Multi-RAT heterogenous carrier aggregation
View Patent ↗A network node for facilitating data transfer is disclosed, comprising: a routing module configured to receive network link capacity information; a first radio interference operating on a first radio access technology and coupled to the routing module; and a second radio interface operating on a second radio access technology and coupled to the routing module, wherein the routing module is configured to receive packets directed to a third virtual radio interface and route the packets to one or both of the first and the second radio interfaces to provide throughput at the third virtual radio interface that is greater than throughput available via either the first or the second radio interfaces independently.
1. A network node for facilitating data transfer, comprising:
a routing layer configured to receive network link capacity information;
a first radio interface operating on a first radio access technology and in communication with the routing layer; and
a second radio interface operating on a second radio access technology and in communication with the routing layer,
wherein the routing layer is between the first radio interface and a third virtual radio interface, and between the second radio interface and the third virtual radio interface, and
wherein the routing layer is configured to receive packets directed to the third virtual radio interface and route the packets to one or both of the first and the second radio interfaces to provide throughput at the third virtual radio interface that is greater than throughput available via either the first or the second radio interfaces independently.
2. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is a mesh network node.
3. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is coupled to a second network node and the first and the second radio interfaces are coupled to a third and a fourth radio interface at the second network node.
4. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the network node is a multi-radio access technology eNodeB.
5. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the first radio interface is a Wi-Fi radio interface and wherein the second radio interface is a Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio interface.
6. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the routing layer is configured to provide a mapping from a user data context to one of the first radio interface and the second radio interface.
7. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the routing layer is configured to receive network capacity information that reflects aggregate capacity over a network comprising a plurality of network nodes.
8. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the traffic quality of service characteristics are one of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) quality-of-service (QoS) class identifier (QCI) and a Wi-Fi Wireless Multimedia Extensions (WME) access category (AC).
9. The network node of claim 1 , wherein the routing layer is coupled to the third virtual network interface and to a higher-level network routing module.