US 12,231,214 B2
Wireless relay slices in a wireless communication network
Marouane Balmakhtar, Fairfax, VA (US); and Lyle Walter Paczkowski, Mission Hills, KS (US)
Assigned to T-MOBILE INNOVATIONS LLC, Overland Park, KS (US)
Filed by T-MOBILE INNOVATIONS LLC, Overland Park, KS (US)
Filed on Jul. 27, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/874,768.
Application 17/874,768 is a continuation of application No. 17/066,775, filed on Oct. 9, 2020, granted, now 11,444,683.
Prior Publication US 2022/0360317 A1, Nov. 10, 2022
Int. Cl. H04B 7/155 (2006.01); H04W 48/18 (2009.01)
CPC H04B 7/155 (2013.01) [H04W 48/18 (2013.01)] 21 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of operating a wireless relay to serve wireless User Equipment (UEs) over relay slices, the method comprising:
the wireless relay receiving relay network signaling from the wireless communication network that directs the wireless relay to instantiate relay Control Plane Functions (CPFs) and relay User Plane Functions (UPFs) to form the relay slices, and in response, instantiating the relay CPFs and the relay UPFs;
the wireless relay wirelessly receiving attachment signaling from a wireless UE of the wireless UEs and wirelessly transferring the attachment signaling to a wireless communication network;
the wireless relay wirelessly receiving network signaling from the wireless communication network that selects one or the relay slices to serve the wireless UE and in response, wirelessly indicating the selected relay slice to the wireless UE;
a relay CPF that corresponds to the selected relay slice receiving a direction from the wireless communication network to serve the wireless UE, generating UPF instructions for a relay UPF that corresponds to the selected relay slice based on the direction, and transferring the UPF instructions to the relay UPF; and
the relay UPF receiving the UPF instructions, and in response, wirelessly exchanging user data with the wireless UE and wirelessly exchanging the user data the wireless communication network.