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US-12627610-B2 - Methods and apparatus relating to residential gateway support for low latency, low loss and scalable throughput (L4S) service in a system including an WAGF

US12627610B2US 12627610 B2US12627610 B2US 12627610B2US-12627610-B2

Abstract

A residential gateway (RG), e.g., a 5G-RG, indicates its support for ECN marking for L4S in uplink and/or downlink via a PDU Session Request message, e.g., a PDU Session Establishment Request message, communicated from the RG via a wireline access gateway function (W-AGF) to a core network, e.g., a 5GC. The indication, in some embodiments, is provided in either: a Session Management (SM) capability field, e.g., a 5GSM capability field, or as a new indication, which is included as part of a N1 SM container. A RG may, and sometimes does, determine congestion in its buffers/queues and perform ECN marking and report if traffic congestion is being experienced within its own buffers/queues for uplink and/or downlink traffic. In some such embodiments, both an RG and a W-AGF can, and sometimes do, perform ECN marking for L4S simultaneously in both directions (i.e. uplink and downlink).

Inventors

  • Yildirim Sahin
  • Paul L. Russell, Jr.

Assignees

  • CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS OPERATING, LLC

Dates

Publication Date
20260512
Application Date
20240223

Claims (11)

  1. 1 . A communications method, the method comprising: operating a residential gateway (RG), to communicate to a wireline access gateway function (W-AGF) a first PDU session request message, said first PDU session request message including RG L4S (Low Latency Low Loss and Scalable Throughput) capability information in at least one of: i) a capability field including an indication of support by the RG for L4S or ii) a N1 SM (session management) container including an indication of support by the RG for L4S; and operating the RG to receive a response message in response to the first PDU session request message.
  2. 2 . The communications method of claim 1 , wherein the first PDU session request message includes a capability field including an indication of support by the RG for L4S.
  3. 3 . The communications method of claim 1 , wherein said response message includes an indicator indicating support for L4S.
  4. 4 . The communications method of claim 1 , wherein said first PDU session request message is one of a PDU session establishment request message or a PDU session modification request message.
  5. 5 . The communications method of claim 3 , further comprising: storing RG subscription data indicating whether or not the RG is allowed to perform ECN (explicit congestion notification) marking.
  6. 6 . The communications method of claim 5 , further comprising: operating a session management function (SMF), assigned to provide session management services for the PDU session corresponding to the first protocol data unit (PDU) session request message, to retrieve stored subscription information corresponding to the RG including L4S information corresponding to the RG.
  7. 7 . The communications method of claim 6 , further comprising: operating said SMF to select, based on L4S information included in the retrieved subscription information, a policy control function (PCF) to be used to support the PDU session to which the first PDU session request message relates.
  8. 8 . The communications method of claim 7 , wherein said SMF selects a PCF which supports L4S when the retrieved LAS information indicates the RG supports ECN marking and selects a PCF which does not support L4S when the retrieved L4S information indicates the RG does not support ECN marking.
  9. 9 . The communications method of claim 8 , further comprising: operating the RG to send a data packet including ECN marking in a header of said data packet as part of said PDU communications session to which the first PDU session request message relates.
  10. 10 . The communications method of claim 1 , wherein the RG is a 5G-RG (5G Residential Gateway) that appears to a 5G network core including a SMF as a user equipment (UE).
  11. 11 . A non-transitory computer readable medium including machine executable instruction which when implemented by a processor of a residential gateway (RG) cause the RG to perform the steps of: operating the residential gateway (RG), to communicate to a wireline access gateway function (W-AGF) a first PDU session request message, said first PDU session request message including RG LAS (Low Latency Low Loss and Scalable Throughput) capability information in at least one of: i) a capability field including an indication of support by the RG for L4S or ii) a N1 SM (session management) container including an indication of support by the RG for L4S; and operating the RG to receive a response message in response to the first PDU session request message.