Access Control for Terminals in UTRAN FEMTO System

Abstract

The teachings herein provide authorization control enabling the co-existence of legacy mobile terminals ( 20 ) that do not support Closed Subscriber Groups (CSGs), and non-legacy mobile terminals ( 20 ) that do. New behaviors are defined for a CSG femtocell base station ( 10 ) (referred to as a Home NodeB or HNB), and for a base station gateway ( 14 ) (referred to as a HNB Gateway or HNB GW) that couples the HNB ( 10 ) to a Core Network (CN) ( 22 ). The HNB ( 10 ) and/or the HNB GW ( 14 ) determine whether a terminal ( 20 ) attempting to gain connection through the HNB ( 10 ) supports CSGs. If not, the HNB GW ( 14 ) performs access control and rejects the connection attempt if authorization fails. If the terminal ( 20 ) is recognized as supporting CSGs, the HNB GW ( 14 ) defers access control to the CN ( 22 ) by automatically accepting registration/connection requests from the HNB ( 10 ) for CSG-capable terminals ( 20 ). In such cases, the CN ( 22 ) is relied upon for access control, including any CSG authorization of the terminal ( 20 ). The HNB GW ( 14 ) indicates to the CN ( 22 ) whether or not access control was performed for the terminal ( 20 ).

1 . A femtocell base station configured to interface mobile terminals with a network gateway providing access to a core network of a wireless communication system, said femtocell base station comprising an access controller that is configured to:
 receive a connection request from a given mobile terminal desiring access to the core network, said connection request including an indication of whether the mobile terminal supports closed subscriber groups;   if the mobile terminal is not indicated as supporting closed subscriber groups, send a registration request for the given mobile terminal to the network gateway responsive to receiving the connection request; and   if the mobile terminal is indicated as supporting closed subscriber groups, send a connection request for the given mobile terminal to the network gateway, without first sending a registration request to the network gateway, for the given mobile terminal.   
     
     
         2 . The femtocell base station of  claim 1 , wherein the femtocell base station comprises a Home NodeB configured to communicate with a Home NodeB Gateway as said network gateway. 
     
     
         3 . A method implemented by a femtocell base station configured to interface mobile terminals with a network gateway providing access to a core network of a wireless communication system, the method comprising:
 receiving at the femtocell base station a connection request from a given mobile terminal desiring access to the core network, said connection request including an indication of whether the mobile terminal supports closed subscriber groups;   if the mobile terminal is not indicated as supporting closed subscriber groups, sending a registration request for the given mobile terminal from the femtocell base station to the network gateway responsive to receiving the connection request; and   if the mobile terminal is indicated as supporting closed subscriber groups, sending a connection request for the given mobile terminal from the femtocell base station to the network gateway, without the femtocell base station first sending a registration request to the network gateway, for the given mobile terminal.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein the femtocell base station comprises a Home NodeB configured to communicate with a Home NodeB Gateway as said network gateway.