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EP-4736550-A1 - ENABLING PAGING FOR A FURTHER REDUCED CAPACITY USER EQUIPMENT

EP4736550A1EP 4736550 A1EP4736550 A1EP 4736550A1EP-4736550-A1

Abstract

A method in a core network (CN) for determining a capability of a user equipment (UE) includes transmitting, from the CN to a radio access network (RAN), a first paging message including a first user equipment (UE) capability of a first UE and for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability for paging the first UE; and transmitting, from the CN to the RAN, a second paging message including a second UE capability of a second UE and for a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability for paging the second UE.

Inventors

  • WU, CHIH-HSIANG

Assignees

  • GOOGLE LLC

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20240808

Claims (15)

  1. 1. A method implemented in a core network (CN), the method comprising: transmitting, from the CN to a radio access network (RAN), a first paging message including a first user equipment (UE) capability of a first UE and for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability for paging the first UE; and transmitting, from the CN to the RAN, a second paging message including a second UE capability of a second UE and for a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability for paging the second UE.
  2. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein: the first UE capability is based on one or more first hardware components of the first UE; and the second UE capability is based on one or more second hardware components of the second UE.
  3. 3. The method of either one of claims 1 or 2, further comprising: receiving, from the UE via the RAN, at least one of the first UE capability or the second UE capability.
  4. 4. The method of claim 3, wherein: the receiving includes receiving the at least one of the first UE capability or the second UE capability from a first RAN node of the RAN ; and at least one of the transmitting of the first paging message or the transmitting of the second paging message is via a second RAN node of the RAN.
  5. 5. The method of either one of claims 1 or 2, further comprising: determining, at the CN, at least one of the first UE capability or the second UE capability.
  6. 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first paging message further includes first discontinuous reception (DRX) information and the second paging message further includes second DRX information.
  7. 7. The method of claim 6, wherein at least one of the first DRX information or the second DRX information is extended DRX (eDRX) information.
  8. 8. A method implemented in a distributed unit (DU) of a distributed radio access network (RAN) node including a centralized unit (CU), the method comprising: receiving, at the DU from the CU, a first paging message including one of (i) a first user equipment (UE) capability for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability or (ii) a second UE capability for a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability; generating, at the DU, a second paging message for a UE; and in a first instance, when the first paging message includes the first UE capability, transmitting, from the DU to the UE, the second paging message based on the first UE capability; in a second instance, when the first paging message includes the second UE capability, transmitting, from the DU to the UE, the second paging message based on the second UE capability.
  9. 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the transmitting includes: in the first instance, transmitting the second paging message to the UE using a first radio resource; and in the second instance, transmitting the second paging message to the UE using a second radio resource.
  10. 10. The method of either one of claims 8 or 9, wherein the first paging message includes a UE identity (ID) for the UE.
  11. 11. The method of any one of claims 8-10, wherein the first paging message further includes discontinuous reception (DRX) information.
  12. 12. The method of claim 11, further comprising: determining, using at least one of the DRX information, the first UE capability, or the second UE capability, one or more radio resources for transmitting the second paging message.
  13. 13. The method of claim 11 or 12, wherein the DRX information is extended DRX (eDRX) information.
  14. 14. The method of any one of claims 8-13, wherein the at least one of the first UE capability or the second UE capability is based on one or more hardware components associated with the UE.
  15. 15. An apparatus, operating as a network node, comprising processing hardware and configured to implement a method according to any one of the preceding claims.

Description

ENABLING PAGING FOR A FURTHER REDUCED CAPABILITY USER EQUIPMENT CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims priority to and the benefit of the filing date of provisional U.S. Patent Application No. 63/532,015 entitled “ENABLING PAGING FOR A FURTHER REDUCED CAPABILITY USER EQUIPMENT,” filed on August 10, 2023. The entire contents of the provisional applications are hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference. FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE [0002] This disclosure relates to wireless communications and, more particularly, to enabling paging for UEs with further reduced capability (fRedCap). BACKGROUND [0003] The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure. [0004] In telecommunication systems, the Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) sublayer of the radio protocol stack provides services such as transfer of user-plane data, ciphering, integrity protection, etc. For example, the PDCP layer defined for the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (EUTRA) radio interface and New Radio (NR) provides sequencing of protocol data units (PDUs) in the uplink direction (from a user device, also known as a user equipment (UE), to a base station) as well as in the downlink direction (from the base station to the UE). Further, the PDCP sublayer provides services for signaling radio bearers (SRBs) to the Radio Resource Control (RRC) sublayer. The PDCP sublayer also provides services for data radio bearers (DRBs) to a Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) sublayer or a protocol layer such as an Internet Protocol (IP) layer, an Ethernet protocol layer, and an Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) layer. Generally speaking, the UE and a base station use SRBs to exchange RRC messages as well as non-access stratum (NAS) messages, and use DRBs to transport data on a user plane. [0005] Base stations that operate according to modem requirements support significantly larger bandwidth than base stations that operate according to older requirements. Accordingly, user equipment units (UEs) can support a 100 MHz bandwidth in frequency range 1 (FR1) and a 400 MHz bandwidth in a frequency range 2 (FR2). [0006] However, normal-capability UEs (i.e., UEs conforming to older requirements) may coexist with reduced-capability UEs. Compared to normal-capability UEs, reduced-capability UEs (also referred to as RedCap UEs) tend to have a lower bandwidth capability, a reduced processing capability, and/or fewer antennas. RedCap UEs also, depending on the device, lack support for dual connectivity and/or carrier aggregation. RedCap UEs have been established with a framework for enabling reduced capability NR devices suitable for a range of use cases, including industrial sensors, video surveillance, and wearables use cases, with requirements on low UE complexity and sometimes also on low UE power consumption. However, techniques for determining whether a UE is a normal-capability UE, a RedCap UE configured according to older protocols, or a RedCap UE configured according to modem protocols is desired. SUMMARY [0007] To further expand the market for RedCap use cases with relatively low cost, low energy consumption, and low data rate requirements, techniques to support UEs with further complexity reduction are desired. In particular, RedCap should provide NR support for low-tier devices between existing low power, wide area (LPWA) UEs and the capabilities of RedCap UEs. The supported peak data rate for RedCap UEs targets to 10Mbps lower than the peak data rate supported by older RedCap UEs. [0008] If a base station is unaware of whether a UE is a normal-capability UE, an older RedCap UE or a more modern RedCap UE, the base station can page the UE in a manner that the UE does not support. [0009] In some aspects, the techniques described herein relate to a method implemented in a core network (CN), the method including: transmitting, from the CN to a radio access network (RAN), a first paging message including a first user equipment (UE) capability of a first UE and for a first UE type associated with a reduced UE capability for paging the first UE; and transmitting, from the CN to the RAN, a second paging message including a second UE capability of a second UE and for a second UE type associated with a further reduced UE capability for paging the second UE. [0010] In some aspects, the techniques described herein relate to a method implemented in a distributed unit (DU) of a distributed radio access network (RAN) node including a centralized unit (CU), the method including: receiving, at the DU from the CU, a first paging message including one of (i) a first use