PATENT DOCUMENT

Publication Number: US-11490296-B2
Application Number: US-201716489208-A
Country: US
Kind Code: B2

Title: Apparatuses for partially offloading protocol processing

Abstract:
Apparatuses for partially offloading processing from a user equipment (UE) to a cellular Radio Access Network (RAN) node is disclosed. An apparatus for a UE includes at least one processor configured to perform Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) processing and offload only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node while maintaining TCP protocols running end-to-end between the UE and a remote host.

Claims:
The invention claimed is: 
     
       1. An apparatus for a user equipment (UE), comprising:
 a baseband processor configured to communicate with a cellular Radio Access Network (RAN) node using a communication transceiver; and 
 one or more processors operably coupled to the baseband processor and configured to:
 perform a first portion of Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) processing; 
 send, to the cellular RAN node, a request that the cellular RAN node perform a second portion of the TCP/IP processing, the request comprising a partial offload activation request bitmap indicating the second portion of the TCP/IP processing; 
 offload the second portion of the TCP/IP processing to the cellular RAN node; and 
 maintain TCP protocols running end-to-end between the UE and a remote host. 
 
 
     
     
       2. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors comprise an application processor configured to perform the first portion of the TCP/IP processing and offload the second portion of the TCP/IP processing. 
     
     
       3. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of
 TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a transmit IP checksum. 
 
     
     
       4. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of
 TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a transmit TCP checksum. 
 
     
     
       5. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a transmit User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum. 
     
     
       6. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of
 TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a receive IP checksum. 
 
     
     
       7. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a receive TCP checksum. 
     
     
       8. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a receive User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum. 
     
     
       9. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a TCP transmit segmentation. 
     
     
       10. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a TCP receive concatenation. 
     
     
       11. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the second portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a TCP acknowledgement (ACK) reconstruction. 
     
