(12) INTERNATIONAL APPLICATION PUBLISHED UNDER THE PATENT COOPERATION TREATY (PCT) | ||||||||||
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-- | with international search report |
-- | before the expiration of the time limit for amending the claims and to be republished in the event of receipt of amendments |
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(57)
Abstract |
Routing of data transmission connection Field of the invention The invention concerns routing of a data transmission connection between a piece of terminal equipment and a host over a data transmission network.
Technical background
Mobile use of various personal computers, e. g. PDA (Personal
Digital Assistant) and intelligent telephones, has become
It is known in the state of the art to choose the routing at nodal
points of a network. FIG. 1 in the appended drawing shows how a piece of
terminal equipment is connected through an intermediary network (internet)
to a host in a known manner. E. g. when moving outside the office in situation
1, terminal equipment TE connects with the AP1 (Access Point). In the mes-
sages which it sends, the terminal equipment uses as source address the
address reserved by the access point for the terminal equipment. A node
wishing to be in connection with the terminal equipment will for its part use
said address as destination address for messages which it sends. When the
access point is changed, this address will be exchanged, e. g. in the situation
2 shown in FIG. 1 for the address reserved by access point AP2. By using
e. g. the Mobile IP protocol, the access point used currently by the user may
be registered in the HA (home agent), which allows use of the same address
irrespective of the access point. However, the user must choose manually
the access point to be used at each time. It is not possible in this arrange-
ment to exchange the access point automatically for another access point
while terminal equipment TE is moving, e. g. to replace AP1 with AP2, but the
terminal equipment must
The connection from terminal equipment TE is set up using the available access. Various network accesses are e. g. the Ethernet or IR (infra-red) at the office or the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communica- tions) data access, especially the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) access, outside the office. One generally used way of access is by connect- ing a PCMCIA access card to terminal equipment TE. The user may remove and connect these accesses as he desires, whereby the connection is set up by way of the access which is connected at each time. Several cards may also be connected at the same time to terminal equipment TE, but hereby only one of them is used, e. g. the access which was connected first to the terminal equipment, and the access is not exchanged automatically for an- other while the connection is in use, even if the connection through the used access is lost.
It is a problem with state-of-the-art accesses that the connection of the terminal equipment with the data network is not flexible. The user must himself actively carry out the choice of the access to be used as well as its connection and registration with the network nodal point. In addition, when exchanging the access it is sometimes necessary to close the application and to restart the system in order to begin using a new access.
Summary of the invention An objective of this invention is to bring about a flexible system using different network accesses and a method for routing a data transmis- sion connection between the terminal equipment and the host.
This new type of routing a data transmission connection is achieved by methods according to the invention which are characterised by what is said in independent claims 1 and 15. Preferable embodiments of the methods are presented in the dependent claims.
In addition, the invention concerns arrangements, which according to the invention are characterised by what is said in independent claims 26, 28 and 30.
The invention is based on the idea that the first routing of the con- nection between the terminal equipment and the host is carried out in the terminal equipment and/or in a gateway exchange located between the ter- minal equipment and the host, according to criteria established in advance.
In a first alternative embodiment of the invention, a router located in the
It is an advantage of such a method that it allows to choose the access which is most advantageous for the user, e. g. the cheapest access or one which gives the best performance.
It is another advantage of the method according to the invention that change of the access and use of accesses can be carried out in a man- ner which is transparent to the user and/or the application, keeping up an essentially continuous connection. No changes need be made in existing connecting methods.
It is also an advantage of the method according to the invention that it allows data security for the data transmission connection from one end to the other as well as data compression when required.
It is an advantage of the arrangement according to the invention
that it does not require any special application or any changes to state-of-
the-art applications, but it can be used when using existing applications. Nor
need any changes be made in existing access points or in the transmission
network.-
Detailed description of the invention The present invention may be applied in connection with any data transmission system. The invention will be described in greater detail herein- after in the light of preferable embodiments and referring to the figures in the appended drawings. As used in this application, access point refers to a general connection point in a data transmission network to which the termi- nal equipment may connect itself in order to set up an access to the data transmission network.
FIG. 2 shows the structure of an access network in accordance
with the invention. The figure shows three alternative routes
2 there are three routes, of which at least one access at a time is chosen for
use by the terminal equipment. The accesses connected to the terminal
equipment may be e. g. Ethernet, IR and GSM data accesses. In the terminal
equipment an APPL application is running, for the use of which the access is
In the following, the invention will be described in greater detail in
the light of a primary embodiment of the invention and referring to FIG. 3,
which is a flow chart of a primary embodiment of the method according to the
invention. At point 30 in FIG. 3 at least one criterion is established for the
choice of access. At point 31 the available accesses are monitored with the
aid of their pre-established criteria according to the invention. This monitoring
may be performed e. g. by monitoring each available access constantly or at
certain intervals of time. At point 34 a check is made on whether the
The check on criteria at point 34 may also be carried out by monitoring the quality of data transmission. After the condition 34 is fulfilled, a choice is made at point 36 of the access indicated by the criteria, and hereafter the traffic will be routed through this new access.