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS The present application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/619,154 which was filed on Jan. 9, 2024 and which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference in its entirety. FIELD The present application relates to communications systems and more particularly to methods and apparatus related to residential gateway support for L4S Service. BACKGROUND The 5G System (5GS) architecture is designed to support a wide variety of services, including media services. 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Rel-18 completed a study item related to support of advanced media services, e.g., High Data Rate Low Latency (HDRLL) services, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality/Extended Reality (AR/VR/XR) services and tactile/multi-modality communication services. Ref: 3GPP TS 23.501 V18.3.0 clause 5.37.3 titled Support of ECN marking for L4S to expose the congestion information discusses L4S marking. 3GPP TS 23.501 V18.3.0 (September 2023), which is hereby expressly incorporated by reference in its entirely, refers to various IETF RFC (Request For Comments). IETF RFC 9330 titled Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (LAS) Internet Service: Architecture (January 2023), IETF RFC 9331 titled “The Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) Protocol for Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S)” (January 2023) and IETF RFC 9332 titled “Dual-Queue Coupled Active Queue Management (AQM) for Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S)” (January 2023). Each of the preceding RFCs is hereby expressly incorporated by reference in their entirety. L4S exposes congestion information by marking ECN bits in the IP header of the user IP packets between the UE and the application server to trigger application layer rate adaptation. In 5G System, ECN marking for L4S may be supported. ECN marking for L4S is enabled on a per Quality of Service (QOS) Flow basis in the uplink (UL) and/or downlink (DL) direction and may be used for Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) and non-GBR QoS Flows. ECN marking for the LAS in the Internet Protocol (IP) header is supported in either the Next Generation Radio Access Network (NG-RAN) (see clause 3GPP TS 23.501 5.37.3.2 and TS 38.300 v17.6.0 (September 2023) which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, or in the PDU Session Anchor (PSA) User Plane Function (UPF) (see 3GPP TS 23.501 clause 5.37.3.3). Whether NG-RAN or PSA UPF based ECN marking for L4S is used is decided by Session Management Function (SMF) based on operator's network configuration and policies. In the case of ECN marking for L4S by UPF, the NG-RAN is instructed to perform congestion information monitoring. As for any QoS flow, QoS rules in the user equipment (UE) and Packet Drop Rates (PDRs) in the PSA UPF control which packets are bound to the LAS enabled QoS flow. The Packet Filter Set in the QoS rule or PDR can use packet filter(s) in clause 5.7.6.2 (e.g. ECT(1) and/or IP 5 tuple) to steer traffic to an L4S enabled Qos Flow. A QOS flow may be enabled with ECN marking for L4S requirement e.g. statically when a PDU session is established based on configuration in SMF or Policy Control Function (PCF), or dynamically based on detection of the LAS traffic e.g. via ECT(1) and/or IP 5 tuple in the IP header whereby SMF or PCF triggers a setup of a QoS Flow enabled for LAS, or by requests by an Application Function (AF). To support LAS, it would be desirable if a residential gateway could support LAS capabilities, e.g., ECN marking related functionality. SUMMARY Methods and apparatus related to residential gateway (RG), e.g., 5G-RG, support for L4S are described. A RG indicates its support for ECN marking for L4S in uplink and/or downlink via a PDU Session Request message, e.g., a PDU Session Establishment Request message, communicated from the RG via a wireline access gateway function (W-AGF) to a core network, e.g., a 5GC. In some embodiments, the indication can be provided in either: a Session Management (SM) capability field, e.g., a 5GSM capability field, or as a new indication which is included as part of a N1 SM container. A RG may, and sometimes does, determine congestion in its buffers and/or queues and perform ECN marking and report if traffic congestion is being experienced within its own buffers and/or queues for uplink and/or downlink traffic. In some such embodiments, both an RG and a W-AGF can, and sometimes do, perform ECN marking for L4S simultaneously in both directions (i.e. uplink and downlink). An exemplary communications method, in accordance with some embodiments, comprises: operating a residential gateway (RG) to communicate to a wireline access gateway function (W-AGF) a first protocol data unit (PDU) session request message, said PDU session request message including RG LAS (Low Latency Low Loss and Scalable Throughput) capability information in at least one of: i) a capability field including an indication of support by the RG for L4S or ii) a N1 SM (