US-12621840-B2 - Playback stall expectation reporting

US12621840B2US 12621840 B2US12621840 B2US 12621840B2US-12621840-B2

Abstract

This disclosure relates to techniques for reporting a playback stall expectation in a wireless communication system. A wireless link may be established between a wireless device and a cellular base station. The wireless device may receive an indication of a playback stall expectation event from an application executing on the wireless device. The wireless device may transmit information indicating the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.

Inventors

Waqar Zia
Ping-Heng Kuo
Haijing Hu

Assignees

APPLE INC.

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20240126

Claims (20)

1 . A method, comprising: providing, by a baseband processor of a wireless device, configuration information for reporting playback stall expectation event information to an application executed on an application processor of the wireless device, wherein reporting playback stall expectation event information is configured for the application only when the application has no remaining internal playback stall prevention options; receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, first information for a playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information includes: a first time instance; and a first buffer level for the application, wherein the first buffer level corresponds to the first time instance; and transmitting the first information for the playback stall expectation event to a cellular base station.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the second information includes: a time instance when a playback stall is expected to occur for the application; and transmitting the second information for the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the second information includes: a second time instance; and a second buffer level for the application, wherein the second buffer level corresponds to the second time instance; and transmitting the second information for the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information for the playback stall expectation event is transmitted to the cellular base station in a first application layer measurement report, wherein the second information for the playback stall expectation event is transmitted to the cellular base station in a second application layer measurement report.
5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information for the playback stall expectation event and the second information for the playback stall expectation event are transmitted to the cellular base station in a same application layer measurement report.
6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises: determining whether to provide the first information for the playback stall expectation event using event-based radio access network visible quality of experience (RVQoE) reporting or periodic RVQoE reporting.
7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether to provide the first information for the playback stall expectation event is based at least in part on one or more of: timing of the playback stall expectation event; or severity of the playback stall expectation event.
8 . An apparatus, comprising: a processor configured to, when executing instructions stored in a memory, perform operations comprising: providing, by a baseband processor of a wireless device, configuration information for reporting playback stall expectation event information to an application executed on an application processor of the wireless device, wherein reporting playback stall expectation event information is configured for the application only when the application has no remaining internal playback stall prevention options; receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, first information for a playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information includes: a first time instance; and a first buffer level for the application, wherein the first buffer level corresponds to the first time instance; and transmitting the first information for the playback stall expectation event to a cellular base station.
9 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the second information includes: a time instance when a playback stall is expected to occur for the application; and transmitting the second information for the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.
10 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the second information includes: a second time instance; and a second buffer level for the application, wherein the second buffer level corresponds to the second time instance; and transmitting the second information for the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.
11 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information for the playback stall expectation event is transmitted to the cellular base station in a first application layer measurement report, wherein the second information for the playback stall expectation event is transmitted to the cellular base station in a second application layer measurement report.
12 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information for the playback stall expectation event and the second information for the playback stall expectation event are transmitted to the cellular base station in a same application layer measurement report.
13 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the operations further comprise: determining whether to provide the first information for the playback stall expectation event using event-based radio access network visible quality of experience (RVQoE) reporting or periodic RVQoE reporting.
14 . The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein determining whether to provide the first information for the playback stall expectation event is based at least in part on one or more of: timing of the playback stall expectation event; or severity of the playback stall expectation event.
15 . The apparatus of claim 8 , further comprising: a radio operably coupled to the processor.
16 . A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing program instructions executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising: providing, by a baseband processor of a wireless device, configuration information for reporting playback stall expectation event information to an application executed on an application processor of the wireless device, wherein reporting playback stall expectation event information is configured for the application only when the application has no remaining internal playback stall prevention options; receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, first information for a playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information includes: a first time instance; and a first buffer level for the application, wherein the first buffer level corresponds to the first time instance; and transmitting the first information for the playback stall expectation event to a cellular base station.
17 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the second information includes: a time instance when a playback stall is expected to occur for the application; and transmitting the second information for the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.
18 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the second information includes: a second time instance; and a second buffer level for the application, wherein the second buffer level corresponds to the second time instance; and transmitting the second information for the playback stall expectation event to the cellular base station.
19 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information for the playback stall expectation event is transmitted to the cellular base station in a first application layer measurement report, wherein the second information for the playback stall expectation event is transmitted to the cellular base station in a second application layer measurement report.
20 . The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 16 , wherein the operations further comprise: receiving, at the baseband processor of the wireless device, second information for the playback stall expectation event from the application, wherein the first information for the playback stall expectation event and the second information for the playback stall expectation event are transmitted to the cellular base station in a same application layer measurement report.

