HK1074935B - Method for user terminal accessing home network quickly in wireless local area network - Google Patents

Description

Method for user terminal to access its home network quickly in wireless local area network

Technical Field

The invention relates to a network access technology, in particular to a method for quickly accessing a user terminal to a home network in a wireless local area network.

Background

As users have higher and higher requirements for wireless access rate, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) have come to work, which can provide high-speed wireless data access in a smaller range. The wireless local area network comprises a plurality of different technologies, one of the technical standards which are widely applied at present is IEEE802.11b, the frequency band of 2.4GHz is adopted, the highest data transmission rate can reach 11Mbps, the frequency band is also used with IEEE802.11 g and Bluetooth (Bluetooth) technologies, and the highest data transmission rate of 802.11g can reach 54 Mbps. Other new technologies such as IEEE802.11 a and ETSI BRAN Hiperlan2 all use the 5GHz band, and the highest transmission rate can reach 54 Mbps.

Most WLANs are used to transport Internet Protocol (IP) packet data packets, despite a number of different radio access technologies. For a wireless IP network, the particular WLAN access technology it employs is generally transparent to the IP of the upper layers. The basic structure is that the wireless access of the user terminal is completed by using an Access Point (AP), and the IP transmission network is formed by connecting network control and connecting equipment.

With the rise and development of WLAN technology, WLANs are connected with various wireless mobile communication networks, such as: the interworking of GSM, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) systems, time division duplex-synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems, CDMA2000 systems is becoming the focus of current research. In the third generation partnership project (3GPP) standardization organization, the user terminal may be connected to the Internet (Internet), an Intranet (Intranet) through an access network of a WLAN, or may be connected to a home network of a 3GPP system or an access network of the 3GPP system through the WLAN access network, specifically, when the WLAN user terminal is accessed locally, the WLAN user terminal is connected to the home network of the 3GPP through the WLAN access network, as shown in fig. 2; when roaming, the 3GPP access network is connected to a visited network of the 3GPP via the WLAN access network, and some entities in the 3GPP visited network are respectively interconnected with corresponding entities in the 3GPP home network, such as: a 3GPP Authentication Authorization Accounting (AAA) proxy in a 3GPP access network and a 3GPP Authentication Authorization Accounting (AAA) server in a 3GPP home network; a wireless local area network access gateway (WAG) in a 3GPP visited network, a Packet Data Gateway (PDG) in a 3GPP home network, and so on, as shown in fig. 1. Fig. 1 and fig. 2 are schematic diagrams of networking structures of interworking between a WLAN system and a 3GPP system in a roaming situation and a non-roaming situation, respectively.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2, the 3GPP system mainly includes a Home Subscriber Server (HSS)/Home Location Register (HLR), a 3GPP AAA server, a 3GPP AAA proxy, a WAG, a packet data gateway, a charging gateway (CGw)/charging information collection system (CCF), and an Online Charging System (OCS). The user terminal, the WLAN access network and all entities of the 3GPP system together form a 3GPP-WLAN interworking network, and the 3GPP-WLAN interworking network can be used as a WLAN service system. The 3GPP AAA server is responsible for authentication, authorization and charging of users, and collects and transmits charging information sent by the WLAN access network to a charging system; the packet data gateway is responsible for data transmission of user data from the WLAN access network to the 3GPP network or other packet networks; the charging system mainly receives and records user charging information transmitted by the network, and also comprises an OCS which indicates the network to periodically transmit the online charging information according to the charging condition of the online charging user, and carries out statistics and control.

Under the non-roaming condition, when the WLAN user terminal wants to directly access Internet/Intranet, the user terminal completes access authentication authorization with an AAA Server (AS) through the WLAN access network, and then the user terminal can access Internet/Intranet through the WLAN access network. If the WLAN user terminal also wishes to access 3GPP Packet Switched (PS) domain services, it can further apply for services of interworking Scenario 3(Scenario3) from the 3GPP home network, that is: WLAN user terminal initiates service authorization request of intercommunication scene 3 to AS of 3GPP home network, AS of 3GPP home network carries out service authentication and authorization to the service authorization request, if successful, AS sends access permission message to user terminal, and AS distributes corresponding PDG to user terminal, after tunnel is established between user terminal and distributed PDG, 3GPP PS domain service can be accessed. Meanwhile, the CGw/CCF and the OCS record charging information according to the network use condition of the user terminal. In roaming situations, when a WLAN user terminal wishes to access the Internet/Intranet directly, the user terminal may apply for access to the Internet/Intranet from the 3GPP home network through the 3GPP visited network. If the user terminal also wants to apply for the interworking scenario3 service and access the 3GPP PS domain service, the user terminal needs to initiate a service authorization process to the 3GPP home network through the 3GPP access network, the process is also carried out between the user terminal and the AS of the 3GPP home network, after the authorization is successful, the AS allocates a corresponding home PDG to the user terminal, and after the user terminal establishes a tunnel with the allocated PDG through the WAG in the 3GPP access network, the user terminal can access the 3GPP PS domain service of the home network.