In a primary embodiment of the method according to the invention
it is also possible to choose more than one access for connection at the
same time between the terminal equipment and the host. FIG. 4 shows by
way of example a network structure wherein data is transmitted along at
least two different routes between terminal equipment TE and the host. In
FIG. 4 a gateway exchange transmits to terminal equipment TE the data
packages which it has received from the host both along route R1 and along
route R2. Gateway exchange GW may number the data packages before the
transmission, as the marks indicate in FIG. 4. Due to transmission errors,
terminal equipment TE in the example shown in FIG. 4 receives through
access R1 numbered packages I, III, IV and through access R2 packages
According to the functionality of the primary embodiment of the in-
vention, the terminal equipment may first be connected to the host by an
Ethernet access
FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a secondary embodiment of the method
according to the invention. In the secondary embodiment of the invention,
the traffic is divided between at least two accesses according to pre-
established criteria. At point 50 at least one criterion is established for the
choice of transmission capacity of the access. At point 51 a check is made of
the available accesses with the aid of these pre-established criteria accord-
ing to the invention. This check may be carried out e. g. by monitoring each
available access constantly or at certain intervals. At point 54 a check is
made of whether the situation of the accesses has changed from the view-
The primary and secondary embodiment of the invention which were described above can also be combined, whereby a choice of at least two accesses at a time is performed in the router in accordance with the primary embodiment of the invention, while the division of traffic between the chosen accesses is performed in accordance with the secondary embodi- ment of the invention. Hereby the criteria for the choice of access and the criteria for division of the traffic between accesses may be criteria which are separate from one another.
As criteria mentioned above one may establish e. g. the costs of data transmission, so that a certain access is chosen, e. g. a GPRS access, or as much as possible of the traffic is always transmitted in this access when no such access is available where the operation would be cheaper, such as e. g. Ethernet. Other criteria may be e. g. the transmission capacity, transmission delays, data security or transmission errors, whereby the crite- rion is fulfilled e. g. when some other access is better than the access in use as regards the established criterion or it is found that the access in use is poor according to one criterion. Hereby such an access may be chosen as the new access which fulfils the second criterion, or the relaying of traffic can be moved more to the access fulfilling the second criterion. The transmission capacity criterion can be used for choosing and putting into use a new ac- cess point e. g. when a new application starts up and sets up a connection requiring more transmission capacity. Several criteria of choice may be es- tablished at the same time, e. g. any combination of the criteria of choice mentioned above. The criteria of choice are preferably established so that the traffic can be directed to the new access before the transmission capac- ity of the old access is removed.
In a third embodiment of the invention, at least some of the ac-
cess choice criteria are learning criteria, which are established in accordance
The applications to use make demands on the access to use, e. g.
as regards the transmission capacity and/or transmission errors. Hereby the
criteria may be changed according to the requirements of the applications so
that they suit the existing situation. On the other hand, the characteristics of
the chosen access point may provide the applications with possibilities e. g.
for starting new functions. The functionality according to the invention can be
implemented fully transparently from the viewpoint of the application used
and from the user's viewpoint or also in such a way that the chosen access
In a first alternative embodiment of the invention, the router is lo- cated in terminal equipment TE, which may move from one place to another and connect to the data transmission network when required. For terminal equipment TE to connect to access points of the data transmission network no new additional functions are needed at the access points or in the access protocols compared with the state of the art.
FIG. 6 shows the structure of terminal equipment TE according to the invention at protocol level. When the Internet network relays data be- tween the host and terminal equipment TE, the terminal equipment uses TCP/IP protocols in the manner shown by the figure. The router joins the other functionality by way of the IP protocol. The user's data packages may be capsulated between the router of terminal equipment TE and gateway exchange GW using some state-of-the-art method, such as e. g. Mobile IP.
In a second alternative embodiment of the invention, the router is located both in terminal equipment TE and in gateway exchange GW. Both these routers independently implement the functionality of the invention in accordance with some embodiment described in the foregoing.
In a third alternative embodiment of the invention, the router is lo- cated in gateway exchange GW, which routes the data transmission to the terminal equipment at least by way of one access according to criteria estab- lished in advance.
