The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for inter-domain mobility management for a telephony network. The present invention also relates generally to the h.323 standard for transmitting audio and video data streams, and more particularly to extending the h.323 standard to support mobility in a multimedia communication system with services over packet-based networks.
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1. An inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile h.323. entity communicating sending information related to the mobile entity with to a first gatekeeper in a first administration administrative domain;
(b) said first gatekeeper being unable to verify said information on related to said mobile h.323 entity and sending information to accessing a first border element within said first administration administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(c) said first border element communicating information with accessing a second border element in a second administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(d) said second border element communicates sending back with to said first border element with information to resolve information that resolves said information related to the mobile entity; and
(e) said second first border element accepting said resolved information related to the mobile entity and communicates said information with sending to said mobile h.323 entity via said first gatekeeper a reply to the information related to the mobile entity sent by said mobile h.323 entity.
25. An inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile h.323. entity communicating sending information related to the mobile entity with to a first gatekeeper in a first administration administrative domain having a first location function;
(b) said first gatekeeper being unable to verify said information on related to said mobile h.323 entity and sending information to accessing a first border element within said first administration administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(c) said first border element communicating information with accessing a second border element in a second administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(d) said second border element obtains obtaining information from a second home location function in said second administrative domain and communicates sending back with to said first border element with information to resolve said information related to the mobile entity the information obtained from said second location function; and
(e) said second first border element accepting said resolved information related to the mobile entity and communicates said information with sending to said mobile h.323 entity via said first gatekeeper a reply to the information related to the mobile entity sent by said mobile h.323 entity.
6. An inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile h.323 entity communicating sending information related to the mobile entity with to a first gatekeeper in a first administrative domain having a first backend services;
(b) said first gatekeeper being unable to verify said information on related to said mobile h.323 entity and sending information to accessing a first border element within said first administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(c) said first border element communicating information with accessing a second border element in a second administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(d) said second border element obtains information obtaining from a second backend services in said second administrative domain information that resolves said information related to the mobile entity and communicates sending back with to said first border element with information to resolve said information related to the mobile entity the information obtained from said second border element; and
(e) said second first border element accepting said resolved information related to the mobile entity and communicates said information with sending to said mobile h.323 entity via said first gatekeeper a reply to the information related to the mobile entity sent by said mobile h.323 entity.
20. An inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile h.323. entity communicating sending information related to the mobile entity with to a first gatekeeper in a first administration administrative domain having a first backend services;
(b) said first gatekeeper being unable to verify said information on related to said mobile h.323 entity and sending information to accessing a first border element within said first administration administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(c) said first border element communicating information with accessing a second border element in a second administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(d) said second border element obtains obtaining information from a second backend services in said second administrative domain via at least one a second gatekeeper in said second administrative domain and communicates back with sending back to said first border element with information to resolve said information related to the mobile entity the information obtained from the second backend service; and
(e) said second first border element accepting said resolved information related to the mobile entity and communicates said information with sending to said mobile h.323 entity via said first gatekeeper a reply to the information related to the mobile entity sent by said mobile h.323 entity.
33. An inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile h.323. entity communicating sending information related to the mobile entity with to a first gatekeeper in a first administration administrative domain having a first location function;
(b) said first gatekeeper being unable to verify said information on related to said mobile h.323 entity and sending information to accessing a first border element within said first administration administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(c) said first border element communicating information with accessing a second border element in a second administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(d) said second border element obtains obtaining information from a second home location function in said second administrative domain via at least one a second gatekeeper in said second administrative domain and communicates sending back with to said first border with information to resolve said information related to the mobile entity element the information obtained from said second location function; and
(e) said second first border element accepting said resolved information related to the mobile entity and communicates said information with sending to said mobile h.323 entity via said first gatekeeper a reply to the information related to the mobile entity sent by said mobile h.323 entity.
