WO2018026923A1

WO2018026923A1 - Scheduling optimization for voice over internet of things (iot)

Info

Publication number: WO2018026923A1
Application number: PCT/US2017/045111
Authority: WO
Inventors: Sabine Roessel; Stefania Sesia; Mehrzad Malmirchegini
Original assignee: Intel IP Corporation
Priority date: 2016-08-03
Filing date: 2017-08-02
Publication date: 2018-02-08

Abstract

Machines or networked devices such as internet of things (IoT) devices operate to generate an IoT communication based on a number of standards. Enabling IoT devices to operate emergency communications in SOS or emergency distress situations can be done with various techniques and components that increase / enhance the coverage for a period of time. Thus, non-delay sensitive devices, like IoT devise, can be dynamically enabled to support delay-sensitive applications such as Voice over the Internet Protocol (VoIP) or long term evolution (VoLTE) based applications. Further, fallback operations can be generated based on the geography, the communication channel condition, network or specific enhanced coverage obtainable so that at least some human interaction for addressing such emergency situations can occur.

Description

SCHEDULING OPTIMIZATION FOR VOICE OVER INTERNET OF THINGS (loT) REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.

62/370,625 filed August 3, 2016, entitled "SCHEDULING OPTIMIZATION FOR VOICE OVER IOT", the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.

FIELD

[0002] The present disclosure is in the field of internet of things (loT) communication, and more specifically, pertains to loT devices communicating in the unlicensed spectrum.

BACKGROUND

[0003] Wireless mobile communication technology uses various standards and protocols to transmit data between a node (e.g., a transmission station) and a wireless device (e.g., a mobile device), or a user equipment (UE). Some wireless devices communicate using orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) in a downlink (DL) transmission and single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC- FDMA) in an uplink (UL) transmission. Standards and protocols that use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) for signal transmission include the third generation partnership project (3GPP) long term evolution (LTE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard (e.g., 802.16e, 802.16m), which is commonly known to industry groups as WiMAX (Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access), and the IEEE 802.1 1 standard, which is commonly known to industry groups as WiFi.

[0004] In 3GPP radio access network (RAN) LTE systems, the access node can be an Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Node Bs (also commonly denoted as evolved Node Bs, enhanced Node Bs, eNodeBs, or eNBs) with or without one or more Radio Network Controllers (RNCs), which can communicate with the UE. The DL transmission can be a communication from an access point / node or base station (e.g., a macro cell device, an eNodeB, an eNB, WiFi node, or other similar network device) to the UE, and the UL transmission can be a communication from the wireless network device to the node. [0005] Additionally, the Internet of Things (loT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting devices to the internet. A significant segment of this industry is intended to operate over vast areas under the initiative low-power wide-area networking (LP-WAN), which is supposed to provide a global solution for both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. The following cellular technologies recently standardized in 3GPP are meant to operate in licensed spectrum: enhanced coverage global system for mobile communication (GSM) based on general packet radio service (GPRS) standard in the context of Rel-13; the evolution of the LTE machine type communication (MTC) solution (commonly called Cat M1 ) which is based on an evolution of the legacy Cat 0; and narrowband (NB) IOT, a new non backward compatible radio access technology which is specifically optimized in order to satisfy the requirements required for typical loT solutions (commonly called Cat NB1 ).

[0006] In particular, loT based solutions involve loT devices that report seldom (e.g., once per day or once per week) and with little data. These loT devices as referred to herein can include such devices that communicate according to loT standards as Category (Cat) M1 or NB-loT standards, for example, and can include vehicles, buildings, or any item / object embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators and network connectivity that enables these objects / things / machines to collect and exchange data among one another directly without human interaction / interfacing necessarily. Currently, a smart phone or mobile phone is excluded from being an loT device and considered a computing device that primarily interacts with humans for the exchange of information. Further, the communications of loT devices are very low cost with low complexity, delay tolerant, and non-critical with low data rates. However, in case of emergency communications, there is inefficient support for near real time services with reasonable coverage area and performance for delay-sensitive

applications such as Voice over the Internet (VoIP) on loT devices.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an example wireless communications network environment for an loT device or eNB according to various aspects or embodiments. [0008] FIG. 2 illustrates another block diagram of an example of wireless

communications network environment for an loT device or eNB according to various aspects or embodiments.

[0009] FIG. 3 is a block diagram of communication channels and associated communications according to various aspects or embodiments described herein.

[0010] FIG. 4 is another block diagram of communication channels utilized for early decoding and pipelined decoding operations according to various aspects or embodiments described herein.

[0011] FIG. 5 illustrates an example system or network device operable with one or more components configured for various aspects or embodiments described herein.

[0012] FIG. 6 illustrates a process flow of processing or generating communications for loT devices according to various aspects or embodiments described herein.

[0013] FIG. 7 illustrates another example system or network device operable with one or more components configured for various aspects or embodiments described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0014] The present disclosure will now be described with reference to the attached drawing figures, wherein like reference numerals are used to refer to like elements throughout, and wherein the illustrated structures and devices are not necessarily drawn to scale. As utilized herein, terms "component," "system," "interface," and the like are intended to refer to a computer-related entity, hardware, software (e.g., in execution), and/or firmware. For example, a component can be a processor, a process running on a processor, a controller, an object, an executable, a program, a storage device, and/or a computer with a processing device. By way of illustration, an application running on a server and the server can also be a component. One or more components can reside within a process, and a component can be localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or more computers. A set of elements or a set of other components can be described herein, in which the term "set" can be interpreted as "one or more."

[0015] Further, these components can execute from various computer readable storage media having various data structures stored thereon such as with a module, for example. The components can communicate via local and/or remote processes such as in accordance with a signal having one or more data packets (e.g., data from one component interacting with another component in a local system, distributed system, and/or across a network, such as, the Internet, a local area network, a wide area network, or similar network with other systems via the signal).

[0016] As another example, a component can be an apparatus with specific

functionality provided by mechanical parts operated by electric or electronic circuitry, in which the electric or electronic circuitry can be operated by a software application or a firmware application executed by one or more processors. The one or more processors can be internal or external to the apparatus and can execute at least a part of the software or firmware application. As yet another example, a component can be an apparatus that provides specific functionality through electronic components without mechanical parts; the electronic components can include one or more processors therein to execute software and/or firmware that confer(s), at least in part, the functionality of the electronic components.

[0017] Use of the word exemplary is intended to present concepts in a concrete fashion. As used in this application, the term "or" is intended to mean an inclusive "or" rather than an exclusive "or". That is, unless specified otherwise, or clear from context, "X employs A or B" is intended to mean any of the natural inclusive permutations. That is, if X employs A; X employs B; or X employs both A and B, then "X employs A or B" is satisfied under any of the foregoing instances. In addition, the articles "a" and "an" as used in this application and the appended claims should generally be construed to mean "one or more" unless specified otherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singular form. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms "including", "includes", "having", "has", "with", or variants thereof are used in either the detailed description and the claims, such terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term

"comprising".

[0018] As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with the circuitry may be implemented by, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, circuitry may include logic, at least partially operable in hardware.

INTRODUCTION

[0019] In consideration of described deficiencies of loT devices and associated communications, operations, components and acts to support "emergency calls" under extreme coverage conditions (e.g., about a 156 dB mean / maximum coupling loss (MCL) at least, up to about 1 64 db MCL and greater). As such, narrow band (NB) loT calls or Cat M1 loT calling can be implemented along with SOS beacons to support such emergency situations. Even these aspects as disclosed could provide for a lower mean opinion score (MOS) by limiting support to voice only while presuming no further human interaction following these corresponding communication processes. Thus, additional comprehensive possibilities with / without voice support can further allow for human emergency interaction for extreme / enhanced coverage extension (e.g., beyond about 164 db MCL).

[0020] Various solutions as aspects / embodiments to enable such emergency communications with loT devices are disclosed herein. For example, a group of solutions with related aspects involve enabling delay sensitive applications in communications such as VoIP to be supported for the particular loT device involved in the emergency situation. Additional aspects / embodiments build upon these solutions to enable further human emergency interaction with a set of emergency routines to enable various additional applications in uplink / downlink communications.