     
       12. The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors comprise an application processor, wherein the application processor is configured to offload the second portion of the TCP/IP processing to the baseband processor, and the baseband processor is configured to offload the second portion of the TCP/IP processing to the RAN node.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD 
     The disclosure relates generally to partially offloading processing of Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) from user equipment to a network node (e.g., to a cellular base station). In particular, the present disclosure relates to partially offloading TCP/IP processing to at least one Radio Access Network (RAN) node within a wireless communication system, and related signaling. 
     BACKGROUND 
     In recent years, demand for access to fast mobile wireless data for mobile electronic devices has fueled the development of the 3GPP LTE communication system (hereinafter “LTE system”). End users access the LTE system using mobile electronic devices (known as “user equipment” or equivalently “UE”) including appropriate electronics and software to communicate according to standards set forth by 3GPP. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a simplified block diagram of a wireless communication system, according to some embodiments. 
         FIG. 2  is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 3  is an illustration of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 4  is an illustration of a user plane complete TCP/IP offload protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 5  is an illustration of a user plane partial TCP/IP offload protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 6  is simplified signal flow diagram illustrating signaling for a TCP/IP partial offload in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 7  is a simplified signal flow diagram illustrating signaling for a handover in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 8  illustrates example components of a device in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 9  illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. 
         FIG. 10  is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     In the following detailed description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the present disclosure may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those of ordinary skill in the art to practice the disclosure made herein. It should be understood, however, that the detailed description and the specific examples, while indicating examples of embodiments of the disclosure, are given by way of illustration only, and not by way of limitation. From the disclosure, various substitutions, modifications, additions, rearrangements, or combinations thereof within the scope of the disclosure may be made and will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. 
     In accordance with common practice, the various features illustrated in the drawings may not be drawn to scale. The illustrations presented herein are not meant to be actual views of any particular apparatus (e.g., device, system, etc.) or method, but are merely idealized representations that are employed to describe various embodiments of the disclosure. Accordingly, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily expanded or reduced for clarity. In addition, some of the drawings may be simplified for clarity. Thus, the drawings may not depict all of the components of a given apparatus or all operations of a particular method. 
     Information and signals described herein may be represented using any of a variety of different technologies and techniques. For example, data, instructions, commands, information, signals, bits, symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout the description may be represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or any combination thereof. Some drawings may illustrate signals as a single signal for clarity of presentation and description. It should be understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art that the signal may represent a bus of signals, wherein the bus may have a variety of bit widths, and the present disclosure may be implemented on any number of data signals including a single data signal. 
     The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits, and algorithm acts described in connection with embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and acts are described generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the embodiments of the disclosure described herein. 
     In addition, it is noted that the embodiments may be described in terms of a process that is depicted as a flowchart, a flow diagram, a structure diagram, a signaling diagram, or a block diagram. Although a flowchart or signaling diagram may describe operational acts as a sequential process, many of these acts can be performed in another sequence, in parallel, or substantially concurrently. In addition, the order of the acts may be rearranged. A process may correspond to a method, a function, a procedure, a subroutine, a subprogram, etc. Furthermore, the methods disclosed herein may be implemented in hardware, software, or both. If implemented in software, the functions may be stored or transmitted as one or more computer-readable instructions (e.g., software code) on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media (i.e., non-transitory media) and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. 
     Next generation cellular radio access technology (RAT) (e.g., 5G system) is targeted to achieve a much higher peak data rate (e.g., 10 gigabits per second (Gbps)) than today&#39;s LTE system. However, it is generally accepted in the industry that 1 Hertz (Hz) of central processing unit (CPU) processing is required to send or receive 1 bit per second (bps) of TCP/IP data. For example, 5 Gbps of network traffic requires 5 gigahertz (GHz) of CPU processing. This implies that two entire cores of a 2.5 GHz multi-core processor may be used to handle the TCP/IP processing associated with 5 Gbps of TCP/IP traffic. 
     A TCP offload engine (TOE) may be used within network interface cards to offload processing of the entire TCP/IP stack to a network controller. TOEs may be used with high-speed network interfaces, such as gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, where processing overhead of the network stack is significant. TOE may be used with the next generation RAT cellular network interface to reduce the CPU cycles of an application processor (AP) of a UE. However, the use of a TOE may increase the CPU cycles of the communication processor (CP) within the UE, and therefore consume substantial processing resource and power from the UE. 
     The UE&#39;s processing resources and power may be conserved by offloading partial TCP/IP functions (e.g., checksum, etc.) from the UE to a cellular base station (a Radio Access Node, such as an evolved NodeB (eNB), a next generation eNB (gNB), etc.), while keeping the TCP/IP protocols running end-to-end (e2e) between the UE and the remote host. In one embodiment, partial offloading may be accomplished through radio resource control (RRC) messages, which allow the UE and the base station to negotiate offloading TCP/IP functions and corresponding configuration parameters.  FIG. 1  illustrates a system  100  in which this partial offload of TCP/IP functions may be implemented. 
       FIG. 1  illustrates an architecture of a system  100  of a network in accordance with some embodiments. The system  100  is shown to include a UE  101  and a UE  102 . The UEs  101  and  102  are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers, wireless handsets, or any computing device including a wireless communications interface. 
     In some embodiments, any of the UEs  101  and  102  can comprise an Internet of Things (IoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity-Based Service (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network. 
     The UEs  101  and  102  may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively couple, with a radio access network (RAN)  110 . The RAN  110  may be, for example, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a NextGen RAN (NG RAN), or some other type of RAN. The UEs  101  and  102  utilize connections  103  and  104 , respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, the connections  103  and  104  are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and the like. 
     In this embodiment, the UEs  101  and  102  may further directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface  105 . The ProSe interface  105  may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PSSCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel (PSBCH). 
     The UE  102  is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP)  106  via connection  107 . The connection  107  can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP  106  would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP  106  is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below). 
     The RAN  110  can include one or more access nodes that enable the connections  103  and  104 . These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to as base stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), next Generation NodeBs (gNB), RAN nodes, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). The RAN  110  may include one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., a macro RAN node  111 , and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells or picocells (e.g., cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., low power (LP) RAN node  112 . 
     Any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs  101  and  102 . In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN  110  including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management. 
     In accordance with some embodiments, the UEs  101  and  102  can be configured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers. 
     In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink transmissions from any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  to the UEs  101  and  102 , while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDM systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resources that currently can be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks. 