14. An inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile h.323. entity communicating sending information related to the mobile entity with to a first gatekeeper in a first administration administrative domain having a first backend services;
(b) said first gatekeeper being unable to verify said information on related to said mobile h.323 entity and sending information to accessing a first border element within said first administration administrative domain to resolve said information related to the mobile entity;
(c) said first border element communicating information with accessing a first backend services to resolve said information related to the mobile entity, wherein said first backend services is shared with both by said first administrative domain and a second administrative domain;
(d) said second first border element obtains information obtaining from said first backend services in said first and said second administrative domain information that resolves said information related to the mobile entity, and communicates sending it back to said first border element with information to resolve said information related to the mobile entity; and
(e) said second first border element accepting said resolved information related to the mobile entity and communicates said information with sending to said mobile h.323 entity via said first gatekeeper a reply to the information related to the mobile entity sent by said mobile h.323 entity.
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This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/201,195, entitled “Framework for H.323 inter-domain mobility management”, filed May 2, 2000, and is also related to “H.323 Mobility Architecture for Terminal User and Service Mobility”, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/642,279, filed Aug. 18, 2000; “Intelligent Signaling Scheme for Computer-Readable Medium for H.323 Mobility Architecture”, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/642,298, filed Aug. 18, 2000 and issued May 4, 2004 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,732,177; “H.323 Back-End Services for Intra-Zone and Inter-Zone Mobility Management”. U.S. patent application Ser. No., 09/801,914, filed Mar. 9, 2001; and “H.323 Mobility Protocol for Terminal User and Service Mobility”, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/642,142, filed Aug. 18, 2000 and issued Aug. 10, 2004 as U.S. Pat. No. 6,775,255; all assigned to the assignee of the instant application, and the disclosure of each is hereby entirely incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for inter-domain mobility management for a telephony network. The present invention also relates generally to the H.323 standard for transmitting audio and video data streams, and more particularly to extending the H.323 standard to support mobility in a multimedia communication system with services over packet-based networks.
A framework on how the inter-domain communications need to be done in H.323 for mobility management has been provided in the context of the existing H.225.0 Annex G standard, as disclosed in ITU-T Recommendation H.225.0 Annex G (1999), “Communications Between Administrative Domains”. The communication flows for mobility management considering the BE (Border Elements), Gatekeepers (GKs), Home location function (HLFs), and domains where each entity can be arranged in any logical architectural relationship: Centralized, Distributed, and/or Hybrid Architecture. ITU-T Recommendation H.323 describes terminals and other entities that provide multimedia communications services over packet based networks (PBN) which may not provide a guaranteed Quality of Service. H.323 entities may provide real-time audio, video and/or data communications. Support for audio is mandatory, while data and video are optional, but if supported, the ability to use a specified common mode of operation is required, so that all terminals supporting that media type can interwork.
The inter-domain mobility management of this invention needs to be independent of the underlying architectural configurations and is not “hard-wired” for any particular configuration of any architectural or functional entity as done in the prior art.
The new messages for mobility management within a domain has been proposed for H.225.0 RAS (Intra-domain communication) messages. Similarly, for inter-domain mobility management we need to extend H.225.0 Annex G, as disclosed in ITU-T Recommendation H.225.0 Annex G (1999), “Communications Between Administrative Domains.” The new messages, such as, disclosed in R. R. Roy, AT&T, “H.323 Mobility Architecture and Protocol for Terminal, User, and Service Mobility,” D-354, ITU-T SG 16 Q.13/16, WP2, Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 7-18, 2000, the disclosure of which is entirely incorporated herein by reference, required for mobility binding and updating will also be applicable for inter-domain communication with additional parameters like hopcounts and others in the header as required per H.225.0 Annex G.
In addition, the existing H.225.0 RAS messages like LRQ (Location Request) such as, disclosed in R. R. Roy, AT&T, “H.323 Mobility Management Services, Scenarios, and Information Flows in an Administrative Domain,” MD012, Ad Hoc Mobility Conference Call, February-May 2000, have been extended to manage mobility for intra-domain communications. Similarly, the messages like accessRequest and others of H.225.0 Annex G are also need to be extended for inter-domain mobility management as described in this embodiment. However, the mobility related parameters that specify the information related to the mobile entity used in the LRQ and call signaling messages of H.225.0 RAS/Q.931 also need to be passed to the accessRequest and other messages of H.225.0 Annex G while the mobile entity is visiting a foreign domain.
It is also the critical need for a mobile entity to have an option whether it will let others to know its present location in a foreign domain because of security or other reasons while it is away from its home domain. If the mobile entity does not want to make its address public while it is visiting in a foreign domain, the communications need to be done via mobile entity's home network address that it may want make to public.
