Patent ID: 11930392
Assignee: NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 14:
15. An apparatus, comprising:
at least one processor; and at least one memory including a computer program code, wherein the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to perform at least:
configuring a quality-of-service flow within a packet data unit session in a mobile communication system by using a quality-of-service profile of deterministic communication based on setting information of the quality-of-service profile of deterministic communication, in which minimum required latency and maximum allowed latency for delivery of user plane data packets are defined,
said quality-of-service flow being for delivery of user plane data packets including data of a time-sensitive communication system,
receiving, from an ingress node of the time-sensitive communication system, a user plane data packet in the configured quality-of-service flow within the packet data unit session, and
processing the received user plane data packet in accordance with the quality-of-service profile of deterministic communication by using a delivery-related parameter in the user plane data packet,
said delivery-related parameter being indicative of a time attribute of the user plane data packet,
wherein the processing of the received user plane data packet comprises:
calculating a current packet delay representing a difference between a current time and a reference time with respect to an ingress arrival time which is indicated by a time stamp inserted in the user plane data packet,
wherein the delivery-related parameter comprises the time stamp, when the calculated current packet delay is smaller than the defined maximum allowed latency:
forwarding the user plane data packet, in which the time stamp is inserted, without changing the time stamp, to a next user plane node in the mobile communication system towards a session downstream side, if the calculated current packet delay is smaller than the defined maximum allowed latency, or
buffering the user plane data packet for a buffering time representing a difference between the defined minimum required latency and the current time, if the calculated current packet delay is smaller than the defined minimum required latency, and
forwarding the user plane data packet to an egress node of the time-sensitive communication system; and

when the calculated current packet delay is equal to or larger than the defined maximum allowed latency, discarding the user plane data packet.