     The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs  101  and  102 . The physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) may carry information about the transport format and resource allocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It may also inform the UEs  101  and  102  about the transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to the UE  102  within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes  111  and  112  based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs  101  and  102 . The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs  101  and  102 . 
     The PDCCH may use control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using a sub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as resource element groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L=1, 2, 4, or 8). 
     Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for control channel information that are an extension of the above-described concepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhanced control channel elements (ECCEs). Similar to above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as enhanced resource element groups (EREGs). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations. 
     The RAN  110  is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network (CN)  120 —via an S1 interface  113 . In embodiments, the CN  120  may be an evolved packet core (EPC) network, a NextGen Packet Core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN. In this embodiment the S1 interface  113  is split into two parts: an S1-U interface  114 , which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes  111  and  112  and a serving gateway (S-GW)  122 , and an S1-mobility management entity (MME) interface  115 , which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes  111  and  112  and MMEs  121 . 
     In this embodiment, the CN  120  comprises the MMEs  121 , the S-GW  122 , a Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW)  123 , and a home subscriber server (HSS)  124 . The MMEs  121  may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs  121  may manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS  124  may comprise a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities&#39; handling of communication sessions. The CN  120  may comprise one or several HSSs  124 , depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS  124  can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc. 
     The S-GW  122  may terminate the S1 interface  113  towards the RAN  110 , and route data packets between the RAN  110  and the CN  120 . In addition, the S-GW  122  may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement. 
     The P-GW  123  may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN. The P-GW  123  may route data packets between the CN  120  (e.g., an EPC network) and external networks such as a network including an application server  130  (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface  125 . Generally, the application server  130  may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this embodiment, the P-GW  123  is shown to be communicatively coupled to the application server  130  via the IP communications interface  125 . The application server  130  can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs  101  and  102  via the CN  120 . 
     The P-GW  123  may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. A Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCRF)  126  is the policy and charging control element of the CN  120 . In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE&#39;s Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE&#39;s IP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within a HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF  126  may be communicatively coupled to the application server  130  via the P-GW  123 . The application server  130  may signal the PCRF  126  to indicate a new service flow and select the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) and charging parameters. The PCRF  126  may provision this rule into a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) (not shown) with the appropriate traffic flow template (TFT) and QoS class of identifier (QCI), which commences the QoS and charging as specified by the application server  130 . 
     As used herein, the term “circuitry” may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with the circuitry may be implemented by, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, circuitry may include logic, at least partially operable in hardware. 
     In some embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may comprise communication devices configured to communicate with at least one of the RAN nodes  111 / 112  through connections  103 / 104 , respectively. The UE  101 / 102  may further comprise one or more processors operably coupled to the communication devices and configured to perform TCP/IP processing. The one or more processors may also be configured to offload only a portion of the TCP/IP processing (e.g., checksum) to the RAN node  111 / 112 . The one or more processors may be further configured to maintain TCP protocols running e2e between the UE  101 / 102  and a remote host (e.g., the application server  130 ). 
     In accordance with some embodiments, a computer-readable storage medium of the UE  101 / 102  has computer-readable instructions stored thereon. The computer-readable instructions are configured to instruct one or more processors within the UE  101 / 102  to extract a partial TCP/IP offload capability indication from a message received from the RAN node  111 / 112 . The partial TCP/IP offload capability indication is configured to indicate partial offload features that the RAN node  111 / 112  supports. The computer-readable instructions are also configured to instruct the one or more processors to generate a partial offload request indicating which of the partial TCP/IP offload features indicated by the partial TCP/IP offload capability indication are requested by the UE  101 / 102 . The computer-readable instructions are further configured to instruct the one or more processors to decode a partial offload acknowledgment (ACK) from a message received from the RAN node  111 / 112 . The partial offload ACK is configured to confirm that the requested TCP/IP partial offload features are in operation. 
     In some embodiments a cellular base station (e.g., the RAN node  111 / 112 ) may comprise a data storage device configured to store data indicating supported partial TCP/IP offload features that are supported by the base station to enable partial offloading of TCP/IP processing from the UE  101 / 102 . The cellular base station includes one or more processors operably coupled to the data storage device. The one or more processors are configured to generate a message to be transmitted to the UE. The message is configured to indicate the supported partial TCP/IP offload features. The processors are also configured to decode a partial TCP/IP offload request received from the UE  101 / 102 . The partial TCP/IP offload request is configured to indicate requested TCP/IP offload features of the supported partial TCP/IP offload features that the UE  101 / 102  requests to activate. The processors are further configured to activate the requested TCP/IP offload features and generate an ACK message to be transmitted to the UE. The ACK message is configured to confirm that the requested TCP/IP offload features are activated. 
     In some embodiments, the UE  101 / 102  may partially offload TCP/IP processing to the RAN node  111 / 112 . For example, the UE  101  may comprise one or more processors (e.g., an application processor, a baseband processor, etc.) configured to offload a portion of the TCP/IP processing (e.g., transmit IP checksum, transmit TCP checksum, etc.) to the RAN node  111 / 112 . In some embodiments the UE  101 / 102  may comprise processors configured to offload a portion of the TCP/IP processing to the RAN node  111 / 112  and/or other processors within the UE  101 / 102 , which in turn may also be configured to offload a portion of the TCP/IP processing delegated thereto to the RAN node  111 / 112 . For example, the UE  101  may comprise an application processor configured to offload a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a baseband processor, which is in turn configured to offload a portion of the TCP/IP processing offloaded thereto to the RAN node  111 / 112 . 
       FIG. 2  is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a control plane  200  is shown as a communications protocol stack between a UE  801 / 802  (similar to the UE  101 / 102  of  FIG. 1 ), a RAN node  811 / 812  (similar to the RAN node  111 / 112  of  FIG. 1 ), and an MME  821  (similar to the MME  121  of  FIG. 1 ). 
     A physical (PHY) layer  201  may transmit or receive information used by a Medium Access Control (MAC) layer  202  over one or more air interfaces. The PHY layer  201  may further perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as a Radio Resource Control (RRC) layer  205 . The PHY layer  201  may still further perform error detection on the transport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding/decoding of the transport channels, modulation/demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels, and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna processing. 
     The MAC layer  202  may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MAC service data units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels onto transport blocks (TB) to be delivered to PHY via transport channels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or more logical channels from transport blocks (TB) delivered from the PHY via transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction through hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), and logical channel prioritization. 
     A Radio Link Control (RLC) layer  203  may operate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC layer  203  may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers, and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers. The RLC layer  203  may also execute re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for AM data transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment. 
     A packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer  204  may execute header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs at re-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layer SDUs at re-establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based discard of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.). 