Originally, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) developed H.323 as an adaptation of H.320, which addresses videoconferencing over ISDN and other circuit-switched networks and services. ITU-T Recommendation H.320 describes terminals and other entities that provide multimedia communications services over circuit-switched networks which provide a guaranteed Quality of Service. H.320 entities may provide real-time audio, video and/or data communications. H.320 was ratified in 1990, and corporations expanded their networks to include Local Area Networks (LANs) and LAN gateways to the Wide Area Network (WAN). Then, H.323 was expanded beyond being an extension of H.320 so that H.323 now covers the corporate intranets and packet-switched networks in general. The ITU published a set of standards for multimedia communication over packet-based networks (PBNs) under the H.323 designation, which includes standards for data channels, monitoring channels, and control channels. It includes provision of real-time audio, video and/or data communications. The H.323 components defined by the standard include: terminals, gateways, gatekeepers and multipoint control units (MCUs). The terminals provide real-time communications, must support audio/voice communications and optionally s support data and video. The most common H.323 terminals are the applications that run on a personal computer (PC). H.323 gateways provide services to H.323 clients and allow communication with non-H.323 entities, such as communication between H.323 terminals and telephone in a circuit-switched network. Gatekeepers provide call control services for H.323 endpoints, e.g., address translation and bandwidth management. Gatekeepers are optional in the H.323 standard, but, if they are present, the endpoints must use the services of the gatekeepers. The H.323 standard specifies certain mandatory services that gatekeepers, if utilized, must provide. The multipoint control units provide support for conferences of three or more endpoints by managing conference resources, manage negotiations between the endpoints to specify which audio or video code(s) to use and may manage the media stream. The H.323 standard defines how audio and video conferencing systems communicate over packet-switched networks defines call control and management practices for point-to-point and broadcast/multicast/unicast multipoint conferences, addresses QoS issues with a centralized gatekeeper that LAN administrators use to manage media traffic, bandwidth and user participation, and describes functionality that allows calls to connect from the LAN to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PST) as well as to other H.32×standards-based terminals.
In version 2 of the H.323 standard, video and audio data streams are compressed and packetized in accordance with a real-time transport protocol (RTP/RTCP) standard from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and are used to support video conferencing and other communications over the Internet. Packets include data and header information which facilitates detection of packet loss, detection of packet status and synchronization of the packets. The video data streams may use H.261, H.262, or H.263 protocols. Audio data streams may use G.711, G.722, G.723.1 G.728 or G.729 protocols. Generally, the H.323 standard supports teleconferencing in networks that utilize TCP/IP, such as, for example, the Internet.
The H.323 system supports interoperability and assumes that users, terminals, and services are fixed. If an H.323 terminal is moved form one network to another, its point of attachment or network address changes. In this situation, the address of the mobile terminal needs to be resolved to set up a new call or continue a same call. Thus, there is a need for an H.323 mobility architecture that provides for terminal, user and service mobility for inter-domain mobility management.
The present invention provides an H.323-based mobility protocol for real-time inter-domain mobility management for a telephony network between the administrative domains.
Therefore, in one aspect the invention is an inter-domain mobility management method, comprising:
(a) a mobile H.323 entity for how the inter-domain communications need to be done in H.323 for mobility management. It has been shown the communication flows for mobility management considering the border elements (BEs), gate keepers (GKs), home location function (HLFs), and domains where each entity can be arranged in any logical architectural relationship: centralized, distributed, and/or hybrid architecture.
In addition, the messages like accessRequest and other are also need to be extended to let others know the RAS and the call signaling addresses of the mobile entity while it is visiting a foreign domain. Furthermore, it is the critical need for a mobile entity to have an option whether it will let others to know its present location in a foreign domain while it is away from its home domain because the communications can also be done via its home network address that it may want make to public.
This invention also shows various relationships for communications between border elements (BEs), home location function (HLFs), visitor location function (VLFs), and gate keepers (GKs).
H.225.0 Annex G provides the communications between the administrative domains via the border elements (BEs). A domain may have one or more border elements (BEs) while these border elements (BEs) may have the logical relationship, such as, (a) centralized, (b) distributed, or (c) hybrid architecture.
