FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to communications and, in particular, to backhaul communications for wireless access points.

BACKGROUND

Next Generation wireless networks (4G/LTE/LTE-Advanced) are being based on the premise of 100 Mb/s data transmission to the handset. Imagine being able to live stream 1080P HD video to your device anytime, anywhere, even as you are travelling by car (though not while in the driver's seat), bus, etc. Sounds like a great idea and many consumers don't understand why this isn't universally available right now at a reasonable price.

The wireless industry has worked persistently on getting the 3G standards, equipment & networks deployed and functioning, but high bandwidth applications like streaming HD video are generally beyond what those standards, equipment and networks were originally designed to handle.

While deploying faster 4G radios in the existing 3G network may provide some performance improvements, this may only provide a limited benefit. 3G networks are based on fairly large antenna base stations (BTSs). In much of the world, BTS sites have been upgraded with fibre optic network connections to be able to handle the more than 10× bandwidth/handset that 4G networks demand.

Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. If you take a 3G BTS site, it could handle a maximum bandwidth (limited by the combination of the speed and spectrum of the radios and the speed of the backhaul connection to the network) of perhaps 100 Mb/s with a fibre network connection and cover an area of perhaps 15-30 square kilometers.

This means that all the wireless devices within the 15-30 square kilometers can share that 100 Mb/s. In a downtown city core that capacity is exhausted very quickly and everyone gets very little bandwidth. If one of those people is using a device that needs all of that 100 Mb/s bandwidth, then it is not available to anyone else. You can see that the current 3G network architecture will simply not work for high bandwidth applications on any commercial scale. To achieve 4G speeds would generally require between 4-10× the number of 3G BTS sites. Given that each of those sites costs anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000, depending on the distance that the fibre has to be laid to reach it, you can see that this architecture is now non-economic.

SUMMARY

According to one aspect, the present invention provides an apparatus comprising: a local communication network interface to be operatively coupled to a local communication network; a switching module operatively coupled to the local communication network interface; a bonding interface, operatively coupled to the switching module, that enables communication over a bonded link; and a wireless communication module interface, operatively coupled to the switching module, the switching module being operable to receive communication traffic via the bonding interface, to determine whether the received communication traffic is to be forwarded to one or more of the local communication network interface and the wireless communication module interface, and to forward the received communication traffic in accordance with the determination.

According to another aspect, the present invention provides a network node comprising the apparatus described above.

According to yet another aspect, the present invention provides a method comprising: receiving communication traffic over a bonded link; determining whether the received communication traffic is to be forwarded to one or more of a local communication network and a wireless communication network; and forwarding the received communication traffic in accordance with the determination.

According to still another aspect, the present invention provides an apparatus comprising: a network interface to be operatively coupled to a main communication network; an access multiplexer to be operatively coupled to a network node; and an exchange gateway module, operatively coupled to the network interface and to the access multiplexer, and operable to receive communication traffic from the main communication network through the network interface, process the received communication traffic and forward the processed received communication traffic to the access multiplexer,

wherein, for received communication traffic destined for the network node, the exchange gateway module is operable to process the received communication traffic destined for the network node so that the processed received network traffic destined for the network node is forwarded by the access multiplexer to the network node through a bonded link that is transparent to the access multiplexer. The bonded link is “transparent” to the access multiplexer in the sense that the access multiplexer is unaware of, and has no impact in the bonding of constituent links into a single bonded link. From the access multiplexer's perspective the constituent links are all independent point-to-point links on which it puts the requisite traffic. In some embodiments, the bonding is implemented at layer 2-3 in the main communication network, and therefore is ‘transparent’ to an access multiplexer operating at layer 1-1.5 of the main communication network. In some embodiments, the constituent links are xDSL pairs and the access multiplexer is a DSLAM.

According to a further aspect, the present invention provides a method comprising: receiving communication traffic destined for a network node from a main communication network; processing the received communication traffic destined for the network node to add a header to each packet of data in the received communication traffic destined for the network node; and forwarding each packet of data in the processed received communication traffic through a bonded link to the network node in accordance with its added header.

According to yet a further aspect, the present invention provides a communication system comprising: a main communication network; a plurality of network nodes, each network node of the plurality of network nodes being operatively coupled to the main communication network through a respective bonded link; a plurality of local communication networks, each of the local communication networks operatively coupled to a respective one of the network nodes, and comprising at least one subscriber communication node for providing a communication service to subscriber premises; and each network node of the plurality of network nodes comprising: a wireless communication module operable to establish one or more wireless communication links for wireless communication with one or more wireless communication devices in a respective coverage area; and a switching module that receives communication traffic from the main communication network via its respective bonded link, determines whether the received communication traffic is to be forwarded to one or more of its local communication network and its wireless communication module, and forwards the received communication traffic in accordance with the determination.

According to still a further aspect, the present invention provides a computer-readable medium storing instructions which when executed perform one of the methods described above.