     The main services and functions of the RRC layer  205  may include broadcast of system information (e.g., included in Master Information Blocks (MIBs) or System Information Blocks (SIBs) related to the non-access stratum (NAS)), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRC connection between the UE and E-UTRAN (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter radio access technology (RAT) mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting. Said MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or more information elements (IEs), which may each comprise individual data fields or data structures. 
     The UE  801 / 802  and the RAN node  811 / 812  may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., an LTE-Uu interface) to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer  201 , the MAC layer  202 , the RLC layer  203 , the PDCP layer  204 , and the RRC layer  205 . 
     In the embodiment shown, the non-access stratum (NAS) protocols  206  form the highest stratum of the control plane between the UE  101  and the MME  821 . The NAS protocols  206  support the mobility of the UE  801 / 802  and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE  101  and the P-GW  123 . 
     The S1 Application Protocol (S1-AP) layer  215  may support the functions of the S1 interface and comprise Elementary Procedures (EPs). An EP is a unit of interaction between the RAN node  811 / 812  and the CN  120 . The S1-AP layer services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services and non UE-associated services. These services perform functions including, but not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transfer. 
     The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) layer (alternatively referred to as the stream control transmission protocol/internet protocol (SCTP/IP) layer)  214  may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node  811 / 812  and the MME  821  based, in part, on the IP protocol, supported by an IP layer  213 . An L2 layer  212  and an L1 layer  211  may refer to communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) used by the RAN node and the MME  821  to exchange information. 
     The RAN node  811 / 812  and the MME  821  may utilize an S1-MME interface to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the L1 layer  211 , the L2 layer  212 , the IP layer  213 , the SCTP layer  214 , and the S1-AP layer  215 . 
       FIG. 3  is an illustration of a user plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a user plane  300  is shown as a communications protocol stack between the UE  801 / 802 , the RAN node  811 / 812 , an S-GW  822  (similar to the S-GW  122  of  FIG. 1 ), and a P-GW  823  (similar to the P-GW  123  of  FIG. 1 ). The user plane  300  may utilize at least some of the same protocol layers as the control plane  200 . For example, the UE  801 / 802  and the RAN node  811 / 812  may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., an LTE-Uu interface) to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer  201 , the MAC layer  202 , the RLC layer  203 , and the PDCP layer  204 . 
     The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol for the user plane (GTP-U) layer  304  may be used for carrying user data within the GPRS core network and between the radio access network and the core network. The user data transported can be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example. The UDP and IP security (UDP/IP) layer  303  may provide checksums for data integrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the source and destination, and encryption and authentication on the selected data flows. The RAN node  811 / 812  and the S-GW  822  may utilize an S1-U interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the L1 layer  211 , the L2 layer  212 , the UDP/IP layer  303 , and the GTP-U layer  304 . The S-GW  822  and the P-GW  823  may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising the L1 layer  211 , the L2 layer  212 , the UDP/IP layer  303 , and the GTP-U layer  304 . As discussed above with respect to  FIG. 2 , NAS protocols support the mobility of the UE  101  and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE  801 / 802  and the P-GW  823 . 
       FIG. 4  is an illustration of a user plane complete offload protocol stack  400  in accordance with some embodiments. The stack  400  illustrates a RAN-based TCP/IP offload architecture along with corresponding air-interface enhancements to the offload TCP/IP stack completely out of the UE  101 / 102 , and to a base station  111 / 112  (e.g., an evolved NodeB (eNB) in 4G or a next generation evolved NodeB (gNB) in 5G). The stack  400  of  FIG. 4  corresponds to a RAN-based complete, not partial, TCP Offload Protocol (RTOP) to enable transferring application data directly over the cellular link without any TCP/IP processing at the UE  101 / 102  ( FIG. 1 ). As shown in  FIG. 4 , the end-to-end connection is split into two: a TCP/IP loop  406  between base station  111 / 112  and remote host  412 , and an RTOP loop  404  between the UE  101 / 102  and the base station  111 / 112 . Disclosed herein is a framework to support partially offloading stateless TCP/IP processing from the UE  101 / 102  to the base station  111 / 112  while maintaining the rest of the TCP/IP functions at the UE  101 / 102  (e.g. TCP/IP encapsulation/decapsulation, TCP ACK processing, etc.). 
       FIG. 5  is an illustration of a user plane partial TCP/IP offload protocol stack  500  in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the RTOP loop  404  may be enhanced on the base station  111 / 112  side to process one or more partial offload tasks. By way of non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a transmit (Tx) IP (v4/v6) checksum, which may calculate and set the checksum field of the IPv4/v6 header of an out-bound (uplink) PDCP service data unit (SDU). Also by way of non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a Tx TCP checksum, which may calculate and set the checksum field of the TCP header of an out-bound (uplink) PDCP SDU. As another non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a Tx User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum, which may calculate and set the checksum field of the TCP header of an out-bound (uplink) PDCP SDU. As yet another limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a receive (Rx) IP (v4/v6) checksum, which may validate the checksum field of the IPv4/v6 header of an in-bound (downlink) PDCP SDU and drop it if an error occurs. As a further, non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include an Rx TCP checksum, which may validate the checksum field of the TCP header of an in-bound (downlink) PDCP SDU and drop it if an error occurs. As yet another non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include an Rx UDP checksum, which may validate the checksum field of the UDP header of an in-bound (downlink) PDCP SDU, and drop it if an error occurs. As yet a further non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a TCP Tx segmentation, which may segment an uplink TCP-type PDCP SDU (e.g., IP packets) larger than the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size into smaller PDCP SDUs, the size of which is no more than the MTU size. As yet another non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a TCP Rx concatenation, which may combine multiple downlink TCP PDCP SDUs (IP packets) of a TCP flow into a big TCP PDCP SDU. As another non-limiting example, the partial offload tasks may include a TCP ACK reconstruction, which may generate a TCP ACK and send it back on the reverse path so that UE  101 / 102  can drop (uplink) TCP ACKs. It should be noted that both Tx segmentation and Rx concatenation are performed separately for individual TCP flow. 
       FIG. 6  is a simplified signal flow diagram illustrating signaling  600  for a TCP/IP partial offload  606  in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, partial offloading  616  may be accomplished by introducing enhanced RRC signaling as a new information element in an existing RRC message, which allows the UE  602  and the base station  604  to negotiate offloading TCP/IP functions and corresponding configuration parameters. In another embodiment, partial offloading  616  may be accomplished by introducing enhanced RRC signaling as a new RRC message, which allows the UE  602  and the RAN node (e.g., base station)  604  to negotiate offloading TCP/IP functions and corresponding configuration parameters. 
     The enhanced RRC signaling  600  for a TCP/IP partial offload  616  may include a RAN Node  604  generating and transmitting, to a UE  602 , a Partial Offload Capability Indication massage  606 , which may include a Partial Offload Capability Bitmap  608 . Bits of the Partial Offload Capability Bitmap  608  may indicate whether certain offload features are supported by the RAN Node  604 . The UE  602  may receive and process the Partial Offload Capability Indication  606 . The enhanced RRC signaling  600  for a TCP/IP partial offload  616  may also include the UE  602  generating and transmitting, to the RAN node  604 , a Partial Offload Request  610 , which may include a Partial Offload Activation Request Bitmap  612 . The Partial Offload Request  610  may request activation of the partial offload of one or multiple offload features that were indicated in the Partial Offload capability Indication  606  from the RAN node  604 . The RAN node  604  may receive and process the Partial Offload Request  610 , and start the requested RAN-based TCP/IP partial offload  616 . The enhanced RRC signaling  600  for a TCP/IP partial offload  616  may further include the RAN node  604  generating and transmitting, to the UE  602 , a Partial Offload ACK message  614 , which confirms that the requested RAN-based TCP/IP partial offload  616  has started. 
       FIG. 7  is a simplified signal flow diagram  700  illustrating signaling for a handover in accordance with some embodiments. This discussion of  FIG. 7  will focus on handover enhancements for a TCP/IP partial offload  714  (including a handoff (HO) decision  712 ), a handover request  720 , a handover request acknowledgement (Ack) message  722 , an RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716 , and an RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message  718 ). These operations and signals may be performed by a UE  702 , a source RAN node  704 , and a target RAN node  706  that are specifically pertinent to how partial offload may be handled during handover.  FIG. 7  also illustrates an MME  708 , and a serving gateway  710 , although these elements are not focused on in this discussion. Also, operations and signals  724  (including measurement control message, packet data, UL allocation, measurement reports, DL allocation, SN status transfer, data forwarding, synchronization, UL allocation-TA for UE, path switch request, user plane update request, end marker, packet data, end marker, user plane update response, path switch request Ack, and UE connect release) are not discussed in detail herein. 
