Patent ID: 8072923

Claim:
A packet radio network for providing a facility for communicating internet packets to and/or from a mobile user equipment, the packet radio network comprising a gateway support node operable to provide a packet data protocol context for controlling the communication of the internet packets to and/or from the packet radio network from and/or to the mobile user equipment via a packet communications bearer, a serving support node operable to control communications of the internet packets to and from the gateway support node to and/or from mobile user equipment to form the packet communications bearer, and a radio network controller operable to provide a radio access bearer for communicating the internet packets via a radio access interface to and/or from the mobile user equipment, wherein in response to a packet data protocol activation request message requesting a common packet data protocol context, the serving support node is operable in combination with the gateway support node to establish a common packet data protocol context in association with a common packet communications bearer, the common packet data protocol context being established to communicate internet protocol packets via the common packet communications bearer, the common packet communications bearer being shared with at least one other communications session and being formed by the gateway support node and the serving support node using a common tunnelling protocol bearer, and the gateway support node is operable to communicate internet protocol packets via the common packet communications bearer for a plurality of communications sessions, at least one of the communications sessions using a different internet protocol version to another of the communications sessions, the common tunnelling protocol bearer being operable to communicate the internet packets for the plurality of communications sessions for the different internet protocol versions via the common packet communications bearer.