[0021] A first solution of the group includes utilizing (via an eNB or base station) a semi persistent scheduling scheme (SPS) for a non-contiguous periodic allocation of the speech frame on the air interface, and remove a control channel from these radio resources such as downlink (DL) assignments and uplink (UL) grants on scheduling opportunities in the DL. With SPS, an loT device herein can receive DL / UL data at a configured periodicity. For example, SPS enables a UE to be configured by an eNB via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) allocation of these resources for a period of time with a semi-persistent scheduling radio network temporary identifier (SPS-RNTI) (instead of a regular cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI)) and a periodicity. Once configured via the SPS signaling from the eNB, the loT device can receive DL / UL data with the SPS-RNTI at the configured periodicity and normal DL data in other subframes, for example.

[0022] In a second solution, the eNB can dynamically modify a DRx cycle change to adapt the resource usage to the coverage extension needed by the loT for the emergency duration.

[0023] In a third solution, the eNB can dynamically increase the bandwidth from 1 tone to K tones where a tone can span X-KHz to Y-KHz, wherein X can be any integer greater than zero (e.g., X can correspond to 1 2 subcarriers for the Rel-13 NB-IOT DL or 72 for eMTC, or correspond to 1 in case of 5G IOT) and K being larger than X or larger than the maximum amount of tones associated to the specific radio access technology (K>12 for NB-IOT, K>72 for eMTC, etc.).

[0024] In a fourth solution, the eNB can utilize a persistent scheduling for a give UE to maximize resource usage (to achieve higher coverage) while maintaining a dynamic pattern in terms of amount of repetitions allocated to a given UE up to a certain maximum limit.

[0025] Other solutions can expand the above solutions to encompass one or more of UL communications or DL communications and further enable fall-back procedures or human emergency interaction routines such as by providing for an extreme coverage extension with low data rate (e.g., below a standard short message service (SMS) data rate), non-delay sensitive application (e.g., SOS beacons, SMS or the like) and battery saving applications. Such solutions can include human interaction routines that comprise operations to support emergency calls in both DL and UL, emergency all requests in DL with a request to answer with SMS in UL, or SMS support in DL with a request to utilize emergency button(s) for simple yes/no or simple explicitly coded keyed answers (e.g., number(s), letter(s), defined phrases). Additional aspects, embodiments or details of the disclosure are further described below with detail in reference to figures.

[0026] FIG. 1 illustrates an example non-limiting wireless communications

environment 100 that can enable loT devices to communicate NB loT, Cat M1 or 5G loT communications for delay sensitive applications like VoIP in emergency situations with enhanced coverage. Cat M1 has been shown to be able to support Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE), but in limited cases, such as with limited coverage if a normal call quality should be maintained (approx. 4-1 OdB coverage limitation for wideband adaptive multi-rate (WB-AMR) codecs depending on the channel conditions with respect to legacy Category 1 (Cat 1 ) devices (perceptual objective listening quality assessment (POLQA) ~4 and latency ~50ms). NB-IOT instead does not efficiently support near real time services such as VoLTE with reasonable coverage level and reasonable

performance. The reason is the drastic limitation in terms of data rate which would require high latency in order to support voice with reasonable coverage.

[0027] In case of emergency calls quality (e.g., high SNR or other quality of service parameters, such as power or the like) and latency can be compromised up to a certain extent in an allocation of resources involving an optimization process in generation of the scheduling opportunities in a DL communication. In that case both Cat M1 and NB- IOT could be extended in order to support emergency calls, either for a period or ongoing basis as needed. However, in case of emergency coverage extension is one of the main key performance indicator (KPI); hence not only the same coverage level as Cat 1 but some extensions are desirable. Coverage extension can be achieved for both Cat M1 and NB-IOT by the eNB utilizing repetitions. In order to achieve enhanced or extreme coverage an enhancement of the scheduling opportunities thus envisioned and enabled by aspects herein.

[0028] Inter-band spectrum can refer to different frequency spectrum bands (or frequency ranges) with time domain multiple carrier aggregation operable between the different spectrum bands instead of just within one band. Non-contiguous can refer to a non-continuous or non-touching component carrier within a band or between different bands / subcarriers (or ranges of frequency spectrum), for example. Non-contiguous time domain multiple carrier aggregation could be either intra-band, where the component carriers belong to the same operating frequency band, but could have one or more gaps in between, or it could be inter-band, in which case the component carriers belong to different operating frequency bands entirely and are also not contiguous.

[0029] Wireless communications environment 100, for example, can include one or more broadcast servers or macro cell network devices 1 02, 104 (e.g., base stations, eNBs, access points (APs) or other similar network devices) as well as one or more other network devices such as small cell network devices, APs or other similar network device 106, 108 deployed within the wireless communications environment 100 and servicing one or more loT devices 1 10, 1 1 2, 1 14, 1 16, 1 1 8. These loT devices may or may not be mobile / configured specifically for mobile communications primarily, but can enable network resources that service UE resources to any one particular loT device 1 10, 1 12, 1 14, 1 16, 1 18 to utilize a delay sensitive application such as VoIP under extreme network conditions or out of range conditions, for example.

[0030] loT device 1 1 0, 1 12, 1 14, 1 16, or 1 1 8 can be considered loT devices including a wireless device such as a machine device that is operable to communicate in a machine-to-machine (M2M) protocol, a MTC protocol, an loT protocol such as an unlicensed loT (U-loT) communication, unlicensed narrowband (U-NB loT)

communication or the like, and can be applicable to communicate in any loT related standard from EC-GSM-IOT to eMTC and NB-IOT, for example. Such loT devices can be primarily utilized as a device communicatively coupled in a cellular network to any one of the eNBs 102-108 and as any one of the loT devices 1 10-1 1 8. loT devices can also be considered machines that operate on a low power network or a network with lower power than UEs on a cellular network such as a Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) network or a WiFi network with less (or in-frequent) communication flows with longer delays in-between than LTE networks, for example. loT devices can include

thermostats, light bulbs, door locks, fridges, cars, implants for RFID and pacemakers, or other non-processing devices or processing devices, and while all the devices being served on the network in FIG. 1 are illustrated as loT devices, these loT devices can communicatively couple or communicate with one another and be coupled to a same network as a UE device or user mobile device configured to primarily communicate via the network than directly to one another or with just a user. Although only five UE devices 1 10, 1 12, 1 14, 1 16, 1 1 8 are illustrated, any number of UE devices can be deployed within the wireless communications environment 100 as well.

[0031] Each wireless communications network, cellular broadcast servers 102, 104 and small cell network devices 106, 108 can be referred to also as network devices (NDs), in general, which can operate in conjunction in order to process network traffic for the one or more UEs and the loT devices 1 1 0, 1 1 2, 1 14, 1 16, or 1 18, as cellular broadcast servers 1 02, 104, small cell network devices 106, 108, or be an loT or UE devices 1 10, 1 12, 1 14, 1 16, or 1 1 8. For example, macro cell NDs 1 02, 104 can comprise a set of network devices that are cellular enabled network devices or loT enabled network devices. In another example, the cellular network devices 106, 108 can include a set of network devices that operate with a smaller coverage zone than the macro cell network devices 1 02 and 104, for example, or control similar coverage zones as the macro cell devices. As one of ordinary skill in the art can appreciate, this disclosure is not limited to any one network environment architecture / deployment.

[0032] Although NDs 1 06 and 108 are described as cellular network devices, they can also be cellular network devices (macro cell base stations or small cell base stations), or some other type of ND operable as a base station, eNB, next generation NodeB (gNB), for example, associated with a secondary (WiFi or loT network) cell network device or network provider device. Alternatively or additionally, one or more of the macro cell NDs 102 and 104 could be cellular network devices or other NDs of different radio access technologies (RATs) that operate with different frequency carriers, for example, as small eNBs, micro-eNBs, pico-eNBs, Femto-eNBs, home eNBs

(HeNBs), or secondary cell devices also.

[0033] Each of the one or more cellular broadcast servers (e.g., macro cell NDs 102, 104) can have a corresponding service areas 124, 126, while others provide for a less or smaller service area, as with NDs 106 and 108 corresponding to network service areas 120 and 122, respectively. However, it should be understood that the wireless communications environment 1 00 is not limited to this implementation. For example, any number of APs or NDs with respective service areas can be deployed within the wireless communications environment 100. Further, any number of cellular broadcast servers and respective service areas can be deployed within the wireless

communications environment 1 00 as well.