Description

PRIORITY INFORMATION This application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 63/500,385, entitled “Playback Stall Expectation Reporting,” filed May 5, 2023, and to U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 63/518,756, entitled “Playback Stall Expectation Reporting,” filed Aug. 10, 2023, which are both hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety as though fully and completely set forth herein. FIELD The present application relates to wireless communications, and more particularly to systems, apparatuses, and methods for reporting a playback stall expectation in a wireless communication system. DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART Wireless communication systems are rapidly growing in usage. In recent years, wireless devices such as smart phones and tablet computers have become increasingly sophisticated. In addition to supporting telephone calls, many mobile devices (i.e., user equipment devices or UEs) now provide access to the internet, email, text messaging, and navigation using the global positioning system (GPS), and are capable of operating sophisticated applications that utilize these functionalities. Additionally, there exist numerous different wireless communication technologies and standards. Some examples of wireless communication standards include GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE, LTE Advanced (LTE-A), NR, HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1×RTT, 1×EV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), IEEE 802.11 (WLAN or Wi-Fi), BLUETOOTH™, etc. The ever-increasing number of features and functionality introduced in wireless communication devices also creates a continuous need for improvement in both wireless communications and in wireless communication devices. In particular, it is important to ensure the accuracy of transmitted and received signals through user equipment (UE) devices, e.g., through wireless devices such as cellular phones, base stations and relay stations used in wireless cellular communications. In addition, increasing the functionality of a UE device can place a significant strain on the battery life of the UE device. Thus, it is very important to also reduce power requirements in UE device designs while allowing the UE device to maintain good transmit and receive abilities for improved communications. Accordingly, improvements in the field are desired. SUMMARY Embodiments are presented herein of apparatuses, systems, and methods for reporting a playback stall expectation in a wireless communication system. According to the techniques described herein, an application executing on a wireless device may generate a playback stall expectation event, which may be based on determining that a playback stall is predicted to occur (or has already occurred), and which may include determining certain information regarding the playback stall expectation, such as how long until the predicted playback stall occurs and an amount of playback time currently buffered by the application. The application may provide information regarding the playback stall expectation event to a baseband processor/layer of the wireless device. The baseband processor/layer of the wireless device may in turn provide information regarding the playback stall expectation event to a cellular base station that is serving the wireless device to provide connectivity to a cellular network. The information may be provided to the cellular base station using radio access network visible quality of experience metrics that are included in an application layer measurement report message, as one possibility. The cellular base station may be able to use the information regarding the playback stall expectation event to determine whether, and when, to adjust the radio resource configuration for the wireless device, for example to provide assistance to the application and to attempt to prevent (or reduce the severity of) the playback stall. However, at least in some embodiments, the playback stall expectation event information provided to the cellular base station may not be prescriptive, and the network may be free to act as it deems best for overall network operation in view of the playback stall expectation event and any of various other considerations. Note that the techniques described herein may be implemented in and/or used with a number of different types of devices, including but not limited to base stations, access points, cellular phones, portable media players, tablet computers, wearable devices, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned aerial controllers, automobiles and/or motorized vehicles, and various other computing devices. This Summary is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the subject matter described in this document. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that the above-described features are merely examples and should not be construed to narrow the scope or spirit of the subject matter described herein in any way. Other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject ma