FIELD

The present application relates to wireless devices, and more particularly to apparatus, systems, and methods for a wireless device to perform a variety of cellular communication techniques.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

Wireless communication systems are rapidly growing in usage. In recent years, wireless devices such as smart phones and tablet computers have become increasingly sophisticated. In addition to supporting telephone calls, many mobile devices now provide access to the internet, email, text messaging, and navigation using the global positioning system (GPS), and are capable of operating sophisticated applications that utilize these functionalities. Additionally, there exist numerous different wireless communication technologies and standards. Some examples of wireless communication standards include GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE, LTE Advanced (LTE-A), HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000 (e.g., 1xRTT, 1xEV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), IEEE 802.11 (WLAN or Wi-Fi), BLUETOOTH™, etc.

The ever-increasing number of features and functionality introduced in wireless communication devices also creates a continuous need for improvement in both wireless communications and in wireless communication devices. To increase coverage and better serve the increasing demand and range of envisioned uses of wireless communication, in addition to the communication standards mentioned above, there are further wireless communication technologies under development, including fifth generation (5G) new radio (NR) communication. Accordingly, improvements in the field in support of such development and design are desired.

SUMMARY

Embodiments relate to apparatuses, systems, and methods for a wireless station to predict and mitigate data connection interruptions (such as data/media stalls) during and/or prior to establishment of the data connection with a network.

The techniques described herein may be implemented in and/or used with a number of different types of devices, including but not limited to cellular phones, tablet computers, wearable computing devices, portable media players, and any of various other computing devices.

In some embodiments, a wireless device may perform a method for mitigating data stalls. The method may include the wireless device establishing, at an HTTP layer of the wireless device, a data connection over a first network interface of the wireless device. The data connection may be initiated by an application executing at an application layer of the wireless device. The application layer may compare an available duration of data in a data buffer associated with the data connection to a first threshold. At least one lower layer of the wireless device may be notified of an emergency deadline by the application layer in response to the available duration approaching the first threshold. The emergency deadline may be based, at least in part, on current radio network conditions and the first threshold. The emergency deadline may indicate a time (e.g., an absolute time) at which point the data buffer may become exhausted and a data stall may occur. In response to the notification, the at least one lower layer may perform one or more remedial actions to avoid and/or mitigate the data stall. In some embodiments, the one or more remedial actions may include any, any combination of, and/or all of a network layer of the wireless device re-selecting to a second network interface prior to the emergency deadline, a Wi-Fi interface layer scanning for a new basic service set identifier (BSSID) based on the emergency deadline, a cellular interface attempting a radio access technology upgrade procedure based on the emergency deadline, the cellular interface reserving additional channels (e.g., activating carrier aggregation) for increased throughput based on the emergency deadline, and/or the cellular interface attempting to re-select to a less congested cell. In some embodiments, the cellular interface may inform the network about the emergency deadline, thereby aiding in network prioritization of scheduling grants to wireless device until the emergency deadline. In some embodiments, the second network interface may have a higher cost than the first network interface, where cost may be measured based, at least in part, on battery demands of an interface and/or a monetary cost associated with use of an interface (e.g., cellular).

In some embodiments, a wireless device may perform a method for mitigating hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) transaction errors for a data connection. The method may include the wireless device establishing a data connection over a first network interface of the wireless device. The data connection may be established at an HTTP layer of the wireless device and may be supported by a first transport connection (e.g., a TCP connection, a TLS/TCP connection, UDP connection, a QUIC connection and/or any other type of connection that may support an HTTP transaction as defined herein) connection. The first transport connection may support multiple HTTP transactions. The data connection may be initiated by an application executing at an application layer of the wireless device. An advisory signal may be received at the HTTP layer. The contents of the advisory signal may be based, at least in part, on network radio conditions for the first network interface and at least one second network interface. The advisory signal may be generated by a monitoring entity executing on the wireless device. The HTTP layer may determine, responsive to the advisory signal including first information (e.g., a tier 2 advisory signal), that at least a first portion of the HTTP transactions can be retried without error and terminate, without notifying the application layer, the first portion of HTTP transactions. Additionally, the HTTP layer may initiate, via a second transport connection established over the at least one second network interface, retries of the first portion of HTTP transactions and send HTTP transaction results to the application layer.

In some embodiments, the HTTP layer may determine, responsive to the advisory signal including first information (e.g., a tier 2 advisory signal), that one or more of the HTTP transactions cannot be retried without error and may flag the first transport connection as not suitable for reuse by subsequent HTTP transactions. In such embodiments, the HTTP layer may send HTTP transaction results and/or errors to the application layer. In some embodiments, the HTTP layer may flag, responsive to the advisory signal including second information, the first transport connection as not suitable for reuse by subsequent HTTP transactions and send HTTP transaction results and/or errors to the application layer.

This Summary is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the subject matter described in this document. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that the above-described features are merely examples and should not be construed to narrow the scope or spirit of the subject matter described herein in any way. Other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter described herein will become apparent from the following Detailed Description, Figures, and Claims.