[0034] In an example scenario, loT devices 1 10, 1 1 2, 1 14, 1 16, or 1 18 can be serviced by networks through the macro cell NDs 102, 1 04, or directly through the small cell NDs 106, 108 in response to an emergency call / trigger or SoS signal. In particular, when an loT device is in extreme service conditions or outside of the normal boundary of a network area, an optimization can be enabled that extends resources of the particular network to an enhanced coverage for the particular loT device 1 12, for example, in response to identifying an emergency condition via the loT device 1 12. Once an loT device 1 1 2, for example, is deemed emergency critical or in a critical or extended / enhanced are of the environment relative to any particular network area, such as by a trigger or use of a vehicle (or other loT) out of cell reception range, an optimization by an ND 106 could occur to enhance the coverage to an enhanced coverage with a larger range of operation or greater strength of signal quality by enabling scheduling opportunities for UL communication to the loT device or connecting it to the network 1 20; otherwise, resources on the cell network could not necessarily be allocated or the loT device could suffer with respect to applications that require minimal delay like voice applications (e.g. VoIP) via the loT device.

[0035] In order to support regular voice over IOT (with similar quality requirements supported by legacy devices or UE devices) with some coverage enhancements, Rel-1 3 IOT radio access technology have limited capability and hence it seems that a more advanced radio access technology is needed. For a conversational VoLTE call, the following quality requirements could be: a Mouth-to-Ear delay of less than 200 ms, and a perceptual objective listening quality assessment (POLQA) values at around 4 in a range of 1 to 5. However, for an emergency voice call, the requirements can be relaxed to: Mouth-to-Ear delay less than 250 ms if possible (and in extreme cases below 300 ms), and POLQA values should not be less than 3, with respect to the network communications over the loT device 1 12, for example.

[0036] Referring to FIG. 2, illustrated is an example delay chain between a microphone and a headset to demonstrate some of the aspects / embodiments herein for enabling emergency voice calling with loT devices under certain conditions. The delay processing / communication chain 200 includes a microphone (not shown) of the ΙοΤ device 1 1 2 communicatively coupled to an audio digital signal processor or processing chain 208 and a real time processing component 208 for processing audio calls or another delay sensitive application over IP or LTE. The chain further includes buffering 21 6 to an LTE component or eNB 212 via an antenna 220 or core network processing time to network 202. The communication can be then processes in DL to a headset of the loT device (e.g., 1 12) or other loT device via a similar communication processing chain through another LTE component 214 or the same 212 with a buffering process 218 through the RTP 212 / 208 and an audio signal processor / processing chain 206 / 204. As referred to herein, eNB 212 can also be 214 or 106, or referred to separately.

[0037] In an aspect, the microphone to headset delay chain 200 can comprise a 40 millisecond (ms) raster for the VoLTE (or VoIP) discontinuous reception (DRX)/ semi- persistent scheduling (SPS) to meet a 200 ms microphone to headset delay, as a target latency, with an estimated 80ms latency for processing between the audio DSP 208 and the RTP 208 outgoing, and the audio DSP 206 and the RTP 210 incoming. Other rasters and target latency values could also be envisioned as well. For example, these values can be represented as follows: 80 +2^*40 +1 0 + 2 Buffering < 200ms. A threshold could be determined by the eNB (e.g., 21 2, 214, or a higher layer of the network 202). The comparison can be represented as part of an optimization operation where for determining a latency budget: 80 + (2^*DRx) + (2^*buffering) + 10 < Target Latency. As can be seen, a 60ms DRx would not satisfy the normal latency

requirements or target. However, it is assumed that for an emergency call the latency requirement or target can be relaxed up to 300ms for a control channel over the air, a physical broadcast channel, other physical channel or radio resource control (RRC) signaling. This could allow use of a 80ms or 100ms DRx cycle that can be modified or signaled by the eNB in response to identifying an emergency condition for the loT device 1 1 2, for example.

[0038] In an aspect, an autonomous flexible DRx rate selection (from 40ms DRx to 100ms DRx) could be generated, which can be dynamically adapted, periodically or a- periodically, depending on a detection of channel conditions (e.g., a channel parameter such as signal strength or power, or other parameters), in response to a reception of a number of NACKs being received at the eNB 212 (106 of Fig. 1 ), or a depending on a measure of a requested quality from the loT 1 12 by the eNB or vice versa. In the case of the adaption / modification operation, the DRx could be modified from among predefined standard DRx rates (e.g., 40, 60, 80, 120 ms, etc.). In response to the NACKs being above a certain defined number (e.g., 3 or more, or another number) as the threshold, an incremental increase to the next higher defined DRx rate could be implemented, signaled or confirmed by the eNB.

[0039] In another aspect / embodiment, a modification of the SPS scheme can be generated by eNB 212 (106 of Fig. 1 ) to the loT device 1 12 the to allow for noncontiguous periodic allocation / signaling of resources to enhanced / emergency coverage of a cellular network to the loT device. This can allow for no loss in the scheduling opportunities due to a control channel, in which the signaling can be over the air, for example. In addition, an early decoding operation or set of process(es) of bundles or bundled signal repetitions to allow for complexity reduction. Bundles herein can refer to a signaling combination or bundling of automatic repeat request (ARQ) and the SPS signaling, which can include scheduling opportunities with corresponding allocated resources for each opportunity.

[0040] Other advantages to the eNB utilizing non-contiguous periodic allocation / signaling is to allow for implicit automatic repeat request (ARQ) with bundled repetitions and acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK). Additionally, an implicit uplink (UL) grant can made for any SPS bundle with fixed timing.

[0041] In another embodiment, the eNB 212 (106) can provide the dynamic DRx cycle change to adapt the resource usage to the coverage extension as needed by the loT device or a UE, for example. In response to the need, request or a measurement by the loT device, the eNB 212 (1 06) can further dynamically increase the bandwidth from 1 tone to K tones where a tone can span X KHz to Y KHz. X, for example, can be any integer greater than zero (e.g., X can correspond to 12 subcarriers for the Rel-13 NB- IOT DL or 72 for eMTC, or correspond to 1 in case of 5G lOT) and K being larger than X or larger than the maximum amount of tones associated to the specific radio access technology (K>12 for NB-IOT, K>72 for eMTC, etc.).

[0042] Referring to FIG. 3, illustrated is another embodiment for resource allocation where the eNB 212 (106), for example, can signal or perform a persistent scheduling for a UE or an loT device 1 1 2 to maximize resource usage (achieve higher / enhanced coverage) while maintaining a dynamic pattern in terms of amount of repetitions allocated to a given loT device up to a certain maximum limit. The dynamic pattern can be an SPS pattern or just be referred to as a pattern for a sequence of data

corresponding to the allocation of resources, the SPS bundles or scheduling

opportunities within a DL transmission burst or communication 300. As such, the persistent scheduling can be generated for a defined duration, while the eNB 212 (106) is still able to provide a flexible / dynamic pattern for optimization of resources in the persistent scheduling. The duration of the persistent scheduling can be based on N - D subframes, for example, where N is a maximum latency parameter and D an amount of time for the loT device or receiving device (e.g., a UE separately coupled to the network) of the network to decode a received packet and switch from receiving (via an Rx interface / chain) mode to a transmit (via a Tx interface / chain) mode.

[0043] Each n subframes can represent a subcarrier. The machine type

communication (MTC) physical download channel, for example, can be loT specific and provide a set of control data for packets (n, n+1 , etc.) on a physical downlink shared channel. The loT device 1 12 can initiate early decoding of the packet bundles at an initial packet indicator, for example. The loT device 1 1 2 is then triggered to decode packets, and can complete decoding early and begin transmitting if decoding is successful before the end of the complete reception. If successful, remaining packets can be discarded, and another packet bundle can be processed as received. Before discarding remaining packets and subframes still a part of the bundled packet or frame can be buffered until the next packet bundle is received.

[0044] The persistent scheduling can further be activated or deactivated via a control signal by the eNB 106, for example. In persistent scheduling, the loT device 1 12, for example, can receive scheduling grants / opportunities in all subframes to communicate UL data or the emergency VoIP as a delay sensitive application, which can be consistently based on the already received grants / opportunities. In contrast, semi- persistent scheduling could change the resources to the particular loT device 1 12 periodically or a-periodically and the loT device uses the grant each time for UL transmission, for example. In persistent scheduling, the eNB 212 (e.g., 106) can provide resource allocation (frequency, bandwidth, subcarriers, transmission opportunities, other communication / network parameters, etc.) with every subframe.

