As new Radio Access Technologies (RATs), e.g., the cellular network radio technology, the Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) access technology, etc., are constantly emerging, such a wireless communication network setup has emerged that there are a number of radio access technologies coexisting. At present, there are a number of network operators serving their users, and from the perspective of the users, there are separate market shares of the network operators due to their monopolized and exclusive market shares, and the uni-mode characteristic of user equipments. As multimode user equipments are emerging, there are overlapping market shares of the network operators for their users, and the policy of carrying a photo number from one network to another has been issued so that a market share is allowed to be transferred from one network operator to another.
From the perspective of a service, only one operator is currently selected for the same service of a user, so that the operator may offload traffic of a 3G network to its own WiFi network dependent upon the traffic of the service, and the capacity of the network, but there are no different operators in a cooperative relationship for the same service, thus greatly preventing the user, particularly with a highly mobile on-vehicle user equipment, from select freely between the operators. Moreover the network operators typically enforce their fixed charging rules, so that even if there are different applicable charging modes of service packages corresponding to different services, then it may not be possible for each user to select his or her own desirable charging mode and corresponding quality of service.
The future trend of the network services shall be such a dynamic pricing mode that the different operators may provide different access services concurrently for the same traffic, and compete for the traffic while they are cooperating with each other. In this way, the users can select freely their desirable ones of the operators; and the operators can compete at a finer granularity, so that the services of the operators will be further improved, and the operators can also avoid their deployments from being repeated, thus lowering their deployment costs, and also extending their shares in the market.
In summary, in order to select an access network for the heterogeneous wireless network in the prior art, the most appropriate access network is selected primarily for the real demand of a user (for a service), so that the user (service) can only be served by that network at any time instead of being served concurrently by different networks, thus restricting the freedom of the user to select between the networks, which may discourage the experience of the user.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds