IP Library › Granted Patent US 12707274
Granted Patent B2
US 12707274 · App. 18/390,961 · Granted Aug 11, 2026

Network slice switching for legacy applications/network devices

Inventors: Antoine T. Tran (Bellevue, WA); Emile Minh Tran (Sammamish, WA)
Assignee: T-Mobile USA, Inc.
H04W16/10
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Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12707274
App. No.
18/390,961
Granted
Aug 11, 2026
Kind
B2
Abstract

Techniques are described herein for assigning a tag to untagged network traffic in order to allocate the network traffic to an appropriate network slice. In embodiments, the techniques may involve receiving network traffic that is untagged, determining information about the network traffic, identifying, based on the information about the network traffic, a set of attribute values associated with the network traffic, and assigning, based on the set of attribute values and based on configuration data, a tag to the network traffic. In embodiments, the network traffic is then allocated to a network slice associated with the assigned tag. In some embodiments, the techniques may further involve providing an indication of the tag and information about network traffic to at least one second computing device, and receiving, at the access point device from the at least one second computing device, updated configuration data.

Claims (41)

1 . A method comprising:

receiving, at an access point device, information about multiple transmissions of network traffic that are untagged;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, identifying, by the access point device within the information about that transmission of network traffic, a set of attribute values associated with that transmission of network traffic;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, assigning, by the access point device based on the set of attribute values associated with that transmission of network traffic and based on configuration data, a tag to that transmission of network traffic;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, transmitting, by the access point device, that transmission of network traffic over a network slice associated with the tag to that transmission of network traffic;

providing an indication of the tags and information about the multiple transmissions of network traffic to at least one second computing device; and

receiving, at the access point device from the at least one second computing device, updated configuration data,

wherein the tags for the multiple transmissions of network traffic include at least three different tags for three different types of network traffic.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein one of the tags is assigned based at least in part on a destination device associated with the corresponding transmission of network traffic.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein one of the tags is assigned based at least in part on an origination device associated with the corresponding transmission of network traffic.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one transmission of the multiple transmissions of the network traffic is determined to be a response to second network traffic and the corresponding tag(s) are determined based being assigned to the second network traffic.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein one of the tags is assigned based on a degree of similarity between the information about the corresponding network traffic and second information about second network traffic associated with the one of the tags in the configuration data.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the information about the network traffic is received using deep packet inspection.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the updated configuration data is generated from information about network traffic received from multiple access point devices.

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one second computing device comprises a core management device.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the network slices are each configured to transmit a type of network traffic in an optimal manner.

10 . A computing device comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving multiple transmissions of network traffic that are untagged;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, determining information about that transmission of network traffic;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, identifying, based on the information about that transmission of network traffic, a set of attribute values associated with that transmission of network traffic;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, assigning, based on the set of attribute values associated with that transmission of network traffic and based on configuration data, a tag to that transmission of network traffic; and

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, allocating that transmission of network traffic to a network slice associated with the tag to that transmission of network traffic,

wherein the tags for the multiple transmissions of network traffic include at least three different tags for three different types of network traffic.

11 . The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the computing device manages access to a network that is partitioned into a number of network slices.

12 . The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the computing device is implemented in a base station that manages a fixed wireless access (FWA) network.

13 . The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the network traffic is received from a user device in geographic proximity to the computing device.

14 . The computing device of claim 10 , wherein the operations further comprise providing indications of the tags and the determined information about the multiple transmissions of network traffic to at least one second computing device.

15 . The computing device of claim 14 , wherein the operations further comprise receiving, from the at least one second computing device, updated configuration data that includes the indications of the tags and the determined information about the multiple transmissions of network traffic.

16 . The computing device of claim 10 , wherein each of the network slices is optimized for a type of network traffic.

17 . One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving multiple transmissions of network traffic that are untagged;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, determining information about that transmission of network traffic;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, identifying, based on the information about that transmission of network traffic, a set of attribute values associated with that transmission of network traffic;

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, assigning, based on the set of attribute values associated with that transmission of network traffic and based on configuration data, a tag to that transmission of network traffic; and

for each transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic, allocating that transmission of network traffic to a network slice associated with the tag to that transmission of network traffic,

wherein the tags for the multiple transmissions of network traffic include at least three different tags for three different types of network traffic.

18 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17 , wherein the information about a transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic comprises information about an origination device or a destination device associated with that transmission of network traffic.

19 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17 , wherein one of the tags is assigned using one or more machine learning models based on a degree of similarity between the information about a transmission of the multiple transmissions of network traffic and second information about second network traffic associated with that tag in the configuration data.

20 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17 , wherein one of the network slices is optimized for a category of network traffic and a corresponding one of the tags is assigned based on the network traffic being determined to be of the category of network traffic.