[0045] The persistent allocation can be made for dynamic repetition levels / amounts based on a rateless code design. The allocation for a certain loT device 1 12 can be maximized, but still allowing for early decoding depending on the channel conditions. Early decoding can refer to decoding of the packets received upon receiving a first symbol (e.g., OFDM symbol) or upon receiving the transmission immediately, as opposed to waiting for the entire packet / signal / speech packet. Embodiments may schedule the UE with a persistent scheduling through control channel for a given UE. The duration can be fixed or the network or the persistent scheduling can be activated / deactivated via control signal. [0046] The ΙοΤ device can assumes that the N minus D (N-D) subframes are allocated in DL when the maximum latency is N. N ms of packets can be bundled together by the eNB to form a single packet, which is mapped in a total bits per second (TBS). D can represent the time the UE needs to decode a packet to switch from RX to TX. The eNB can start transmitting data by using a coding scheme that is configured to create a new redundancy version at each repetition. In this way, the eNB 212 can enhance the gains that come from repetitions by exploiting coding gain rather than only the gain of pure repetitions. Examples of such codes are Luby Transform Codes, Raptor Codes (precoding done via low density parity check (LDPC) + a Luby Transform) or Fountain codes. These are rateless codes with the characteristic to being able to generate on the fly new redundancy until a code is infinitely small. As such, the loT device can try to decode the received packet every X ms are transmitted, whenever the packet can be successfully decoded and before the maximum delay is achieved (N-D) the device switches from reception Rx to transmission Tx and transmits the UL

ACK/NACK upon reception of which the eNB 212 starts transmission of the new packet. If the maximum delay is achieved (N-D), for example, the eNB 212 can stop

transmission of the current packet. In case the packet cannot be received successfully, the eNB 21 2 can decide whether to retransmit it (in case the delay is still acceptable) or discard it and start a new transmission. After reception of several NACKs received after transmission of the maximum amount of repetitions, the eNB can decide whether to increase dynamically the size N, the maximum latency, for example, as part of a resource optimization.

[0047] Referring to Table 1 below is a set of parameters utilized by the eNB (e.g., 106, or other ND herein) for enabling emergency coverage for delay sensitive applications such as VoIP / VoLTE calling. For the emergency VoLTE / VoIP calling, a reasonably narrowband codec can be about NB-AMR 4.75 Kbps or the lowest HR wideband codec can be about WB-AMR 6.6Kbps, for example. The parameters for such applications can be utilized in particular in DL communication from the eNB 106 to the loT 1 12 (or other NDs / loTs herein), for example.

[0048] In particular, Table 1 demonstrates an example of parametrization when NB- IOT is considered as the baseline radio access technology for loT; however, NB-IOT is used as an example only and other standards (e.g., Cat M1 loT, or the like) discussed herein can also be utilized by the loT devices of current aspects / embodiments being discussed. [0049] Table 1 : Emergency Call VoLTE Parameters

[0050] The available resource elements (REs) per NB-IOT subframe can depend on the network deployment scenarios. In a standalone case (no legacy long term evolution (LTE) system), the coding rate can increase in case of in band deployment because several resource elements (REs) could be punctured to avoid interference with the legacy LTE. In the case of a standalone network deployment the available REs =12^*14 - 8 (1 port NB-RS) = 160 resource elements (REs).

[0051] In a case of an in-band deployment the available REs = 12^*14 - 24 (4-port LTE cell specific reference signal (CRS)) - 1 6 narrowband resource signal (NB-RS) - 28 (max LTE physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) REs) = 100 REs. In order to achieve a viable coverage extension of around 10 dB, a single physical resource block (PRB) N-PDSCH allocation can utilize around the following: for a low code rate: -0.1 2; about 8 repetitions to achieve -4dB SNR (~5dB coverage extension); 26 repetitions to achieve -9.3dB SNR (~10dB coverage extension); and about 61 repetitions to achieve - 14.3dB SNR (~15dB coverage extension); and for a high code rate: -0.67; about 33 repetitions to achieve -4dB SNR (~5dB coverage extension); 68 repetitions to achieve - 9.3dB SNR (~10dB coverage extension); and about 264 repetitions to achieve -14.3dB SNR (~1 5dB coverage extension), for example.

[0052] Referring to FIG. 4, illustrated an embodiment that includes scaling the amount of coverage enhancement required by the loT device in the emergency situation. It can be assumed initially at least that at least a 40 ms DRx pattern is used (with bundling 2 20ms speech packets for on DL packet / frame communication). This could avoid limitations in terms of scheduling restrictions and timing relations between data transmission and an ACK/NACK report from the loT device 1 1 2 and received at the eNB 106, for example. To maximally exploit the available resources a fixed noncontiguous SPS scheme can be utilized where the narrow band physical downlink control channel (N-PDCCH) configures / activates an SPS scheme with pre-determined slots for ACK/NACK reporting which could be either early reporting or pipelined reporting as shown in FIG. 4 where the DL and UL transmission in response to the DL communications can be processed or generated by early transmission 402 and pipelined transmission 404 for emergency VoLTE / VoIP calling by the loT device 1 12, for example.

[0053] A benefit of early reporting can be to limit the power consumption in case the UE or loT device has sufficient a SNR level to be able to decode the data early without wasting further resources. The non-used data could be used for example for other users or loT devices if necessary. The drawback is that some of the resources are periodically used to allow for early ACK/NACK (e.g., at least about 3 ms per bundle) which reduces the amount of resources for data transmission, and hence limits the amount of possibly achieved repetitions.

[0054] In contrast, the pipelined approach 404 can be utilized in communications between the eNB and loT device, for example, instead is optimized to reduce as much as possible the usage of the resources for control (either downlink control or ACK NACK in UL), and hence maximize the amount of resources available for data transmission (i.e. coverage).

[0055] Each speech frame 'n' can be repeated a certain amount of times on each transmission packet 406 by using all the available 1 ms chunks according to a pattern. Without loss of generality the time can be divided into 20 ms burst which is considered to be the minimum unit (min speech burst 406). The amount of repetitions that can be used for a given UE or loT device is given by N-PDCCH and it is constant until the SPS is not deactivated. SPS can be activated via the use of N-PDCCH (via the use of a SPS radio network temporary identifier (RNTI)).

[0056] In one embodiment, the resources for transmission can be allocated according to a certain pattern. The pattern can be defined by a defined periodicity 'PSPS', and by an index. The index can further indicate a position PAN of the ACK/NACK in the SPS cycle with a certain granularity (e.g. resource 4^th, 8^th, 12^th, 1 6^th, 20^th which would correspond to a certain delay associated to the transmission of an ACK/NACK). This parameter (position of the ACK/ NACK could be also signaled by the device as a response to the SPS configuration and then confirmed via the SPS configuration by the network p_AN .

[0057] In another embodiment, whether ACK/NACK early transmission is present or not can be indicated to the loT device 1 12 by the eNB 10, such as by a one bit parameter. If early transmission is not active, then pipelined transmission could be indicated alternatively as well.

[0058] In case where the ACK/NACK bundling is present, an additional required information can be provided, for example, that provides the periodicity of the

ACK/NACK. The information about the ACK/NACK bundle and the periodicity, for example, could be multiplexed into the a same signaling. For example, a set of indices can be defined for one or more possible ACK/NACK periodicity BAN- If the periodicity is equivalent to a certain specific value, this can implicitly mean that there is no

ACK/NACK pipelining. As such, the parameter BAN can be equal to or less that the periodicity of the SPS: BAN <=

In a worst case, the latency can be PSPS + PAN- [0059] In one example, the SPS pattern could be indicated as (PSPS, Pan, BAN) from which these parameters can be derived, in which for every PSPS millisecond (ms) a new speech packet 'n' can transmitted (as this corresponds to the DRx cycle). The

ACK/NACK can be transmitted in the p_an ms after the beginning of each speech packet. The pattern is repeated every BAN ms.

[0060] In one example, the pattern parameters (PSPS, Pan, BAN) can equal (40, 12, 20) as the parameters derived for or by the pattern and corresponds to the transmission 402 of FIG. 4, where every 40ms there is a new speech packet transmitted. The

ACK/NACK is transmitted after 12 ms after the beginning of each speech packet. In this case the same pattern is repeated every 20ms, and early decoding is possible upon a successful transmission.

