VoIP and Native Carrier Call Integration

Abstract

A method for native call and VoIP call integration is disclosed, comprising: receiving, at a switch in a mobile operator network, an incoming call for a mobile device; querying a convergence gateway from the soft switch via an application programming interface (API) at the convergence gateway to determine whether the mobile device is currently engaged in a voice over IP (VoIP) call using a VoIP calling software application on the mobile device; delivering the incoming call via the soft switch over IP as a VoIP call to the VoIP calling software application on the mobile device.

1 . A system for multi-radio access technology (multi-RAT) telecommunications networking, comprising:
 a multi-RAT gateway, the multi-RAT gateway further comprising:   an inbound 5G interface for handling 5G inbound radio access network signaling data flows;   an inbound Iuh interface for handling inbound signaling, call, and user data flows on either or both of a 2G RAT or a 3G RAT;
 an inbound IuCS interface for handling inbound call data flows on either or both of the 2G RAT or the 3G RAT, the inbound IuCS interface being coupled to the inbound Iuh interface; 
 an inbound IuPS interface for handling inbound user data flows on either or both of the 2G RAT or the 3G RAT, the inbound IuPS interface being coupled to the inbound Iuh interface; 
 an inbound S1-AP interface for handling 4G inbound signaling data flows; 
 an inbound S1-U interface for handling 4G inbound user data flows; 
 a Voice over LTE (VoLTE) interworking proxy for performing interworking from inbound call data flows, the VoLTE interworking proxy being coupled to the inbound IuCS interface; and 
 an outbound data flow router for routing inbound user data flows on either, some, or all of 2G, 3G, 4G or 5G user data flows to either an outbound S1 interface or an outbound local breakout IP interface, 
 wherein the multi-RAT gateway provides an application programming interface (API) to enable interaction of a Voice over IP (VoIP) smartphone application with a voice call at the multi-RAT gateway without requiring support in a 3G circuit-switched core network or an IP Mobile Subsystem (IMS) core network. 
   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the inbound S1-U interface is further configured to route inbound VoLTE traffic flows to the outbound data flow router. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising local core network functions, the local core network functions comprising a local serving GPRS support node (SGSN) function, a local gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) function, and a local mobility management entity (MME) function, the local core network functions providing termination of data flows. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising an IMS core network for providing voice call anchoring for VoLTE voice data flows. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein each of the radio access technology gateway functions provide inbound interfaces for signaling, voice calls, and user data. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein each of the radio access technology gateway functions provide either interworking for inbound flows to an outbound IP-based interface or routing to a local core network function that acts to terminate inbound flows. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a multi-radio access technology (multi-RAT) base station supporting 5G 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a 5G base station interface providing A/IP and Gb/IP signaling, voice call, and data inbound interfaces, and A/IP and Gb/IP interworking to outbound IP-based data or to an outbound Voice over LTE (VoLTE) interface via a VoLTE interworking proxy. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a multi-radio access technology (multi-RAT) base station supporting a wireless local area networking (WLAN) radio access technology (RAT) with an S2a or S2b signaling interface, and wherein the multi-RAT gateway further comprises support for S2a/S2b signaling, Voice over LTE (VoLTE) proxy interworking for S2a/S2b voice calls, and support for redirection of S2a/S2b data to an operator core network packet gateway (PGW) or to the Internet via local breakout. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , further comprising a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) protocol connection interworking proxy for interworking IuCS and A/IP calls to Voice over LTE (VoLTE) calls, or for interworking SIP calls to IuCS calls. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 10 , the SIP protocol connection interworking proxy further comprising a transcoder. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the multi-RAT gateway further comprises a self-organizing network (SON) module coupled to each of the inbound and outbound interfaces and proxies, the SON module for monitoring network state, subscriber information, and/or call state information across radio access technologies and proactively reconfiguring operating parameters at the multi-RAT gateway.