Patent ID: 9661546
Date: 2017-05-23
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. A method comprising: receiving configuration information by a user equipment (UE), the configuration information applies to selecting wireless local area network (WLAN) or 3GPP Radio Access Technology (RAT); determining if the UE may perform WLAN offload by evaluating 3GPP Radio Access Network (RAN) conditions where at least one RAN condition is related to a radio signal strength or radio signal quality in 3GPP RAT; determining if there is at least one suitable WLAN cell by evaluating WLAN conditions; receiving additional conditions from a Mobility Management Entity (MME) via Non-Access Stratum (NAS) signaling in response to an uplink NAS message sent to the MME; determining if there is candidate traffic for WLAN offload based on the additional conditions; and steering the determined candidate traffic to WLAN if the UE may perform WLAN offload and if there is at least one suitable WLAN cell, otherwise steering the determined traffic to 3GPP RAT.