[0061 ] In another example, the parameters (PSPS, Pan, B_AN) can equal (40, 12, 40) as the parameters derived for or by the pattern and corresponds to the transmission 404 of FIG. 4, where every 40ms there is a new speech packet bundle transmitted. The ACK/NACK is transmitted after 12 ms after the beginning of each speech packet and in this case the same pattern is repeated every 40ms, while utilizing pipelining decoding. [0062] Other examples could also be utilized / enabled, for example, where (PSPS, p_an, BAN) = (60, 12, 20), (60, 1 2, 40), (60, 1 2, 60) etc..

[0063] ACK NACK reporting as shown in the PUSCH or other channels can always be happening with a certain delay with respect to the data transmission it refers to (the delay is indicated by PAN_, i.e. a fixed timing relation between the PDSCH and the

ACK/NACK reporting) as a position. In case early ACK/NACK reporting is enabled, as with the transmissions 402 of FIG. 4, this means that the ACK NACK refers to the feedback after trying to decode all the data received in the previous 20ms burst. This might correspond to an entire amount of repetitions or a fractional amount of repetitions, but not less than 1 . This means that for example configurations such as (1 00, p_an, 20) might not be possible depending on the chosen total bits per second (TBS) and the amount of 1 ms chunks chosen for the mapping of a speech packet for VoLTE / VoIP.

[0064] N-PDCCH could carry then the following set of information on top of the usual signaling information such as with the modulation and coding scheme (MCS): a. N_RL = number of repetitions required (integer or fractional number according to certain granularity); b. TBS= # of TBS for mapping the speech packets; c. # of 1 ms chunks; d. SPS parameters (PSPS, Pan, BAN)- The TBS can be provided implicitly by the MCS.

[0065] NB-loT communications can be bundled in packets, for example, up to multiple transmission time intervals (TTIs). For example, the number of TTI's that are being bundled in DL communications can be large and reach numbers of 20 TTIs, 30 or more (e.g., about 34 TTIs). With large bundling numbers persistent time is not being implemented and SPS can be utilized because operations or processing of

communications is on a half-duplex narrowband IOT in either transmission or receiving. If there is bundling, for example, in downlink or an uplink continuously the TTI's where with sending speech content, there becomes little opportunity to let the other side know the packet arrived successfully or not. As such, the DL or UL communications can either enter wrap this intense bundling with a few TTIs to allow for acknowledging the bundles that have been successfully or non-successfully decoded already, or keep the transmission going for quite some time before we enabling the ACK-NACK. As such, the pipelining in the early decoding can refers to whether there is need to distribute the speech packets across multiple TTIs because the transmissions are having only bundled packets or transmission is only on the narrowband (e.g., about 180 kHz available) and either the transmissions continues with the next speech packet before starting the acknowledging or it is interrupted after one of the speech packets have been successfully computed. [0066] Table 2 gives another example of parametrization

Table ; A¾¾ttab¾e resos-Kces for fmefgemfv VdTE CaSi some e amgie¾

[0067] In other aspects, as discussed briefly above, a flexible speech cycle selection can be generated for the communications between the eNB 106 and loT, for example. If an emergency call connection delivers too many NACKs (e.g. due to insufficient coverage extension such that the voice quality can be assumed to drop below an acceptable threshold level), the NB-IOT VoLTE system can autonomously switch to an 80 ms delay and 1 00 ms raster for the emergency call. When DRX cycles are increased the total bits required per voice packets can be increased as shown in the Table 2 above. Moreover, the latency can also be consequently increased. However, more resources can be made available for consecutive repetitions.

[0068] The concept is based on the assumption that the when the UE is in need of coverage extension and especially in case of emergency call, latency can be traded off with coverage. Hence an adaptive scheme can be performed where DRx cycle is adjusted in a dynamic way (e.g., starting from about 40ms and increased incrementally up to about 100ms) depending on NACK / ACK ratio. An initial adjustment phase could be required during which the eNB sends pilot data and wait for ACK/NACK reporting from the UE in order to adjust the DRx cycles. This adjustment could be based on a long terms channel statistic, which can also take into account the position of the loT device in the cell or in the coverage enhancement zone where coverage is being increased. This technique alone might not be sufficient to achieve coverage

enhancement and in some embodiments could be jointly used with additional techniques.

[0069] The different solutions or techniques described can be considered

independent of the radio access technology (RAT) used, and can be used in combination with different RATs as well. These solutions or embodiments / aspects could be triggered by an SOS request for example or other indication of an emergency situation or signal as well, for example.

[0070] In another aspect / embodiment, the eNB 106 can generate a flexible bandwidth usage for a particular loT device 1 12. This embodiment can include a dynamic increase of the bandwidth from very low bandwidth based on X tones (X corresponds to 12 subcarriers for the Rel-13 NB-IOT DL or 72 for eMTC or it might correspond to 1 in case of a 5G IOT standard used by the loT device) to a larger bandwidth corresponding to K tones (larger than the maximum amount of tones associated to the specific radio access technology (K>12 for NB-IOT, K>72 for enhanced machine to machine communication (eMTC) etc.) in order to increase the maximum achievable data rate and hence enable an increased coding gain. This embodiment can be considered to be an extension of a high performance enhanced machine to machine communication (HeMTC) proposal describing the enhancement of Cat M1 to support semi-statically configured higher bandwidth (e.g., up to 3 or 5MHz) in order to guarantee higher data rate and hence support VoLTE with the same coverage and same quality as Cat 1 at least for wideband (WB) and narrowband adaptive multi- rate (NB-AMR). The concept is extended here by introducing dynamic bandwidth allocation spanning from 1 tone to K tones to flexibly support different levels of quality.

[0071] In other aspects / embodiments, the scheduling optimization for Voice over loT (as VoIP / VoLTE) can comprise fallback operations to the regular radio access technology (e.g., NB-IOT if the system is normally based on NB-IOT for Machine to Machine (MTM / MTC) communications, or to 5G IOT) in case there is no need for higher data rate requirements. The eNB 106 can provide support of voice for the loT device 1 1 2 with varying levels of quality with the optimization of network parameters in DL communications with scheduling opportunities for the allocation of these resources (e.g., latency, coverage quality, bandwidth (BW), subcarrier spacing, coding and modulation schemes, or the like). Furthermore, support of higher bandwidth in case this is required for loT device communication under an emergency situation, while still taking advantage of the optimizations done for normal IOT systems (in terms of e.g. control channels, paging, system information blocks (SIB), etc.).

[0072] In addition to the solutions discussed under emergency conditions for loT devices, including non-contiguous SPS schemes with pipelined feedbacks (e.g., acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/ NACK) feedback from an loT device), flexible speech cycle selection (e.g., dynamic DRx modification), dynamic bandwidth usage, and persistent allocation with dynamic repetition levels based on rateless code schemes / designs, additional human interaction routines could be enabled in the DL and UL where voice would still not be feasible or satisfying a threshold level of quality / coverage. These routines can be enabled in order of a fallback priority or in any combination to further enable emergency responses over networks such as WiFi and cellular networks already deployed.

[0073] In particular, Rel.13 / Rel.14 NB-IOT has been / is in development for low power wide area (LPWA) networks for a large set of low data rate, deep coverage, non- delay sensitive and battery saving use cases. Some of these use cases could include the need for an option for Human Emergency Interaction. Such use cases could potentially further include the following: a. VIP tracking/ kid tracking (e.g. in case of kidnapping); b. Kids' SOS call (e.g. in case of being lost or having an accident); c. Health monitoring of elderly people (e.g. in case of a health issue); d. Any human emergency in close to out-of-coverage rural or off-shore or blocked coverage low-to-no service areas (any person passing by an IOT device equipped and flagged with emergency support); or Automotive emergency call in low-to-no service areas directly for the car. Due to the very small bandwidth available as well as the rather low effective data rates (which could require high coding rate to map existing voice codecs) for the half duplex frequency division duplex (HD-FDD) NB-IOT device, VoLTE to date has not been fully considered for NB-IOT. In contrast to the four solutions discussed above (used mainly for downlink communications from the eNB 106 to enable further UL in emergency communications by an loT device), further human interactions can be supported to affect the effect of coverage enhancements on the feasibility of a minimum Mean Opinion Score (MOS)/ Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment (POLQA) emergency call in particular in the UL.

