Very tight coupling between LTE and Wi-Fi for advanced offloading procedures

Abstract

Wi-Fi access points are now widely deployed by customers or by the operators. This represents an interesting solution to offload the LTE networks. In this paper we propose a very-tight coupling solution between LTE and Wi-Fi, which can be used to enhance the offloading procedures. In this architecture PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol) is used as the common layer between LTE andWi-Fi and the security procedures defined for LTE are reused for Wi-Fi transmission. It is thus possible to use Wi-Fi transmissions even when a terminal is covered by a Wi-Fi access point for a short period. We describe the entities of this architecture, the protocol stack and describe how user packets are transmitted.