As shown in fig. 3, in a 3GPP-WLAN interworking network, if a WLAN is connected to a plurality of 3GPP access networks, i.e. a plurality of mobile communication operation networks, where the 3GPP access network is a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN), after a WLAN user terminal accesses the WLAN, it needs to select a VPLMN network that the WLAN user terminal desires to access, for example: in china, a WLAN access network is connected to two VPLMN operating networks in china mobile and china unicom at the same time, so that after a user in china unicom accesses from WLAN, the user needs to instruct the WLAN access network to access the VPLMN operating network in china unicom. For another example, if a france user roams to a WLAN in china, and if the home network of the france user has a roaming agreement with both china mobile and china unicom, the france user needs to select an accessed VPLMN network after accessing the WLAN when the WLAN access network is connected to both china mobile and china unicom. At present, in the above situation, the WLAN user terminal notifies the WLAN access network of the selected network by network selection information, where the network selection information is information of a mobile communication network to which the user terminal is currently connected, and may be placed in a field set separately or in a user identification field defined in a Network Access Identification (NAI) format.

However, if the current ue is in a network environment where multiple WLAN networks exist simultaneously, the prior art solution cannot ensure that the ue selects an optimal PLMN network, and usually, the home network of the ue is the optimal PLMN network. Using the network environment shown in fig. 4 as an example, a WLAN user terminal is simultaneously in the coverage of WLAN1, WLAN2.... times, WLAN n, where WLAN1 connects visited network VPLMN1 and VPLMN2 of the current user terminal, and WLAN2 connects home network HPLMN and visited network VPLMN3 of the current user terminal. However, according to the prior art network selection scheme, the ue may first access from the WLAN1, and the WLAN1 network selected by the ue is directly connected to the roaming operator network, so the ue has no opportunity to select its own home network to which the WLAN2 network is directly connected.

In another patent application, a method for polling WLAN access networks is proposed, which is directed to how a user terminal can select an optimal network access each time: for a user terminal in more than one WLAN coverage area, the user terminal polls each detected WLAN in turn according to preset initial network selection information, and if the current WLAN access network is directly connected with the initial selection network, the initial selection network is accessed from the current WLAN access network; else poll the next WLAN, and so on. This approach, while ensuring that a user's desired PLMN, such as the HPLMN, can be found if present, the polling approach results in a slower access speed. When a user only desires to access the HPLMN, no specific solution has been proposed so far as to enable the user terminal to find the WLAN connected to its home network at the fastest speed each time and access from the WLAN.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the main objective of the present invention is to provide a method for a ue in a WLAN to quickly access its home network, so that the ue in more than one WLAN coverage area can quickly find a WLAN access network directly connected to its home network and access from the WLAN.

In order to achieve the purpose, the technical scheme of the invention is realized as follows:

a method for user terminal to access its home network quickly in wireless local area network stores the identification information of WLAN directly connected to its home network in each user terminal in advance, the method also includes following steps:

a. the method comprises the steps that a current WLAN user terminal in more than one WLAN coverage area obtains identifications of all currently detected WLANs, one WLAN is selected from all detected unmatched WLANs, and the selected WLAN identification is matched with a WLAN identification stored by the selected WLAN user terminal;

b. judging whether the matching is successful, if so, accessing the current WLAN user terminal to the home network of the current WLAN user terminal from the WLAN access network successfully matched, and ending the current selective access process, otherwise, executing the step c;

c. judging whether unmatched WLAN exists or not, if yes, returning to the selection step of the step a; if not, the current selection access process is ended.

