Patent ID: 9642031
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. A data offload method, comprising: detecting, by a user equipment (UE), one or more available wireless local area network (WLAN) access points (APs); sending offload request signaling in response to one or more first WLAN APs of the available WLAN APs having respective signal strengths at the UE that exceed a predetermined threshold and having respective signal strengths at the UE that exceed a signal strength of a WLAN AP serving the UE, the offload request signaling including one or more WLAN AP notifications each including an identifier of a respective one of the first WLAN APs and an indicator of the signal strength of the respective one of the first WLAN APs; receiving offload configuration signaling sent by a base station, the offload configuration signaling providing an indication to perform wireless network offload configuration for offload to a second WLAN AP selected from the first WLAN APs by the base station according to at least one of a signal quality of the first WLAN APs and load of the first WLAN APs and further according to at least one of a base station configuration and network topology information, and performing the offload configuration according to the offload configuration signaling; and offloading data according to the offload configuration; wherein the offload configuration signaling includes an offload allowing configuration including a first identifier of the second WLAN AP indicating at least one target for offloading data to, the first identifier including at least one of an identifier of a service access point allowing offload, an identifier of a network service node for offloading data, and an identifier of a service data stream allowing offload.