     AN HO decision  712  is made (e.g., by the source RAN node  704 ) to handover service of the UE  702  form the source RAN node  704  to the target RAN node  706 . In some embodiments, one or more processors of the source RAN node  704  may generate a handover request  720  to be transmitted to the target RAN node  706  (e.g., eNb, gNb, etc.). The handover request  720  may be configured to request a handover of the UE  702  from the source RAN node  704  to the target RAN node  706 . The target RAN node  706  may be configured to receive the handover request  720 , and transmit a handover request acknowledgement (ACK)  722  to the source RAN node  704 . The one or more processors of the source RAN node  704  may also be configured to decode the handover request acknowledgment message  722  received from the target RAN node  706 . The one or more processors of the source RAN node  704  may also generate an RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716  to be transmitted to the UE  702 . The RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716  may be configured to indicate that a handover is pending. The one or more processors of the source RAN node  704  may also be configured to deactivate the requested TCP/IP offload features in response to a transmission of the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716  to the UE  702 . 
     The UE  702  may include a computer-readable storage medium (e.g., non-transitory) having computer readable instructions stored thereon. The computer-readable instructions are configured to instruct one or processors of the UE  702  to decode the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716  received from the source RAN node  704 . The computer readable instructions may also be configured to instruct the one or processors to deactivate the requested TCP/IP partial offload features during the handover in response to the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716 . 
     In some embodiments, the computer-readable instructions may also be configured to instruct the one or processors to generate an RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message  718  to indicate the UE  702  has deactivated the TCP/IP partial offload features for the handover to the Target RAN node  706 . The computer-readable instructions may also be configured to instruct the one or processors to cause the RCC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message  718  to be transmitted to the target RAN node  706 . The computer-readable instructions may be further configured to instruct the one or more processors to interact with the target RAN node  706  to activate partial TCP/IP offload to the target RAN node  706 . 
     In some embodiments, the handover request  720  may be configured to indicate the requested TCP/IP offload features received from the UE  702 , which are active at the source RAN node  704 . One or more processors of the target RAN node  706  may decode the handover request  720  received from the source RAN node  704 . The one or more processors of the target RAN node  706  may also be configured to generate a handover request Ack message  722  to be transmitted to the Source base station  704 . In such embodiments, the handover request Ack message  722  may be configured to indicate target supported TCP/IP offload features that are supported by the target RAN node  706 . Also, the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716  may be configured to indicate the target supported partial TCP/IP offload features. The one or more processors within the target RAN node  706  may also be configured to decode the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message  718  received from the UE  702 . The one or more processors within the target RAN node  706  may also be configured to activate those of the supported TCP/IP features corresponding to the active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the UE  702 . The one or more processors within the target RAN node  706  may also be configured to deactivate those of the active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the UE  702  that are not supported by the target RAN node  706 . 
     In some embodiments, handover from the source RAN node  704  to the target RAN node  706  may merely include the UE  702  and the source RAN node  704  ceasing to operate according to a partial TCP/IP offload, then the UE  702  and the target RAN node  706  establishing partial TCP/IP offload following the handover. 
     In some embodiments, at least one of the source RAN node  704  (e.g., eNb, gNb, etc.) and the UE  702  may stop the RAN-based TCP/IP partial offload operation after the UE  702  receives the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716  at the beginning of the handover, and the RAN-based TCP/IP partial offload may remain inactive until the handover has concluded. After the handover, the UE  702  may exchange at least one of the Partial Offload Request  610  and the Partial Offload ACK messages  614  with the target RAN node  706  (e.g., eNb, gNb, etc.) to activate the RAN-based TCP/IP partial offload. 
     In some embodiments, at least one of the handover enhancements may continue RAN-based TCP/IP partial offloading with the target RAN node  706  after handover without any additional signaling. For example, the source RAN node  704  may include the UE&#39;s  702  Partial Offload Activation Request Bitmap  612  in the handover request message  720 . As another example, the target RAN node  706  may include its Partial Offload Capability Bitmap  608  in the handover request ACK message  722 . If a partial offload feature is active at the source RAN node  704 , and available at the target RAN node  706 , the feature may be activated at the target RAN node  706  automatically after the handover is successful. Otherwise, the feature may be deactivated after handover. As yet another example, the source RAN node  704  may include the target RAN node&#39;s  706  Partial Offload Capability Bitmap  608  in the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message  716 . In response, if a feature is not active at the source RAN node  704 , but available at target RAN node  706 , the UE  702  may send the Partial Offload Request message  610  after handover or include the Partial Offload Activation Request Bitmap  612  in the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message  718  to request the feature. 
       FIG. 8  illustrates example components of a device  800  in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the device  800  may include application circuitry  802 , baseband circuitry  804 , Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry  806 , front-end module (FEM) circuitry  808 , one or more antennas  810 , and power management circuitry (PMC)  812  coupled together at least as shown. The components of the illustrated device  800  may be included in a UE or a RAN node. In some embodiments, the device  800  may include fewer elements (e.g., a RAN node may not utilize application circuitry  802 , and instead include a processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device  800  may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations). 
     The application circuitry  802  may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry  802  may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupled with or may include memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the device  800 . In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry  802  may process IP data packets received from an EPC. 
     The baseband circuitry  804  may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry  804  may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry  806  and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry  806 . Baseband processing circuitry  804  may interface with the application circuitry  802  for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry  806 . For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  804  may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor  804 A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor  804 B, a fifth generation (5G) baseband processor  804 C, or other baseband processor(s)  804 D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., second generation (2G), sixth generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry  804  (e.g., one or more of baseband processors  804 A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry  806 . In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors  804 A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory  804 G and executed via a CPU  804 E. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry  804  may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry  804  may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other embodiments. 
     In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  804  may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP)  804 F. The audio DSP(s)  804 F may be include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry  804  and the application circuitry  802  may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC). 
     In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  804  may provide for communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry  804  may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), or a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry  804  is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry. 
     RF circuitry  806  may enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry  806  may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. The RF circuitry  806  may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry  808  and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry  804 . RF circuitry  806  may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry  804  and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry  808  for transmission. 
     In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry  806  may include mixer circuitry  806 A, amplifier circuitry  806 B and filter circuitry  806 C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry  806  may include filter circuitry  806 C and mixer circuitry  806 A. RF circuitry  806  may also include synthesizer circuitry  806 D for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry  808  based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry  806 D. The amplifier circuitry  806 B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry  806 C may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry  804  for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. 