A Border element (BE) is usually co-located with a gatekeeper (GK). If they are not co-located, the communications between the border element (BE) and the gatekeeper (GK) will be done using the H.225.0 RAS signaling messages (e.g., LRQ/LCF/LRJ) for the address resolution and location update.
However, it is felt that it would be more efficient to use the H.225.0 Annex G messages between the gatekeepers (GKs) as well as between the gatekeeper (GK) and the border element (BE).
Furthermore, the administrative domains can also be arranged among themselves, such as (a) centralized, (b) distributed, or (c) hybrid.architectural relationship from logical communications point of view.
There may also be overlapping administrative domains and more than one administrative domain that may be able to resolve a given address.
A border element (BE) element configures itself with all address information obtaining the address templates in the following ways (a) static configuration with explicit provisioning with address templates for all zones for which it is responsible, (b) receiving descriptors containing the address information from other border elements (BEs) in response to general requests, and (c) receiving responses to specific queries.
It is important to understand that home location function (HLFs)/visitor location function (visitor location function (VLFs)) can be accessed equally by border elements (BEs) and gatekeepers (GKs). However, a mobile entity can only communicate with the gatekeeper (GK) directly (not the border element (BE)).
The H.323-based mobility Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity registers with the H.323 Visiting/Foreign Gatekeeper including sending registration information for the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity using a Base Station to Base Station Controller to Mobile Switching Center to H.323 Visiting/Foreign Gatekeeper system. Wherein registering with the at least one H.323 Visiting/Foreign Gatekeeper includes sending registration information for the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity using a wireless/wire-line Local Area Network to Router/Switch to H.323 Visiting/Foreign Gatekeeper system. Furthermore, the registering includes the steps of: broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting /sending, by the Home Gatekeeper, a Mobility Gatekeeper Advertisement (MGA) message periodically; broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting/sending a registration request message (RRQ) to the Home Gatekeeper by the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity; and sending, by the Home Gatekeeper, a registration confirmation/registration rejection (RCF/RRJ) to the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity. The registering steps can also include the steps of: upon determining, by the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity, that a network point of attachment has changed/a foreign zone has been entered, broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting /sending, by the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity, a registration request message (RRQ) to a Foreign/Visiting Gatekeeper; broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting /sending, by the Foreign/Visiting Gatekeeper, a binding update message (BURQ) to the Home Gatekeeper; broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting/sending, by the Home Gatekeeper, a binding update confirmation/rejection (BuCF/BuRJ) to the Foreign/Visiting Gatekeeper; broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting/sending, by the Foreign/Visiting Gatekeeper, the binding update confirmation/rejection to the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity.
The H.323-based mobility Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity would also include a situation wherein, where the Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity has already visited another zone regulated by a Visited Gatekeeper within the first administrative domain, registering includes: broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting/sending, by the Home Gatekeeper, a mobility unbinding message (UbRQ) to the Visited Gatekeeper; and broadcasting/multicasting/unicasting/sending, by the Visited Gatekeeper, a mobility unbinding confirmation/rejection (UbCF/UbRJ) to the Home Gatekeeper. Or, where the H.323-based Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity has already visited another zone regulated by a Visited Gatekeeper within the first administrative domain, registering would include:
The H.323-based Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity having already visited another zone regulated by a Visited Gatekeeper within the first administrative domain, and wherein registration could include:
The H.323-based mobility Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity wherein at least one Visiting/Foreign Gatekeeper utilizes a combined HomeVisitor Location Database. The H.323-based mobility Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity wherein a plurality of Visiting/Foreign Gatekeepers each utilize an individual Visitor Location Database and share a Home Location Database. The H.323-based mobility Mobile Terminal/Node/Entity wherein the communication utilizes an Internet Protocol.
This invention provides a communication link between a telephone device and/or another telephone device(s) and/or server(s). It also allows for programming a telephone device to accept or reject communications between administrative domains. This invention also allows a mobile entity unit to be in communication with a telephone network, especially when a user moves between different administrative domains.
While the present invention has been particularly described, in conjunction with a specific preferred embodiment, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description. It is therefore contemplated that the appended claims will embrace any such alternatives, modifications and variations as falling within the true scope and spirit of the present invention.
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