[0074] For example, a robust coverage of about 10dB enhancement over Cat.1 LTE Downlink (or a Minimum Coupling Loss (MCL) of -156 dB) can be achieved with the NB-IOT device 1 12. As the MCL is UL-limited, different coverage ranges can be utilized as feasible for VoLTE in DL (larger) vs in UL (smaller). As an example Cat.1 LTE achieves ~145dB MCL in DL and ~141 dB MCL in UL.

[0075] As such a full range of methodologies for human emergency interaction routines can enabled with a Rel.13/Rel.14 or beyond NB-IOT device up to about 164dB MCL and with a 5G IOT device beyond 164dB MCL, for example. The emergency interaction routines can include a set of one or more routines in combination or alone. The set of routines can include an order of operations in priority order and ranked as follows: a. emergency call support both in DL and in UL; b. emergency call support in DL plus request to answer with SMS in UL; c. SMS support in DL plus request to use emergency button(s) for simple yes/no or very simple; or d. explicitly coded keyed (numbers, letters) answers. With these operations a. - d. or combinations being utilized or enabled in this order of priority depending coverage extent or enhanced coverage with associated parameters demanded by the loT device. For example, if a. alone is not operational, then a. in combination with b. could be enabled by the eNB 106 or other network device, for example, with just b. following, b. and c. in combination, or just c. and so on.

[0076] As described in associated with above aspects / embodiments, the MCL limits are identified for DL VoLTE support as well as for the UL VoLTE support. Voice support for emergency call in DL can be achieved via the four different solutions. However, it is known that UL is coverage-limited and in order to achieve coverage extension single- tone transmission is required rather than the use of the full physical resource block (PRB). This could limit the possibility to lower the code rate (to achieve more code gain) thanks to the use of the entire set of tones or the entire PRB or set of PRBs. It could also demand the use of several 1 ms chunks in order to map voice packets into single- tone transmissions. Further, single tone can cause a large amount of resources (in time domain) to be able to achieve the enhanced coverage level (as the transmission of a single speech packet could be >1 second of contiguous resources for no ARQ retransmission scheme).

[0077] The human emergency interaction routines that could be added to a Rel-1 3 / Rel-14 NB-IOT / 5G IOT device(s) can ~ depending on the already known (stationary NB-IOT device) or dynamically identified (nomadic NB-IOT device, e.g. in car) coverage situation - autonomously select between the following methods of human emergency interaction (the attached list is not meant to be complete and may combine UL and DL methods in other ways): 1 . for an emergency call: VoLTE with robust header compression (RoHC) operations (for DL and UL, in a NB-IOT model); 2. for an emergency call: VoLTE without the RoHC (for DL and UL, NB-IOT model); 3. for emergency communications where calling may not possible: VoLTE with RoHC (DL) + SMS UL at maximum of about once per 1 second (e.g., in UL alone, 140 + 60 Byte per 1 seconds); 4. for emergency communications where calling may not possible: SMS 140 + 60 Byte once per 1 second (DL and UL); or 5. for emergency communications where calling may not possible: a phrase index can be activated for computer voice with RoHC (DL, 20 + 5 Byte) once per 1 second + AT command(s) with RoHC (UL, 1 0 + 5 Byte) once per 1 second.

[0078] The human emergency interaction system with interaction routines can include extensions to the NB-IOT standard (in Rel.14)/ NR standard (Rel.15 or Rel.16) to extend both the DL and the UL coverage range for (emergency) VoLTE calls as much as possible for enhanced coverage as discussed herein in part. Additionally, these can include extensions to the NB-IOT standard (in Rel.14)/ NR standard (Rel.15 or Rel.16) to allow for an SOS Beacon which can be sent, for example, upon pressing a button or keys on a key pad. Verification of and or extensions if needed to the NB-IOT standard (in Rel.14)/ 5G IOT (Rel.15 and Rel.16) can also be performed by the eNB 106 or other network device to allow for an extreme coverage range of transmitting SMS both in DL and in UL. Further, procedures / methods can include dynamically switching between the different Human Emergency Interaction routines 1 . - 5.

[0079] The NB loT / 5G loT device, for example, can be further enhanced with all or part of the following components as part of generation of an SoS signal or call, for example, such as: an emergency button, a simple key pad (SMS capable), a simple text display, a minimum-level speech support for emergency call support; or an add-in of processing capabilities and memory to support a generated speech dictionary and speech generation.

[0080] In the following below Table 3 is illustrated an example of listing performance expectations for the five different emergency routines. All of them beat the Cat.1 coverage performance, emergency routines #4 and #5 can beat Rel.13 / 14 Cat. M1 coverage performance, and emergency routine #5 can beat the coverage performance of Rel.13/14 NBIOT.

[0081] Table 3: EMERGENCY INTERACTION ROUTINES AND PARAMETERS

# Emergency Data Rate DL Data Rate DL Min MCL Latency

Routine (UL & DL) per

voice packet/ per full message

1 Emergency call: 10.6 kbps; 40 10.6 kbps; 40 ms 151.5 dB 40ms

VoLTE with ms 2xpacket initiation

RoHC 2xpacket TBS: 424; length interval,

(DL&UL) TBS: 424; 5 ms; 80ms

(NB-IOT model) length 5ms; RL 7x; delay

RL 7x; eNB NF = 3 dB

UE NF = 5 dB 180 kHz

eNB PSD on Zero repetition

180kHz: +2 SINR dB Zero requirement:

repetition -4.3 dB

SINR

requirement:

-4.3 dB

Emergency call: 34 kbps; 20 34 kbps; 20 ms 148 dB 20ms

VoLTE w/o RoHC ms packet initiation

(DL&UL) packet TBS: 680; time 8 interval,

(NB-IOT model) TBS: 680; ms; RL 2x: 40 ms length eNB NF = 3 dB delay

8 ms; RL 2x: 180 kHz

UE NF = 5 dB Zero repetition

eNB PSD on SINR

180 requirement:

kHz: +2 dB -4.3 dB

Zero

repetition

SINR

requirement: -

4.3 dB

VoLTE with 10.6 kbps; 40 1 .6 kbps 151.5 dB DL: 40ms

RoHC ms Shannon with initiation

(DL) + 1 SMS 2x packet 5G 2/3 overhead interval,

(UL, 140 + 60 TBS: 424; factor 80ms

Byte) length eNB NF = 3dB delay per 1 seconds 5 ms; RL 7x; 180kHz UL

UE NF = 5 dB initiation eNB PSD on interval: 1

180 kHz: +2 second, dB Zero delay 2 repetition seconds

SINR

requirement:

-4.3 dB

SMS 140 + 60 1 .6 kbps 1 .6 kbps 161.5 dB UL and

Byte Shannon Shannon with DL:

per 1 seconds with 5G 2/3 5G 2/3 overhead initiation

(DL and UL) overhead factor interval:

factor eNB NF = 3dB 1 second,

UE NF = 5 dB 180kHz delay eNB PSD on 2 seconds

180

kHz: +2 dB

Phrase index for 160 bps 120 bps 173 dB UL computer voice Shannon Shannon with initiation with with 5G 2/3 overhead interval: 1

RoHC (DL, 15 + 5 5G 2/3 factor second,

Byte) per 1 overhead BS NF = 3 dB delay 2 second factor 3.75 kHz seconds

+ Small SOS UE NF = 5 dB

message with eNB PSD on

RoHC (UL, 10 + 5 3.75

second

[0082] As such, the above various set of solutions can be referred to as emergency routines that can be utilized between an loT and eNB to support human emergency interaction from a Rel.13/Rel.14 NB-IOT/ narrowband 5G IOT device as means to allow for coverage extension beyond Cat.1 and even beyond Rel.13/Rel.14 NB-IOT. Further, the following emergency routines can be supported on narrowband IOT devices: i.

Emergency call VoLTE with RoHC (DL&UL, NB-IOT model); ii. Emergency call VoLTE w/o RoHC (DL&UL, NB-IOT model); iii. Emergency communications based on VoLTE with RoHC (DL) + SMS UL at max once per 1 second (UL, 140 + 60 Byte per 1 seconds); iv. Emergency communications based on SMS with 140 + 60 Byte once per 1 second (DL and UL); and v. Emergency communications based on Phrase index for computer voice with RoHC (DL, 20 + 5 Byte) once per 1 second + AT command(s) with RoHC (UL, 10 + 5 Byte) once per 1 second. These emergency routines may be alternatively combined. The set of different emergency routines can be employed by one implementation instance and may be varied as well as not limited to the ones listed here.

