Patent ID: 11089527

Abstract:
An access network can allocate a bearer for a network service associated with a quality-of-service (QoS) value (QV) and a retention-priority value (RPV), and determine a bearer ID for the service based on the QV, the RPV, and a supplemental priority value (SPV) different from the QV and from the RPV. Upon handover of a terminal, session(s) carried by a bearer allocated by the terminal can be terminated. That bearer can be selected using IDs of the bearers and a comparison function that, given two bearer IDs, determines which respective bearer should be terminated before the other. Upon handover of a terminal to an access network supporting fewer bearers per terminal than the terminal has allocated, a network node can select a bearer based on respective QVs and RPVs of a set of allocated bearers. The network node can deallocate the selected bearer.