Methods for maintaining an ongoing communication even after site outage
An entity in a wireless network 100 retains contexts for each wireless terminal 140 served by a serving cell in a serving Radio Node (RN) 110 after that serving cell experiences an outage. The contexts may be retained by the serving RN 110 of the serving cell and/or by the wireless terminal served by the serving cell. The retained contexts are then provided to neighbor RNs 120 to facilitate connection reestablishment for the wireless terminals 140 previously served by the serving cell now experiencing an outage with a neighbor cell, e.g., another cell in the serving RN 110 or a neighbor cell in a neighbor RN 120.
1. A method of maintaining wireless communications after a cell outage in a wireless network comprising a serving Radio Node (RN) and neighbor RNs, the method implemented by the serving RN and comprising:
in response to an outage of a serving cell in the serving RN, retaining a context for each of one or more active wireless terminals served by the serving cell before the outage, each context comprising information used to maintain wireless communications in the wireless network for a specific one of the active wireless terminals, the serving RN comprising a digital unit and one or more radio units, the serving RN comprising at least the serving cell, the serving cell corresponding to at least one of the one or more radio units, the outage comprising an outage of all of the radio units of the serving cell, the retaining comprising storing, in response to the outage, the context for each of the one or more active wireless terminals in a temporary memory of the digital unit;
and providing at least one of the retained contexts to at least one of the neighbor RNs to facilitate connection reestablishment between the corresponding active wireless terminal and a neighbor cell of the serving RN or the neighbor RNs.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said providing comprises forwarding at least one of the retained contexts from the serving RN to an Operating Support System (OSS) to provide the at least one of the retained contexts to the at least one of the neighbor RNs.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein:
said forwarding comprises the digital unit of the serving RN forwarding at least one of the retained contexts to the OSS.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein:
at least part of the serving RN and one or more of the neighbor RNs are implemented in a cloud in the wireless network;
the cloud comprises a first digital unit for the serving RN and a second digital unit for each of the neighbor RNs; and
said providing comprises copying at least one of the retained contexts from the first digital unit to the second digital unit of at least one of the neighbor RNs.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein said providing comprises providing at least one of the retained contexts from the serving RN to a selected subset of the neighbor RNs to facilitate connection reestablish ment between the corresponding active wireless terminal and a neighbor cell in the selected subset, said selected subset comprising one or more of the neighbor RNs satisfying a selection criteria.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the outage comprises an unexpected hardware or software outage of the serving cell.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the neighbor RNs operates according to the same radio access technology as the serving RN.
8. A serving Radio Node (RN) for wireless communication in a wireless network, the serving RN comprising a processing circuit configured to carry out the method of claim 1 .
9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a computer program product for controlling a serving Radio Node (RN) in a wireless network, the computer program product comprising software instructions which, when run on at least one processing circuit in the serving RN, causes the serving RN to execute the method according to claim 1 .
10. A method of maintaining wireless communications after a cell outage in a wireless network, the method implemented by an Operating Support System (OSS) supporting a serving RN and neighbor RNs, the method comprising:
in response to an outage of a serving cell in the serving RN, receiving from the serving RN a context for each of one or more active wireless terminals served by the serving cell before the outage, each context comprising information used to maintain wireless communications in the wireless network for a specific one of the active wireless terminals; and
providing at least one of the received contexts to at least one of the neighbor RNs to facilitate connection reestablishment between the corresponding active wireless terminal and a neighbor cell of the serving RN or the neighbor RNs, the providing comprising providing at least one of the received contexts to a selected subset of the neighbor RNs to facilitate connection reestablishment between the corresponding active wireless terminal and one of the neighbor cells in the selected subset, the selected subset comprising one or more of the neighbor RNs having at least one cell satisfying a selection criteria.
11. The method of claim 10 wherein the outage comprises an unexpected outage.
12. An Operating Support System (OSS) supporting a serving Radio Node (RN) and adjacent neighbor RNs), the OSS comprising a processing circuit configured to carry out the method of claim 10 .
13. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a computer program product for controlling an Operating Support System (OSS) supporting a serving Radio Node (RN) and neighbor RNs in a wireless network, the computer program product comprising software instructions which, when run on at least one processing circuit in the OSS, causes the OSS to execute the method according to claim 10 .