[0083] In additional embodiments, extensions to the NB-IOT standard (in Rel.14)/ NR standard (Rel.15 or Rel.16, or beyond) can be enabled to extend both the DL and the UL coverage range for (emergency) VoLTE calls as much as possible. Extensions can also be provided in the communications and to the NB-IOT standard (in Rel.14)/ NR standard (Rel.15 or Rel.16) to allow for an SOS Beacon which can be sent, for example, upon pressing a button or keys on a small key pad and can trigger an SoS signal or communication at the loT device 1 12 and received by the base station or the eNB 106, for example.

[0084] Further, operations by the eNB 106, for example, can comprise a. verification

(or confirmation by the eNB) of and or extensions if needed to the NB-IOT standard (in

Rel.14)/ narrowband 5G IOT (Rel.15 and Rel.16) to allow for an extreme coverage range of transmitting SMS both in DL and in UL; b. verification of and or extensions if needed to the NB-IOT standard (in Rel.14) / narrowband 5G IOT (Rel.15 and Rel.16) to allow for an extreme coverage range of transmitting interacting with data rates below

SMS rates via word index, action AT commands, or both; or c. device capability signaling and parameters to configure the set of supported emergency routines.

[0085] A narrowband IOT device, as further detailed by way of example in Figures herein that could support human emergency interaction can be as follows: a. Simple emergency button; b. Simple key pad (SMS capable); c. Simple text display; d.

minimum-level speech support for emergency call support (e.g., with an add-in of processing capabilities and memory to support a generated speech dictionary and speech generation); or functionalities by components to autonomously select among enabled emergency routines.

[0086] Embodiments described herein can be implemented into a system using any suitably configured hardware and/or software. FIG. 5 illustrates, for at least one embodiment, example components of a network device 500 such as an eNB 102-108 of FIG. 1 , an loT device 1 10-1 18 of FIG. 1 . In some embodiments, the network device 500 can include application circuitry 502, baseband circuitry 504, radio frequency (RF) circuitry 506, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 508 and one or more antennas 510, coupled together at least as shown and can operate any one, all or a combination of operations or processes described within embodiments / aspects herein.

[0087] The application circuitry 502 can include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 502 can include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) can include any combination of general-purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors can be coupled with and/or can include memory/storage and can be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications and/or operating systems to run on the system.

[0088] The baseband circuitry 504 can include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 504 can include one or more baseband processors and/or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 506 and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 506. Baseband processing circuity 504 can interface with the application circuitry 502 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 506. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 can include a second generation (2G) baseband processor 504a, third generation (3G) baseband processor 504b, fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 504c, and/or other baseband processor(s) 504d for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., fifth generation (5G), 6G, etc.). The baseband circuitry 504 (e.g., one or more of baseband processors 504a-d) can handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 506. The radio control functions can include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 504 can include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, and/or constellation mapping / demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 504 can include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, and/or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and can include other suitable functionality in other embodiments.

[0089] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 can include elements of a protocol stack such as, for example, elements of an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) protocol including, for example, physical (PHY), media access control (MAC), radio link control (RLC), packet data convergence protocol (PDCP), and/or radio resource control (RRC) elements. A central processing unit (CPU) 504e of the baseband circuitry 504 can be configured to run elements of the protocol stack for signaling of the PHY, MAC, RLC, PDCP and/or RRC layers. In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry can include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 504f. The audio DSP(s) 504f can be include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and can include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry can be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 504 and the application circuitry 502 can be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

[0090] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 can provide for

communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 can support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) and/or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 504 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol can be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0091] RF circuitry 506 can enable communication with wireless networks using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various

embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 can include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. RF circuitry 506 can include a receive signal path which can include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 508 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 504. RF circuitry 506 can also include a transmit signal path which can include circuitry to up- convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 504 and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 508 for transmission.

[0092] In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 can include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the RF circuitry 506 can include mixer circuitry 506a, amplifier circuitry 506b and filter circuitry 506c. The transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 506 can include filter circuitry 506c and mixer circuitry 506a. RF circuitry 506 can also include synthesizer circuitry 506d for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path can be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 508 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 506d. The amplifier circuitry 506b can be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 506c can be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals can be provided to the baseband circuitry 504 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals can be zero- frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path can comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0093] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506a of the transmit signal path can be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 506d to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 508. The baseband signals can be provided by the baseband circuitry 504 and can be filtered by filter circuitry 506c. The filter circuitry 506c can include a low-pass filter (LPF), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0094] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506a of the transmit signal path can include two or more mixers and can be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and/or up-conversion respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506a of the transmit signal path can include two or more mixers and can be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506a can be arranged for direct down-conversion and/or direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506a of the transmit signal path can be configured for super-heterodyne operation.

[0095] In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals can be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals can be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 can include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry 504 can include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 506.

[0096] In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry can be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the

embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0097] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 506d can be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers can be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 506d can be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0098] The synthesizer circuitry 506d can be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 506a of the RF circuitry 506 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 506d can be a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer.

[0099] In some embodiments, frequency input can be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input can be provided by either the baseband circuitry 504 or the applications processor 502 depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) can be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the applications processor 502.

[00100] Synthesizer circuitry 506d of the RF circuitry 506 can include a divider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider can be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator can be a digital phase accumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD can be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL can include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip- flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements can be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[00101 ] In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 506d can be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency can be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency can be a LO frequency (f|_o)- In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 can include an IQ/polar converter.

[00102] FEM circuitry 508 can include a receive signal path which can include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 51 0, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 506 for further processing. FEM circuitry 508 can also include a transmit signal path which can include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 506 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 510.

[00103] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 508 can include a TX / RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry can include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry can include a low-noise amplifier (LNA) to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 506). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 508 can include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 506), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 510.

[00104] In some embodiments, the device 500 can include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or an input/output (I/O) interface. In addition, the device 500 can include the components discussed herein to further generate or process resource TDMCA operations described, as well as synchronization. [00105] In standalone operations, the loT or network devices can operate in the unlicensed spectrum for both DL and UL. In anchored TDMCA operations, the devices can operate by using the licensed spectrum for certain channels or data. The split between which channels transmit in the licensed carrier and which channels can be transmitted on the unlicensed carrier can be flexible among various different embodiments.

[00106] While the methods described within this disclosure are illustrated in and described herein as a series of acts or events, it will be appreciated that the illustrated ordering of such acts or events are not to be interpreted in a limiting sense. For example, some acts may occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other acts or pre apart from those illustrated and/or described herein. In addition, not all illustrated acts may be required to implement one or more aspects or embodiments of the description herein. Further, one or more of the acts depicted herein may be carried out in one or more separate acts and/or phases.

[00107] Referring to FIG. 6, illustrated is an example process flow 600 for an loT device to process or generate a loT communications with enhanced coverage in response to an identification of an emergency signal or situation. For example, the method 600 can initiate at 602 with one or more processors, or other component described herein, configured to process / identify an SoS indication / signal / communication to / from an loT device.

[00108] At 604, the process flow 600 further comprises processing a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to the loT device and enables the loT device to communicate via a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) / voice over long term evolution (VoLTE) application or other delay sensitive application that relies on minimal delay in communication to function (e.g., voice calls, or the like).

[00109] In other aspects, the eNB or loT can enable via DL / UL communication one or more emergency user interaction routines with the loT device in a narrow band (NB)- loT band with such non-delay sensitive application. For example, enhanced coverage beyond category (Cat) 1 M loT and Release 13 and 14 narrow band (NB)-loT standards can be provided by the eNB to the loT device in response to an SoS trigger (e.g., an SoS signal / indication / message, etc.).

[00110] The one or more emergency user interaction routines with the loT device can be in response to a determination that the delay-sensitive application is inactive or unusable by the loT device. These emergency interaction routines can then be used as a fallback to providing enhanced coverage alone for delay sensitive applications in the UL and ensure at least some emergency resources are able to be signaled and delivered to a user of a particular loT device (e.g., a vehicle, home owner without cell coverage, any appliance or the like).

[00111 ] The one or more emergency user interaction routines can comprise at least one of: a. providing for the VoIP application to communicate in at least one of: an uplink (UL) communication or the DL communication with or without a robust header compression respectively, b. enabling one or more short message service

communications in the UL communication and the DL communication, or c. emergency communications based on a word / phrase index for a computer voice with the robust header compression. These routines can be used in any combination, used in priority order from a. to c, or selected based on the geography, coverage demand, feedback, the SoS signal / trigger identified, or other indication of current network parameters under which the particular loT device is operating at the time.

