Channel access control
View Patent ↗There are provided measures for channel access control. Such measures may exemplarily comprise obtaining a contention window assignment including at least an assignment of a size of a contention window for contention-based channel access, accessing at least one logical channel in a contention-based manner according to the contention window assignment, including allocating resources to the at least one logical channel for data transmission, and modifying the size of the contention window based on a result of the resource allocation in terms of an aggregated bit rate allocated for data transmission and an aggregate target bit rate requirement of prioritized bit rates of the at least one logical channel.
1. A method of controlling channel access, said method comprising:
providing by an access node of a cellular communication system, to at least one device involved in a data transmission that is part of a device-to-device communication between terminals on an unlicensed band or that is an uplink communication between a terminal and an access node of a wireless local area network on an unlicensed band, a contention window assignment including at least an assignment of a size of a contention window for contention-based channel access, wherein the contention window assignment is based on a quality of service requirement of at least one logical channel to be accessed by the at least one device and data to be transmitted on the at least one logical channel;
receiving at the access node, from the at least one device involved in the data transmission, a report of a conflict in contention-based channel access;
adapting at the access node, as conflict resolving measures, the contention window assignment based on the reported conflict; and
sending from the access node to the at least one device the adapted contention window assignment as conflict resolving measures instructions.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the method further comprises:
mapping a quality-of-service requirement of a first radio access technology to a quality-of-service requirement of a second radio access technology, wherein at least one logical channel to be accessed by the at least one device and resources usable for allocating data to be transmitted on the at least one logical channel are related to the second radio access technology; and
establishing the contention window assignment based on the mapped quality-of-service requirement of the second radio access technology.
3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein
the access node is configured for operation in accordance with long-term evolution specifications.
4. An access node of a cellular communication system for use in controlling channel access, said access node comprising:
an interface configured for communication with at least another apparatus; and
a processing system comprising at least a processor and a memory storing program instructions, the processing system configured to provide via the interface, to at least one device involved in a data transmission that is part of a device-to-device communication between terminals on an unlicensed band or that is an uplink communication between a terminal and an access node of a wireless local area network on an unlicensed band, a contention window assignment including at least an assignment of a size of a contention window for contention-based channel access, wherein the contention window assignment is based on a quality-of-service requirement of at least one of at least one logical channel to be accessed by the at least one device and data to be transmitted on the at least one logical channel;
the processing system further configured to cause the access node, in response to receiving via the interface from the at least one device involved in, the data transmission a report of a conflict in contention-based channel access, to:
adapt, as conflict resolving measures, the contention window assignment based on the reported conflict; and
send via the interface to the at least one device the adapted contention window assignment as conflict resolving measures instructions.
5. The access node according to claim 4 , wherein the processing system is further configured to:
map a quality-of-service requirement of a first radio access technology to a quality-of-service requirement of a second radio access technology, wherein at least one logical channel to be accessed by the at least one device and resources usable for allocating data to be transmitted on the at least one logical channel are related to the second radio access technology; and
establish the contention window assignment based on the mapped quality-of-service requirement of the second radio access technology.
6. The access node according to claim 4 , wherein the access node is configured for operation in accordance with long-term evolution specifications.