     In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry  806 D to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry  808 . The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry  804  and may be filtered by the filter circuitry  806 C. 
     In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  806 A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  806 A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  806 A may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry  806 A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry  806 A of the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyne operation. 
     In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry  806  may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry  804  may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry  806 . 
     In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. 
     In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry  806 D may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry  806 D may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider. 
     The synthesizer circuitry  806 D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry  806 A of the RF circuitry  806  based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry  806 D may be a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer. 
     In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry  804  or the application circuitry  802  (such as an applications processor) depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the application circuitry  802 . 
     Synthesizer circuitry  806 D of the RF circuitry  806  may include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle. 
     In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry  806 D may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry  806  may include an IQ/polar converter. 
     FEM circuitry  808  may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas  810 , amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry  806  for further processing. The FEM circuitry  808  may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry  806  for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas  810 . In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry  806 , solely in the FEM circuitry  808 , or in both the RF circuitry  806  and the FEM circuitry  808 . 
     In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry  808  may include a TX/RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry  808  may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry  808  may include an LNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry  806 ). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry  808  may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by the RF circuitry  806 ), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas  810 ). 
     In some embodiments, the PMC  812  may manage power provided to the baseband circuitry  804 . In particular, the PMC  812  may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMC  812  may often be included when the device  800  is capable of being powered by a battery, for example, when the device  800  is included in a UE. The PMC  812  may increase the power conversion efficiency while providing desirable implementation size and heat dissipation characteristics. 
       FIG. 8  shows the PMC  812  coupled only with the baseband circuitry  804 . However, in other embodiments, the PMC  812  may be additionally or alternatively coupled with, and perform similar power management operations for, other components such as, but not limited to, the application circuitry  802 , the RF circuitry  806 , or the FEM circuitry  808 . 
     In some embodiments, the PMC  812  may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the device  800 . For example, if the device  800  is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connected to the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may enter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a period of inactivity. During this state, the device  800  may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power. 
     If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the device  800  may transition off to an RRC_Idle state, where it disconnects from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The device  800  goes into a very low power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The device  800  may not receive data in this state, and in order to receive data, it transitions back to an RRC_Connected state. 
     An additional power saving mode may allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer than a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and may power down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a large delay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable. 
     Processors of the application circuitry  802  and processors of the baseband circuitry  804  may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry  804 , alone or in combination, may be used to execute Layer 3, Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the application circuitry  802  may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a radio resource control (RRC) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 may comprise a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, and a PDCP layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a PHY layer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below. 
       FIG. 9  illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry  804  of  FIG. 8  may comprise processors  804 A- 804 E and a memory  804 G utilized by said processors. Each of the processors  804 A- 804 E may include a memory interface,  904 A- 904 E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory  804 G. 
     The baseband circuitry  804  may further include one or more interfaces to communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface  912  (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry  804 ), an application circuitry interface  914  (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry  802  of  FIG. 8 ), an RF circuitry interface  916  (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry  806  of  FIG. 8 ), a wireless hardware connectivity interface  918  (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components), and a power management interface  920  (e.g., an interface to send/receive power or control signals to/from the PMC  812 ). 
       FIG. 10  is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically,  FIG. 10  shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources  1000  including one or more processors (or processor cores)  1010 , one or more memory/storage devices  1020 , and one or more communication resources  1030 , each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus  1040 . For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor  1002  may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources  1000 . 
     The processors  1010  (e.g., a central processing unit, a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor  1012  and a processor  1014 . 
     The memory/storage devices  1020  may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices  1020  may include, but are not limited to any type of volatile or non-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc. 
     The communication resources  1030  may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices  1004  or one or more databases  1006  via a network  1008 . For example, the communication resources  1030  may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components. 
     Instructions  1050  may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors  1010  to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions  1050  may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors  1010  (e.g., within the processor&#39;s cache memory), the memory/storage devices  1020 , or any suitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of the instructions  1050  may be transferred to the hardware resources  1000  from any combination of the peripheral devices  1004  or the databases  1006 . Accordingly, the memory of processors  1010 , the memory/storage devices  1020 , the peripheral devices  1004 , and the databases  1006  are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media. 
     EXAMPLES 
     The following is a list of example embodiments that fall within the scope of the disclosure. In the interest of brevity and in order to avoid complexity in providing the disclosure, not all of the examples listed below are separately and explicitly disclosed as having been contemplated herein as combinable with all of the others of the examples listed below and other embodiments disclosed hereinabove. Unless one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that these examples listed below, and the above disclosed embodiments, are not combinable, it is contemplated within the scope of the disclosure that such examples and embodiments are combinable. 
     Example 1 
     An apparatus for a user equipment (UE), comprising: a baseband processor configured to communicate with a cellular Radio Access Network (RAN) node using a communication transceiver; and one or more processors operably coupled to the baseband processor and configured to: perform Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) processing; offload only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to the cellular RAN node; and maintain TCP protocols running end-to-end between the UE and a remote host. 
     Example 2 
     The apparatus of Example 1, wherein the one or more processors comprise an application processor configured to perform and offload the TCP/IP processing. 
     Example 3 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1 and 2, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a transmit IP checksum. 
     Example 4 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-3, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a transmit TCP checksum. 
     Example 5 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-4, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a transmit User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum. 
     Example 6 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-5, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a receive IP checksum. 
     Example 7 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-6, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a receive TCP checksum. 
     Example 8 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-7, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a receive User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum. 
