REGISTRATION IN A MOBILE COMMUNICATION NETWORK CONTAINING A GSM / GPRS RADIO ACCESS NETWORK AND ANOTHER WLAN / BLUETOOTH BASED RADIO ACCESS NETWORK

摘要

A GSM mobile telecommunications network provides a radio access network, comprising base transceiver stations 22 and base station controllers 26, together with a core network, comprising mobile switching centres 2, serving gateway support nodes 16, core 12 and home location register 10. The radio access network comprises a plurality of geographically distributed cells. Respective groups of cells are allocated to respective location regions by the core network. The network provides GSM functions to mobile devices registered therewith over a GSM bearer. The network is adapted to also provide core network GSM functions to devices registered therewith over a non-GSM bearer via a different access network. This different access network may comprise a Bluetooth (RTM) connection between the mobile terminal and an access point 20, and an IP-based communications link between the access point 20 and an access controller 24. When the device switches from the GSM radio access network to the different access network, that different access network receives an indication of the identity of the cell occupied by the device. The access controller 24 then selects, in dependence upon the cell identity information, the location region which the device is deemed to occupy by the core network. The network may be configured to select a location region that is the same as the location region occupied when the device last accessed the network via the GSM bearer (which reduces location updating signalling), or may be selected to be a different location region, in order to force the network to perform a location update.