The functionality according to the invention may of course be used also if the data transmission network does not include any intermediary net- work and gateway exchange, but the terminal equipment is connected di- rectly to the host through at least two access points.
The drawings and the description relating to them are only in- tended to illustrate the inventive idea. As regards its details the functionality according to the invention may vary within the scope of the claims. The in- vention is especially suitable for use in transmission in the form of packages, e. g. in connection with a GPRS network, but also in data transmission of some other kind. The invention is not limited to use only in connection with the access points described above.
Claims 1. Method for routing a data transmission connection between terminal equipment (TE) and a host, which network includes at least two access points (R1, R2, R3) for connection of the terminal equipment to the data transmission network, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that at least one criterion for the choice of an access point is estab- lished, the access points are evaluated according to said criteria, such at least one access point is chosen which meets said criteria, and the data transmission traffic is connected through the chosen at least one access point.
2. Method as defined in claim 1, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the at least one access point meeting said criteria is chosen in the terminal equipment (TE).
3. Method as defined in claim 1 or 2, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the at least one access point meeting said criteria is chosen in a gateway exchange (GW).
4. Method as defined in claim 1, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that in the method, in addition at least one criterion is established for the choice of the transmis- sion capacity of the data transmission of at least two chosen access points, the chosen access points are evaluated according to said criteria, the transmission capacity of each chosen access point is chosen according to the result of the evaluation, and the data transmission is proportioned between the chosen access points in relation to the chosen transmission capacities.
5. Method as defined in claim 1, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that in the method at least two access points (R1, R2) are chosen, and all traffic is connected simultaneously through these at least two chosen access points (R1, R2).
6. Method as defined in claim 1 or 4,. c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the access points are estimated constantly.
7. Method as defined in claim 1 or 4, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that
the access points are estimated at certain intervals of time.
8. Method as defined in claim 6 or
9. Method as defined in claims 1-8, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the application (APPL) used in the terminal equipment is given reports on the characteristics of the chosen access point.
10. Method as defined in claim 9, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the functioning of the application (APPL) is adapted according to the re- ported characteristics.
11
12. Method as defined in claim 1 or 4, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that at least one criterion is established from the application (APPL) to be used.
13. Method as defined in claim 12, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that at least one access point meeting said criteria is chosen for the individual application.
14. Method as defined in claim 1 or 4, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that of the access points at least one is wireless.
15. Method of routing a data transmission connection between terminal equipment (TE) and a host over a data transmission network in- cluding at least two access points (R1, R2, R3) for connection of the terminal equipment to the data transmission network, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that at least one criterion is established for the choice of the data transmission relaying capacity of at least two access points, the access points are estimated in accordance with the criteria, the relaying capacity of each access point is chosen according to the results of the estimation, and the data transmission traffic is proportioned between the access points in relation to the chosen relaying capacities.
16. Method as defined in claim 15, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the access points are estimated according to the criteria in the terminal equipment (TE).
17. Method as defined in claim 15 or 16, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in
that the access points are estimated according to the criteria in a gateway
exchange
18. Method as defined in claim 15, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the access points are estimated continuously.
19. Method as defined in claim 15, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the access points are estimated at certain intervals.
20.
21. Method as defined in claims 15-20, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that characteristics of the access point are reported to the application (APPL) used in the terminal equipment.
22. Method as defined in claim 21, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the operation of the application (APPL) is adapted in accordance with the reported characteristics.
23. Method as defined in claim 15 or 21, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that characteristics of the access point are reported to the user.
24. Method as defined in claim 15, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that at least one criterion is established from the application (APPL) to be used.
25. Method as defined in claim 15, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that of the access points at least one is wireless.
27. Arrangement as defined in claim 26, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that at least one of the access points is wireless.
28. Arrangement for routing a data transmission connection be-
tween terminal equipment (TE) and a host over a data transmission network,
which network includes at least two access points (R1, R2, R3) for connect-
ing the terminal equipment to the data transmission network,
c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the arrangement includes
a router located in the terminal equipment (TE) and in a gateway
exchange (GW) for routing the data transmission through at least one access
point at a time.
29. Arrangement as defined in claim 28, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that of the access points at least one is wireless.
30. Arrangement for routing a data transmission connection be- tween terminal equipment (TE) and a host over a data transmission network, which network includes at least two access points (R1, R2, R3) for connect- ing the terminal equipment to the data transmission network, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that the arrangement includes a router located in a gateway exchange (GW) for routing the data transmission through at least one access point at a time.
31. Arrangement as defined in claim 30, c h a r a c t e r i z e d in that of the access points at least one is wireless.