     Example 9 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-8, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a TCP transmit segmentation. 
     Example 10 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-9, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a TCP receive concatenation. 
     Example 11 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1-10, wherein the portion of TCP/IP processing to offload to the cellular RAN node comprises a TCP acknowledgement (ACK) reconstruction. 
     Example 12 
     The apparatus according to any one of Examples 1 and 3-11, wherein the one or more processors comprise an application processor, wherein the application processor is configured to offload the portion of the TCP/IP processing to the baseband processor, and the baseband processor is configured to offload at least some of the portion of the TCP/IP processing to the RAN node. 
     Example 13 
     A computer-readable storage medium of a user equipment (UE), the computer readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions stored thereon, the computer readable instructions configured to instruct one or more processors to: extract a partial Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) offload capability indication from a message received from a Radio Access Network (RAN) node, the partial TCP/IP offload capability indication configured to indicate partial offload features that the RAN node supports; generate a partial offload request indicating which of the partial TCP/IP offload features indicated by the partial offload capability indication that are requested by the UE; and decode a partial offload acknowledgment (ACK) from a message received from the RAN node, the partial offload ACK configured to confirm that the requested TCP/IP partial offload features are in operation. 
     Example 14 
     The computer-readable storage medium of Example 13, wherein the message from which the partial TCP/IP offload capability indication is extracted comprises a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message. 
     Example 15 
     The computer-readable storage medium according to any one of Examples 13 and 14, wherein the partial offload features that the RAN node supports comprise one or more partial offload features selected from the group consisting of a transmit IP checksum, a transmit TCP checksum, a transmit User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum, a receive IP checksum, a receive TCP checksum, a receive UDP checksum, a TCP transmit segmentation, a TCP receive concatenation, and a TCP acknowledgement (ACK) reconstruction. 
     Example 16 
     The computer-readable storage medium according to any one of Examples 13-15, wherein the computer readable instructions are configured to: instruct the one or more processors to decode a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration message received from the RAN node at an initiation of a handover from the RAN node to another RAN node; and deactivate the requested TCP/IP partial offload features during the handover responsive to the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message. 
     Example 17 
     The computer-readable storage medium of Example 16, wherein the computer readable instructions are configured to instruct the one or more processors to: generate a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration Complete message configured to indicate that the UE has deactivated the partial offload features for the handover to the another RAN node; cause the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message to be transmitted to the another RAN node; and interact with the another RAN node to activate partial TCP/IP offload to the another RAN node. 
     Example 18 
     The computer-readable storage medium according to any one of Examples 13-15, wherein the computer readable instructions are further configured to instruct the one or more processors to partially offload TCP/IP functions to another RAN node after a handoff from the RAN node to the another RAN node without receiving a TCP/IP offload functionality indication from the another RAN node. 
     Example 19 
     An apparatus of a cellular base station, comprising: a data storage device configured to store data indicating supported partial Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) offload features that are supported by the cellular base station to enable partial offloading of TCP/IP processing from a User Equipment (UE); and one or more processors operably coupled to the data storage device and configured to: generate a message to be transmitted to the UE, the message configured to indicate the supported partial TCP/IP offload features; decode a partial TCP/IP offload request received from the UE, the partial TCP/IP offload request configured to indicate requested TCP/IP offload features of the supported partial TCP/IP offload features that the UE requests to activate; activate the requested TCP/IP offload features; and generate an acknowledgement (ACK) message to be transmitted to the UE, the ACK message configured to confirm that the requested TCP/IP offload features are activated. 
     Example 20 
     The apparatus of Example 19, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: generate a handover request to be transmitted to a target cellular base station that is separate from the cellular base station, the handover request configured to request a handover of the UE from the cellular base station to the target cellular base station; decode a handover request acknowledgment received from the target cellular base station; generate a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration message to be transmitted to the UE, the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message indicating that a handover is triggered; and deactivate the requested TCP/IP offload features responsive to a transmission of the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message to the UE. 
     Example 21 
     The apparatus of Example 19, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: generate a handover request to be transmitted to a target cellular base station that is separate from the cellular base station, the handover request configured to indicate the requested TCP/IP offload features received from the UE; decode a handover request acknowledgement message received from the target cellular base station, the handover request acknowledgement message configured to indicate partial TCP/IP offload features that are supported by the target cellular base station; generate a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration message to be transmitted to the UE, the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message configured to indicate the partial TCP/IP offload features that are supported by the target cellular base station; and perform a handover of the UE to the target cellular base station. 
     Example 22 
     The apparatus of Example 19, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: decode a handover request received from a source cellular base station, the handover request configured to request a handover of another UE to the cellular base station; generate a handover request acknowledgement message to be transmitted to the source cellular base station; decode a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration Complete message received from the another UE; and generate a message to be transmitted to the another UE, the message configured to indicate the supported partial TCP/IP offload features. 
     Example 23 
     The apparatus of Example 19, wherein the one or more processors are configured to: decode a handover request received from a source cellular base station, the handover request configured to request a handover of another UE to the cellular base station and indicate active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the another UE; generate a handover request acknowledgement message to be transmitted to the source cellular base station, the handover request acknowledgement message configured to indicate the supported TCP/IP features; decode a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Reconfiguration Complete message received from the another UE; activate those of the supported TCP/IP features that correspond to the active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the another UE; and deactivate those of the active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the another UE that are not supported by the cellular base station. 
     Example 24 
     The apparatus of Example 23, wherein: the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message is configured to indicate one or more partial TCP/IP offload features that were not supported by the source cellular base station, but that are supported by the target cellular base station; and the one or more processors are configured to activate the one or more of the partial TCP/IP offload features indicated by the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message. 
     Example 25 
     A method of operating a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: performing Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) processing; offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node; and maintaining TCP protocols running end-to-end between the UE and a remote host. 
     Example 26 
     The method of Example 25, performing TCP/IP processing includes performing the TCP/IP processing using an application processor. 
     Example 27 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25 and 26, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a transmit IP checksum to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 28 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-27, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a transmit TCP checksum to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 29 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-28, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a transmit User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 30 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-29, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a receive IP checksum to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 31 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-30, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a receive TCP checksum to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 32 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-31, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a receive User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 33 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-32, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a TCP transmit segmentation to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 34 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-33, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a TCP receive concatenation to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 35 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25-34, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading a TCP acknowledgement (ACK) reconstruction to the cellular RAN node. 
