Patent ID: 8243680

Claim:
A method for relocating a traffic transmission path during or after a handover process in a mobile communications system having network entities and at least one terminal, the method comprising: sending an access gateway (AG) relocation request message from a target Node B to a target access gateway, wherein the AG relocation request message includes information related to the at least one terminal including authentication information, security information, compression-related information, service information, and Tracking Area (TA) information; sending an AG path optimization request message from the target access gateway to a source access gateway, wherein the AG path optimization request message includes User Equipment (UE) context information, identification information, authentication information, and security information; sending an AG path switching message from at least one of the target access gateway and the source access gateway to a higher entity; establishing, by the higher entity, an optimized traffic transmission path between the at least one terminal and the higher entity, wherein the higher entity is an Inter-Autonomous System (Inter-AS) located higher than an access gateway (AG), wherein the higher entity determines the optimized traffic transmission path based upon a traffic load condition, and wherein the traffic load condition is determined by a traffic overload situation, a user overload situation and a capacity of at least the source access gateway or the target access gateway; sending an AG path optimization response message from the source access gateway to the target access gateway in response to the AG path optimization request message, wherein the AG path optimization response message includes authentication information and security information; adding a terminal into a list of the target access gateway immediately after the AG path optimization response message is received from the source access gateway and/or removing a terminal from a list of the source access gateway immediately after the AG path optimization response message is received by the target access gateway; and re-establishing the optimized traffic transmission path when the higher entity determines that the traffic load condition has been substantially changed, wherein all the steps are performed when the terminal is in a Quasi-active mode.