop instruction indicates for the communication device to terminate transmitting further response messages including remaining portions of the information autonomously.

35. A computer program comprising program code to be executed by processing circuitry (13) of a communication device (10), whereby execution of the program code causes the communication device (10) to perform operations according to any of Claims 1-8.

36. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium including program code to be executed by processing circuitry (13) of a communication device (10), whereby execution of the program code causes the communication device (10) to perform operations according to any of Claims 1-8.

37. A computer program comprising program code to be executed by processing circuitry (23) of a network node (20), whereby execution of the program code causes the network node (20) to perform operations according to any of Claims 9-16.

38. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory storage medium including program code to be executed by processing circuitry (23) of a network node (20), whereby execution of the program code causes the network node (20) to perform operations according to any of Claims 9-16.