Format converter for wlan-umts interworking employing umts air interface

Abstract

A format converter for use with a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) having a transceiver, a wireless local area network (WLAN) having an access point (AP) and a wireless terminal, for providing access to the UMTS by the terminal. The format converter comprises a WLAN transceiver for sending and receiving messages to and from the AP; a UMTS transceiver for sending and receiving messages to and from the transceiver in the UMTS; and a translator for translating WLAN messages to UMTS format and UMTS messages to WLAN format.

1 . An apparatus for delivering universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) formatted messages to a dual mode user equipment (UE) associated with a wireless local area network (WLAN) access point, the apparatus comprising:
 a format converter configured to receive UMTS formatted messages from a UMTS network which uses UMTS signaling, and to translate the received UMTS formatted messages to a WLAN format; and   a WLAN interface configured to communicate the translated messages to the UE over a WLAN air interface.   
   
   
       2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , configured to register the UE with a UMTS base station responsive to the UE registering with the WLAN access point. 
   
   
       3 . The apparatus of  claim 2 , further configured to provide a UMTS packet switched (PS) UMTS attach to the UMTS base station. 
   
   
       4 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the format converter is further configured to translate WLAN formatted messages received from the UE over the WLAN air interface to a UMTS format, and to forward the translated message to the UMTS network over the UMTS air interface. 
   
   
       5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the messages are paging messages. 
   
   
       6 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the messages are short message service (SMS) messages. 
   
   
       7 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the messages are multimedia message service (MMS) messages.