In the scheme, if the matching is successful in the step b, recording the identifier of the WLAN which is successfully matched currently, and then executing the step c;

meanwhile, if there is no unmatched WLAN in step c, step c further includes: judging whether more than one WLAN is successfully matched, if so, selecting a WLAN access network from all recorded WLAN identifications to access the home network of the WLAN user terminal according to a preset selection strategy by the current WLAN user terminal; if not, judging whether a WLAN is successfully matched, if so, accessing the current WLAN user terminal to the home network of the current WLAN user terminal from the WLAN access network successfully matched; otherwise, ending the current selection access flow.

In the above scheme, the WLAN identifier is a service set identifier SSID of the WLAN. And the selection strategy is to select the currently used WLAN access network according to the signal intensity, or the network busy degree, or the signal intensity and the network busy degree of all the successfully matched WLANs.

The method further comprises the following steps: a WLAN roaming relationship list for storing WLAN identification information directly connected with a home network of the user terminal is preset in the user terminal, and the matching is as follows: the user terminal matches the detected WLAN identification with the WLAN identification information in the WLAN roaming relation list. The WLAN roaming relation list also stores priority information for selecting a WLAN. Then, the selection policy is to select the currently used WLAN access network according to a preset priority.

The method further comprises the following steps: the user terminal updates the stored WLAN identification information at any time or at regular intervals. Wherein, the updating is that the network informs the user terminal to update; or the network directly sends WLAN identification information related to the user terminal; or the user terminal actively inquires the home network of the user terminal and updates the WLAN identification information stored in the user terminal.

The method for user terminal to access its home network quickly in WLAN stores all WLAN identifications directly connected with its home network in each user terminal in advance, when a certain user terminal is in more than one WLAN coverage area, matches the detected identification of each WLAN access network with the stored identification and accesses from the matched WLAN. Therefore, the problem that the current user terminal expects to select the home network of the user terminal to access at the fastest speed every time when the WLAN user terminal is in multiple WLAN coverage areas is solved, and better service is provided for the user.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a network structure for interworking between a WLAN system and a 3GPP system in a roaming situation;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a network structure for interworking between a WLAN system and a 3GPP system in a non-roaming situation;

fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a network structure in which a WLAN is connected to a plurality of access networks;

fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a network structure in which a current ue is located in multiple WLAN coverage areas;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of an implementation of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of an implementation of an embodiment of the present invention;

Detailed Description

The basic idea of the invention is: storing all WLAN identifications which have direct connection relation with the home network of each user terminal in advance, sequentially matching each detected WLAN identification with the WLAN identification stored by the current user terminal one by one for the user terminals in more than one WLAN coverage area, and if the matching is successful, indicating that the WLAN access network is connected with the home network of the current user terminal and can be accessed from the WLAN; and if the matching of a plurality of WLANs is successful, selecting one of the WLANs to access according to a preset selection strategy. Here, the WLAN identification may be a Service Set Identification (SSID).

Based on the network structure shown in fig. 4, each user terminal stores all WLAN identities having a direct connection relationship with its own home network in advance, and when a WLAN user terminal accesses a 3GPP-WLAN interworking network through a WLAN, the current user terminal detects a wireless access network and discovers that more than one WLAN network exists, the method for quickly accessing the home network of the current user terminal in the present invention, as shown in fig. 5, includes the following steps:

step 501-503: the current user terminal obtains all the identifications of the currently detected WLAN, selects one from all the detected unmatched WLANs, matches the identification of the currently selected WLAN with the WLAN identification stored by the current user terminal, judges whether the identification is matched, and if the identification is matched, the current user terminal accesses the home network of the current user terminal from the selected WLAN access network and finishes the current process; otherwise, step 504 is performed.

Here, the matching is to find out whether there is the same WLAN identifier as the currently selected WLAN identifier in the WLAN identifiers stored in the matching device, and if so, the matching is performed. The access from the selected WLAN access network is as follows: the current user terminal takes the information of the home network as the network selection information and sends the information to the current selected WLAN access network, and the WLAN access network completes the subsequent access process after receiving the information.

In the invention, a WLAN roaming relation list can be preset, all WLAN identifications which have direct connection relation with the home network of the current user terminal are stored in the WLAN roaming relation list, and when the WLAN identifications are matched, the WLAN identifications are matched with the WLAN identifications in the WLAN roaming relation list.

Step 504-505: if there is any unmatched WLAN, the process returns to step 501, otherwise, the current process is ended.

