Patent ID: 9479973
Filing Date: 2016-10-25
CPC Classification: H04W

Claim Text:
1. A method, in a source base station in a wireless communications network, for providing a handover for a sub-set of bearers associated with a wireless terminal being served by the source base station, said sub-set of bearers being less than or equal to all bearers associated with the wireless terminal, the method comprising: determining a need for a handover procedure; selecting the sub-set of bearers associated with the wireless terminal; and sending, to a target base station, a handover request for the sub-set of bearers, wherein at least one bearer of the wireless terminal remains connected to the source base station; wherein selecting the sub-bearers comprises analyzing predetermined rules for selecting the sub-set of bearers and selecting the sub-set of bearers based on the analyzing, said predetermined rules comprising any one or more of: selecting non-guaranteed bit rate bearers; selecting guaranteed bit rate bearers; selecting guaranteed bit rate bearers with a maximum bit rate above or below a threshold level; selecting guaranteed bit rate bearers with a guaranteed with rate above or below a threshold level; and selecting bearers with respect to a Quality of Service class identifier.