Patent ID: 7957350
Filing Date: 2011-06-07
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A method for ranking a plurality of available access networks by a provider, the provider serving a user equipment and the user equipment being configured to connect to at least one of the plurality of available access networks, the method comprising: receiving a selection request at a selection entity of the provider, wherein the selection request includes a vector parameter P that includes required characteristics of a data flow for the user equipment; sending from the selection entity a capability request, including the vector parameter P, to the plurality of available access networks; receiving at the selection entity a capability response from the plurality of available access networks, wherein each capability response includes a normalized value generated by a selection function S(Q) expressing as a percentage a capability of a corresponding available access network to provide the required characteristics of the data flow and wherein the normalized value is calculated based on information available only within the corresponding access network according to wherein Q is a data flow vector including the vector parameter P and defining the data flow; i is an index of a parameter of the input vector Q; m is a total number of parameters of the input vector Q; w f generating a ranking list of the available access networks based on the received normalized values.