Integrated radio telecommunications network and method of interworking an ANSI-41 network and the general packet radio service (GPRS)

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In one aspect, the present invention is a method of integrating a circuit switched radio telecommunications network having a circuit switched serving node, with a packet switched data network having a packet switched serving node.
The method includes the steps of (1) providing a first interface between the circuit switched serving node and an interworking function, (2) mapping in the interworking function, signaling from the circuit switched service node into signaling in a standard packet data network protocol, and (3) sending the mapped signaling from the interworking function to the packet switched serving node utilizing the standard packet data network protocol.
In one embodiment, the circuit switched radio telecommunications network is an ANSI-41 radio telecommunications network, and the packet switched data network is a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) packet data network.
The circuit switched service node is a mobile switching center/visitor location register (MSC/VLR) which may be a serving MSC or a gateway MSC.
The packet switched service node is a serving GPRS switching node (SGSN).
The method may also comprise the step of connecting to the MSC/VLR, a GPRS/ANSI-136 base station which operates in accordance with both ANSI-136 standards and GPRS standards.
A second interface is provided between the SGSN and an interworking GPRS base station controller which adapts a signaling format utilized on the second interface into an air interface signaling format.
The adapted signaling is sent from the interworking GPRS base station controller to the GPRS/ANSI-136 base station over a traffic interface.
The traffic interface passes through a semi-permanent connection in the MSC/VLR.
A third interface is provided between the interworking GPRS base station controller and the MSC/VLR to connect a radio resource management entity (RRME) in the MSC/VLR with an associated component in the interworking GPRS base station controller.
The method further comprises providing an authentication center interface between an ANSI-41 home location register/authentication center (HLR/AC) and a GPRS home location register/authentication center (HLR/AUC)