     Example 36 
     The method according to any one of Examples 25 and 27-35, wherein offloading only a portion of the TCP/IP processing to a cellular RAN node comprises offloading, form an application processor, the portion of the TCP/IP processing to a baseband processor, and offloading at least some of the portion of the TCP/IP processing to the RAN node from the baseband processor. 
     Example 37 
     A method of operating a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: extracting a partial Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) offload capability indication from a message received from a Radio Access Network (RAN) node, the partial TCP/IP offload capability indication configured to indicate partial offload features that the RAN node supports; generating a partial offload request indicating which of the partial TCP/IP offload features indicated by the partial offload capability indication that are requested by the UE; and decoding a partial offload acknowledgment (ACK) from a message received from the RAN node, the partial offload ACK configured to confirm that the requested TCP/IP partial offload features are in operation. 
     Example 38 
     The method of Example 37, wherein extracting a partial TCP/IP offload capability indication from a message received from a RAN node comprises extracting the partial TCP/IP offload capability indication from a Radio Resource Control (RRC) message. 
     Example 39 
     The method according to any one of Examples 37 and 38, wherein the partial offload features that the RAN node supports comprise one or more partial offload features selected from the group consisting of a transmit IP checksum, a transmit TCP checksum, a transmit User Datagram Protocol (UDP) checksum, a receive IP checksum, a receive TCP checksum, a receive UDP checksum, a TCP transmit segmentation, a TCP receive concatenation, and a TCP acknowledgement (ACK) reconstruction. 
     Example 40 
     The method according to any one of Examples 37-39, further comprising: decoding a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration message received from the RAN node at an initiation of a handover from the RAN node to another RAN node; and deactivating the requested TCP/IP partial offload features during the handover responsive to the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message. 
     Example 41 
     The method of Example 40, further comprising: generating a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration Complete message configured to indicate that the UE has deactivated the partial offload features for the handover to the another RAN node; transmitting the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message to the another RAN node; and interacting with the another RAN node to activate partial TCP/IP offload to the another RAN node. 
     Example 42 
     The method according to any one of Examples 37-39, wherein partially offloading TCP/IP functions to another RAN node comprises partially offloading the TCP/IP functions to the another RAN node after a handoff from the RAN node to the another RAN node without receiving a TCP/IP offload functionality indication from the another RAN node. 
     Example 43 
     A method of operating a cellular base station, the method comprising: storing data indicating supported partial Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) offload features that are supported by the cellular base station to enable partial offloading of TCP/IP processing from a User Equipment (UE); transmitting a message to the UE, the message configured to indicate the supported partial TCP/IP offload features; receiving a partial TCP/IP offload request from the UE, the partial TCP/IP offload request configured to indicate requested TCP/IP offload features of the supported partial TCP/IP offload features that the UE requests to activate; activating the requested TCP/IP offload features; and transmitting an acknowledgement (ACK) message to the UE, the ACK message configured to confirm that the requested TCP/IP offload features are activated. 
     Example 44 
     The method of Example 43, further comprising: transmitting a handover request to a target cellular base station that is separate from the cellular base station, the handover request configured to request a handover of the UE from the cellular base station to the target cellular base station; receive a handover request acknowledgment from the target cellular base station; transmitting a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration message to the UE, the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message indicating that a handover is triggered; and deactivating the requested TCP/IP offload features responsive to a transmission of the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message to the UE. 
     Example 45 
     The method of Example 43, further comprising: transmitting a handover request to a target cellular base station that is separate from the cellular base station, the handover request configured to indicate the requested TCP/IP offload features received from the UE; receiving a handover request acknowledgement message from the target cellular base station, the handover request acknowledgement message configured to indicate partial TCP/IP offload features that are supported by the target cellular base station; transmitting a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration message to the UE, the RRC Connection Reconfiguration message configured to indicate the partial TCP/IP offload features that are supported by the target cellular base station; and performing a handover of the UE to the target cellular base station. 
     Example 46 
     The method of Example 43, further comprising: receiving a handover request from a source cellular base station, the handover request configured to request a handover of another UE to the cellular base station; transmitting a handover request acknowledgement message to the source cellular base station; receiving a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Connection Reconfiguration Complete message from the another UE; and transmitting a message to the another UE, the message configured to indicate the supported partial TCP/IP offload features. 
     Example 47 
     The method of Example 43, further comprising: receiving a handover request from a source cellular base station, the handover request configured to request a handover of another UE to the cellular base station and indicate active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the another UE; transmitting a handover request acknowledgement message to the source cellular base station, the handover request acknowledgement message configured to indicate the supported TCP/IP features; receiving a Radio Resource Control (RRC) Reconfiguration Complete message from the another UE; activating those of the supported TCP/IP features that correspond to the active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the another UE; and deactivating those of the active partial TCP/IP offloading features of the another UE that are not supported by the cellular base station. 
     Example 48 
     The method of Example 47, wherein the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message is configured to indicate one or more partial TCP/IP offload features that were not supported by the source cellular base station, but that are supported by the target cellular base station, the method further comprising activating the one or more of the partial TCP/IP offload features indicated by the RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete message. 
     Example 49 
     A computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable instructions stored thereon, the computer readable instructions configured to instruct one or more processors to perform at least a portion of the method according to any one of Examples 25-48. 
     Example 50 
     A means for performing at least a portion of the method according to any one of Examples 25-48. 
     While certain illustrative embodiments have been described in connection with the figures, those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize and appreciate that embodiments encompassed by the disclosure are not limited to those embodiments explicitly shown and described herein. Rather, many additions, deletions, and modifications to the embodiments described herein may be made without departing from the scope of embodiments encompassed by the disclosure, such as those hereinafter claimed, including legal equivalents. In addition, features from one disclosed embodiment may be combined with features of another disclosed embodiment while still being encompassed within the scope of embodiments encompassed by the disclosure, as contemplated by the inventors.

Metadata:
Filing Date: 20170630
Publication Date: 20221101
Grant Date: 20221101
Priority Date: 20170630
Inventors: ZHU, JING
Assignee: APPLE INC
CPC Classifications: [{"code": "H04L67/04", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0061", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L67/10", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L67/04", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W8/24", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W8/24", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0061", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L67/10", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/08", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L67/04", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/08", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W28/0958", "inventive": true, "first": true, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W28/09", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0055", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0011", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/22", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/0005", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04L1/1607", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/08", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}, {"code": "H04W36/08", "inventive": true, "first": false, "tree": "[]"}]
Family ID: 59384221