Fragmentation of service data units in a high-efficiency wireless local-area network

1. An apparatus of an access point or station comprising: memory; and, processing circuitry coupled to the memory, the processing circuitry configured to:

fragment a media access control (MAC) service data unit (MSDU) into two or more MSDU fragments;

encode a delimiter in front of a first fragment of the two or more MSDU fragments, wherein the delimiter indicates a length of the two or more MSDU fragments;

encapsulate the two or more MSDU fragments into two or more aggregated MSDUs (A-MSDUs), one or more A-MSDUs and one or more MAC protocol data units (MPDUs), or two or more MPDUs;

encapsulate the two or more aggregated MSDUs (A-MSDUs) or the one or more A-MSDUs into the one or more MPDUs or the two or more MPDUs; and

encode a start of message field in each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to indicate if a first fragment of the two or more fragments is encoded in the MPDU.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode a start of message field in each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to indicate if the MPDU comprises a fragment of the one or more fragments that does not comprise a delimiter as a first portion of the MPDU.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the first portion is four octets.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode a start of message field in each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to indicate if the MPDU comprises a fragment of the one or more fragments that does not comprise a delimiter.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

aggregate the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs with one or more other MPDUs into one or more aggregated MPDU (A-MPDU).

6. The apparatus of claim 5 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

cause to be transmitted the one or more A-MPDUs.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the A-MPDU is to be transmitted in accordance with one or more form the following group: orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO), and in accordance with Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11ax.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to:

encode each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to comprise a sequence number indicating a cardinal number of the MPDU in a stream of MPDUs or A-MPDUs.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the access point or station is at least one from the following group: a high-efficiency (HE) station, a master station, an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11ax access point, and an IEEE 802.11ax station.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising one or more antennas coupled to the processing circuitry.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the memory is configured to store the MSDU.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by one or more processors, the instructions to configure the one or more processors to cause an access point or station to:

fragment a media access control (MAC) service data unit (MSDU) into two or more MSDU fragments;

encode a delimiter in front of a first fragment of the two or more MSDU fragments, wherein the delimiter indicates a length of the two or more MSDU fragments;

encode the two or more MSDU fragments into two or more aggregated MSDUs (A-MSDUs), one or more A-MSDUs and one or more MAC protocol data units (MPDUs), or two or more MPDUs;

encapsulate the two or more aggregated MSDUs (A-MSDUs) or the one or more A-MSDUs into the one or more MPDUs or the two or more MPDUs; and

encode a start of message field in each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to indicate if the MPDU comprises a fragment of the one or more fragments that does not comprise a delimiter as a first portion of the MPDU.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein the instructions further configure the one or more processors to cause the access point or station to: encode each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to comprise a sequence number indicating a cardinal number of the MPDU in a stream of MPDUs or A-MPDUs.

14. A method performed by an access point or station, the method comprising:

fragmenting a media access control (MAC) service data unit (MSDU) into two or more MSDU fragments;

encapsulating the two or more MSDU fragments into two or more aggregated MSDUs (A-MSDUs), one or more A-MSDUs and one or more MAC protocol data units (MPDUs), or two or more MPDUs;

encoding a delimiter in front of a first fragment of the two or more MSDU fragments, wherein the delimiter indicates a length of the two or more MSDU fragments;

encapsulating the two or more aggregated MSDUs (A-MSDUs) or the one or more A-MSDUs into the one or more MPDUs or the two or more MPDUs;

encoding a start of message field in each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to indicate if the MPDU comprises a fragment of the one or more fragments that does not comprise a delimiter as a first portion of the MPDU; and

encoding each MPDU of the one or more MPDUs or two or more MPDUs to comprise a sequence number indicating a cardinal number of the MPDU in a stream of MPDUs or A-MPDUs.

15. An apparatus of a first access point or station comprising: memory; and, processing circuitry coupled to the memory, the processing circuitry configured to:

order two or more media access control (MAC) protocol data units (MPDUs) to be received from a second access point or station by a sequence number of each MPDU of the MPDUs, and wherein each MPDU comprises a MAC service data units (MSDU) or an aggregated (A-MSDU); and

de-aggregate the A-MSDU, wherein a delimiter field of the A-MSDU indicates a length of an MSDU, and if the length indicates that the MSDU comprises a first fragment of two or more fragments across one or more subsequent A-MSDUs or MSDUs, then concatenate the two or more fragments together from the one or more subsequent A-MSDUs or MSDUs to form a defragmented MSDU, and if a start of message (SOM) subfield of each MPDU of the MPDUs is set, then the A-MSDU comprises the delimiter at a start of the A-MSDU and there are no fragments in the MPDU from a previous MPDU.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the processing circuitry is configured to:

determine that the length indicates that the MSDU comprises a first fragment of two or more fragments if a second length of data of the first fragment in the A-MSDU is less than the length.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the access point or station is at least one from the following group: a high-efficiency (HE) wireless local area network (HEW) station, a master station, an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802.11ax access point, and an IEEE 802.11ax station.

18. The apparatus of claim 15 , further comprising one or more antennas coupled to the processing circuitry.

19. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the memory is configured to store the two or more MPDUs.