As shown in fig. 6, the present invention may also not access the WLAN first in step 503, and step 503 becomes step 503', and only records the currently successfully matched WLAN id, and then proceeds to step 504. And after all the currently detected WLANs are completely matched, the current process is not ended, but whether a plurality of WLANs are successfully matched is judged, if not, whether the matched WLANs are successfully matched is judged, if so, the WLAN successfully matched is accessed to the home network of the current user terminal, and if not, the current process is ended. If there are multiple WLAN matches, one can be selected according to a pre-set selection policy.

The preset selection strategy can be selected randomly; the selection can be according to the current signal quality and the busy condition of the network; or according to preset priority selection; or pop-up display of successful matching information of all records to the user for selection by the user. The signal quality here includes information of signal strength, stability of signal strength, and the like.

Taking priority setting as an example, a priority item may be added to the set WLAN roaming relationship list, as shown in table one.

WLAN identification	Priority level
		WLAN3	3
WLAN6	1
		WLAN8	2

Watch 1

If the user terminal a stores a WLAN roaming relationship list as shown in table one, which indicates that there are three WLANs directly connected to the home network of the user terminal a, and the current user terminal a is in the coverage areas of WLAN1, WLAN3, WLAN5 and WLAN6, after matching, it is found that WLAN3 and WLAN6 can be matched, and then it is checked which WLAN has higher priority, and it can be known from table one that WLAN3 has higher priority than WLAN6, so it accesses from WLAN 3.

The WLAN identification information stored in each user terminal may be updated at any time or periodically, and the updating manner may be various: the network informs the user terminal of updating, and the user terminal inquires in a server provided by the home network and updates the information stored by the user terminal; or, the network directly issues WLAN identification related to the user terminal to each user terminal, and the user terminal judges whether the change is caused or not after receiving the WLAN identification, and if the change is caused, the WLAN identification is updated; or, the user terminal actively inquires a server provided by the home network, and if the change occurs, the information stored in the user terminal is updated. The home network of the user terminal needs to record the identification information of the WLAN with a changed connection relation with itself in time.

The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

Claims (9)

1. A method for user terminal to access its home network quickly in WLAN of wireless local area network, characterized in that, the identification information of WLAN directly connected to its home network is stored in each user terminal in advance, the method also includes following steps:

a. the method comprises the steps that a current WLAN user terminal in more than one WLAN coverage area obtains identifications of all currently detected WLANs, one WLAN is selected from all detected unmatched WLANs, and the selected WLAN identification is matched with a WLAN identification stored by the selected WLAN user terminal;

b. judging whether the matching is successful, if so, accessing the current WLAN user terminal to the home network of the current WLAN user terminal from the WLAN access network successfully matched, and ending the current selective access process, otherwise, executing the step c;

c. judging whether unmatched WLAN exists or not, if yes, returning to the selection step in the step a; if not, the current selection access process is ended.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein if the matching is successful in step b, recording the identification of the WLAN currently successfully matched, and then performing step c;

if there is no unmatched WLAN in step c, step c further comprises: judging whether more than one WLAN is successfully matched, if so, selecting a WLAN access network from all recorded WLAN identifications to access the home network of the WLAN user terminal according to a preset selection strategy by the current WLAN user terminal; if not, judging whether a WLAN is successfully matched, if so, accessing the current WLAN user terminal to the home network of the current WLAN user terminal from the WLAN access network successfully matched; otherwise, ending the current selection access flow.

3. Method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the WLAN identification is a traffic group identification, SSID, of the WLAN.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the selection policy is to select the currently used WLAN access network according to the signal strength, or the network busy level, or both of the signal strength and the network busy level of all the WLANs successfully matched.

5. A method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the method further comprises: a WLAN roaming relationship list for storing WLAN identification information directly connected with a home network of the user terminal is preset in the user terminal, and the matching is as follows: the user terminal matches the detected WLAN identification with the WLAN identification information in the WLAN roaming relation list.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the WLAN roaming relationship list further stores priority information for selecting a WLAN.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the selection policy is to select a currently used WLAN access network according to a preset priority.

8. A method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the method further comprises: the user terminal updates the stored WLAN identification information at any time or at regular intervals.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the updating is notifying the user terminal by the network to update; or the network directly sends WLAN identification information related to the user terminal; or the user terminal actively inquires the home network of the user terminal and updates the WLAN identification information stored in the user terminal.