A method of controlling communications within a wireless communications network is provided. The method comprises communicating, with a first infrastructure equipment acting as a donor node connected to a core network, signals representing data by a second infrastructure equipment over a first communications path via one or more other infrastructure equipment acting as relay nodes, the second infrastructure equipment being a child node and one of the one or more other infrastructure equipment acting as the relay nodes or the donor node being a parent node, the parent node being connected to the child node via a backhaul communications link and configured to allocate uplink communications resources to the child node.

A method of controlling communications within a wireless communications network is provided. The method comprises communicating, with a first infrastructure equipment acting as a donor node connected to a core network, signals representing data by a second infrastructure equipment over a first communications path via one or more other infrastructure equipment acting as relay nodes, the second infrastructure equipment being a child node and one of the one or more other infrastructure equipment acting as the relay nodes or the donor node being a parent node, the parent node being connected to the child node via a backhaul communications link and configured to allocate uplink communications resources to the child node.

According to certain embodiments, a network node is operable to change a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol (GTP) tunneling endpoint identifier (TEID) when a user equipment (UE) resumes a connection to a core network. The network node comprises processing circuitry operable to receive a resume request from a UE; determine that the UE was previously connected to the network node prior to the resume; obtain one or more GTP TEIDs that are different than GTP TEIDs that were used when the UE was previously connected to the network node; and transmit an indication of the one or more GTP TEIDs to the core network. Transmitting the indication to the core network may comprise a path switch procedure, a UE context resume procedure, or a radio access bearer modification procedure.

According to certain embodiments, a network node is operable to change a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunneling protocol (GTP) tunneling endpoint identifier (TEID) when a user equipment (UE) resumes a connection to a core network. The network node comprises processing circuitry operable to receive a resume request from a UE; determine that the UE was previously connected to the network node prior to the resume; obtain one or more GTP TEIDs that are different than GTP TEIDs that were used when the UE was previously connected to the network node; and transmit an indication of the one or more GTP TEIDs to the core network. Transmitting the indication to the core network may comprise a path switch procedure, a UE context resume procedure, or a radio access bearer modification procedure.

A message transmission method and related devices are provided in the disclosure. The method includes the following. A first long range (LoRa) device creates a LoRa mesh group. Based on a peer-to-peer (P2P) communication requirement with a second LoRa device belonging to the LoRa mesh group, the first LoRa device switches to a P2P communication mode, transmits a mode switching instruction to the second LoRa device, and increases a transmission priority associated with a target message type to a predetermined transmission priority. The mode switching instruction is used to instruct the second LoRa device to switch to the P2P communication mode. The target message type is the type of a message that needs to be transmitted in P2P communication between the first LoRa device and the second LoRa device. The first LoRa device transmits a message of the target message type to the second LoRa device.

A technique for performing authentication includes a first device receiving security data from a second device that shares its network connection with the first device. The first device applies the security data received from the second device when requesting authentication to a secured resource on the network. For example, the security data may include a token code or other data that may be used as a token, such as identification information about the second device.

A first device connected to a network via a first connection may perform a method that involves determining a need for improved communication between the first device and the network, receiving a message from a second device that includes an indication of at least one performance parameter of a second connection between the second device and the network, establishing a peer-to-peer connection between the first device and the second device based at least in part on the indication, and communicating with the network via a communications channel that includes the peer-to-peer connection and the second connection.

A first device connected to a network via a first connection may perform a method that involves determining a need for improved communication between the first device and the network, receiving a message from a second device that includes an indication of at least one performance parameter of a second connection between the second device and the network, establishing a peer-to-peer connection between the first device and the second device based at least in part on the indication, and communicating with the network via a communications channel that includes the peer-to-peer connection and the second connection.

The disclosure provides to a method and an apparatus for supervised learning approach for reducing latency during a context switchover in a 5G Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC). An example method for performing a context switchover in a wireless network includes identifying a plurality of first parameters associated with a user equipment (UE) and a plurality of second parameters associated with an edge network entity; receiving a data path change notification from a session management entity; determining a ranking for each of a plurality of edge application servers (EASs) based on the plurality of first parameters and the plurality of second parameters, in response to reception of the data path change notification; selecting at least one target EAS of the plurality of EASs based on the ranking for each of the plurality of EASs; and performing the context switchover to the at least one target EAS.

A software defined network (SDN) can add network repository functions (NRF) into a configurations database to enable NF discovery. The SDN can subscribe to NRF notifications to receive new cloud native functions (CNF), registrations, or any other update to the CNF status in 5G system. In addition to listening to NRF notifications, the SDN can implement CNF pooling processes to periodically retrieve CNF from an NRF repository and stay in sync with 5G systems. Thus, a deep service path discovery can be developed from network service configurations and container call flows to enable an accurate alarm correlation and troubleshooting for the operations. This service path deep discovery can be designed and implemented as a standalone system or in an SDN framework with integration of a container management framework such as K8 kubernetes.