MULTI -NETWORK TERMINAL USING BATTERY EFFICIENT NETWORK TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN DATA CONNECTION IN LESS EFFICIENT NETWORK

摘要

The application relates to a wireless multi-network terminal which uses a first wireless connection to a first network to register and to establish a second wireless connection with a second network in order to receive a service such as e.g. a P25 voice transmission service over the second wireless connection. Portable multi-network communications devices which maintain connections to multiple communications networks can rapidly deplete battery power when performing registration and connectivity management tasks independently on each network. These devices would benefit from mechanisms that minimize this registration and maintenance activity without affecting application response times. Because LTE is more battery efficient than P25 for the transmission of registration and connection maintenance procedure messages, an LTE network service (214) is configured to operate as a proxy (216) for the P25 network (224), relieving the less efficient network of registration, maintenance, provisioning, and network management tasks, and thereby conserving battery power. In this way, the wireless multi-network communication device (202) preserves its battery for network specific P25 services, e.g., voice transmission. This can be accomplished by conducting registration, provisioning, and network management services to the P25 client on the wireless multi-network terminal (202) over the LTE network (214). This minimizes activity by the P25 radio and thereby extends battery operation as a result of the much lower power requirements of LTE radios. The P25 radio is relieved from control plane communications by the proxy component 216 and is only required to periodically monitor signal quality to provide data for a potential handover to another P25 cell.