[00112] In aspect, the enhanced coverage can be signaled or provided to the loT device in the DL communication and for the UL communication to enable an SoS beacon in a narrowband of operation. The enhanced coverage could be enabled with a data rate that is below the short message service communications and used by the loT device via the word / phrase index and an attention command. These commands or phrases can be selected on a screen or monitor of the loT device for example.

[00113] In other embodiments / aspects, the process flow 600 can further include receiving or transmitting the DL communication with an allocation of resources associated with one or more scheduling opportunities for the VoIP application, wherein the allocation of resources can be based on an optimization of network parameters with a pattern for a semi persistent scheduling. Further, the DL communication can be generated by a non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities based on this pattern.

[00114] For example, an SPS pattern or data sequence / matrix / mapping can allocate a speech frame for the VoIP application, and resources can be allocated based on a periodicity of the SPS pattern and an index. This index can further one or more parameters to enable communications that can comprise at least one of: a position corresponding to an acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) communication such as a scheduling position for the loT to communicate. Additionally, the index as part of the parameters can include a first indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission is being utilized. If not, then this could indicate pipelining

communication can be generated for the feedback communication from the loT device to the eNB, for example. A second indication can also be provided as to whether ACK/NACK bundling is present in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the SPS pattern.

[00115] Information about the ACK/NACK bundle and the periodicity could be multiplexed into the same signaling (e.g. a set of indices are defined for several possible ACK/NACK periodicity and if the periodicity is equal to a certain specific value this would implicitly mean that there is no ACK/NACK pipelining. It should be noted that 'BAN <= PSPS'_, and that the latency associated to this scheme is P_SPS + PAN in the worst case. The SPS pattern would then be indicated as (PSPS, Pan, B_AN) where every P_SPS ms a new speech packet 'n' is transmitted (this corresponds to the DRX cycle). The

ACK/NACK is transmitted in the p_an ms after the beginning of each speech packet. The pattern can be repeated every BAN ms.

[00116] The loT device can further receive or transmit via a control channel, an allocation of resources from an optimization of network parameters based on at least one of: a channel condition or the enhanced coverage, wherein the delay sensitive optimization comprises an increase in at least one of: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, a call latency, or one or more tones comprising a subcarrier spacing. The control channel can comprise, for example, an loT specific control channel with a semi static scheduling or a configurable persistent scheduling, a broadcast channel, or a radio resource control channel.

[00117] To provide further context for various aspects of the disclosed subject matter, FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of an loT device, in which one or more components discuss herein relate to access of a network (e.g., network device, base station, wireless access point, femtocell access point, and so forth) that can enable and/or exploit features or aspects disclosed herein for emergency coverage.

[00118] Access equipment, a network device (e.g., eNB, network entity, or the like), a UE, loT device or software related to access of a network can receive and transmit signal(s) from and to wireless devices, wireless ports, wireless routers, etc. through segments 702 702_B (B is a positive integer) as eNB or loT device 72 / 17. Segments 702 702_B can be internal and/or external to access equipment and/or software related to access of a network, and can be controlled by a monitor component 704 and an antenna component 706. Monitor component 704 and antenna component 706 can couple to communication platform 708, which can include electronic components and associated circuitry that provide for processing and manipulation of received signal(s) and other signal(s) to be transmitted. [00119] In an aspect, communication platform 708 includes a receiver/transmitter 71 0 that can convert analog signals to digital signals upon reception of the analog signals, and can convert digital signals to analog signals upon transmission. In addition, receiver/transmitter 71 0 (e.g., receiver / transmitter circuitry) can divide a single data stream into multiple, parallel data streams, or perform the reciprocal operation. Coupled to receiver/transmitter 710 can be a multiplexer / demultiplexer 712 that can facilitate manipulation of signals in time and frequency space. Multiplexer / demultiplexer 71 2 can multiplex information (data/traffic and control/signaling) according to various multiplexing schemes such as time division multiplexing, frequency division

multiplexing, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, code division multiplexing, space division multiplexing. In addition, multiplexer/ demultiplexer component 712 can scramble and spread information (e.g., codes, according to substantially any code known in the art, such as Hadamard-Walsh codes, Baker codes, Kasami codes, polyphase codes, and so forth).

[00120] A modulator/demodulator 714 is also a part of communication platform 708, and can modulate information according to multiple modulation techniques, such as frequency modulation, amplitude modulation (e.g., M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation, with M a positive integer); phase-shift keying; and so forth).

[00121 ] Access equipment and/or software related to access of a network also includes a processor 716 configured to confer, at least in part, functionality to substantially any electronic component in access equipment and/or software. In particular, processor 716 can facilitate configuration of access equipment and/or software through, for example, monitor component 704, antenna component 706, and one or more components therein. Additionally, access equipment and/or software can include display interface 718, which can display functions that control functionality of access equipment and/or software or reveal operation conditions thereof. In addition, display interface 718 can include a screen to convey information to an end user. In an aspect, display interface 718 can be a liquid crystal display, a plasma panel, a monolithic thin-film based electrochromic display, and so on. Moreover, display interface 718 can include a component (e.g., speaker) that facilitates communication of aural indicia, which can also be employed in connection with messages that convey operational instructions to an end user. Display interface 718 can also facilitate data entry (e.g., through a linked keypad or through touch gestures), which can cause access equipment and/or software to receive external commands (e.g., restart operation). [00122] Broadband network interface 720 facilitates connection of access equipment and/or software to a service provider network (not shown) that can include one or more cellular technologies (e.g., third generation partnership project universal mobile telecommunication system, global system for mobile communication, and so on) through backhaul link(s) (not shown), which enable incoming and outgoing data flow. Broadband network interface 720 can be internal or external to access equipment and/or software and can utilize display interface 718 for end-user interaction and status information delivery.

[00123] Processor 716 can be functionally connected to communication platform 708 and can facilitate operations on data (e.g., symbols, bits, or chips) for multiplexing / demultiplexing, such as effecting direct and inverse fast Fourier transforms, selection of modulation rates, selection of data packet formats, inter-packet times, and so on.

Moreover, processor 716 can be functionally connected, through data, system, or an address bus 722, to display interface 718 and broadband network interface 720, to confer, at least in part, functionality to each of such components.

[00124] In access equipment and/or software memory 724 can retain location and/or coverage area (e.g., macro sector, identifier(s)) access list(s) that authorize access to wireless coverage through access equipment and/or software sector intelligence that can include ranking of coverage areas in the wireless environment of access equipment and/or software, radio link quality and strength associated therewith, or the like.

Memory 724 also can store data structures, code instructions and program modules, system or device information, code sequences for scrambling, spreading and pilot transmission, access point configuration, and so on. Processor 71 6 can be coupled (e.g., through a memory bus), to memory 724 in order to store and retrieve information used to operate and/or confer functionality to the components, platform, and interface that reside within access equipment and/or software.

[00125] In addition, the memory 724 can comprise one or more machine-readable medium / media including instructions that, when performed by a machine or component herein cause the machine to perform acts of the method or of an apparatus or system for concurrent communication using multiple communication technologies according to embodiments and examples described herein. It is to be understood that aspects described herein can be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, functions can be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium (e.g., the memory described herein or other storage device). Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage media or a computer readable storage device can be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD- ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or other tangible and/or non-transitory medium, that can be used to carry or store desired information or executable instructions. Also, any connection can also be termed a computer-readable medium. For example, if software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium.

[00126] As used herein, the term "circuitry" may refer to, be part of, or include an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (shared, dedicated, or group), and/or memory (shared, dedicated, or group) that execute one or more software or firmware programs, a combinational logic circuit, and/or other suitable hardware components that provide the described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry may be implemented in, or functions associated with the circuitry may be implemented by, one or more software or firmware modules. In some embodiments, circuitry may include logic, at least partially operable in hardware.

[00127] As it employed in the subject specification, the term "processor" can refer to substantially any computing processing unit or device including, but not limited to including, single-core processors; single-processors with software multithread execution capability; multi-core processors; multi-core processors with software multithread execution capability; multi-core processors with hardware multithread technology;

parallel platforms; and parallel platforms with distributed shared memory. Additionally, a processor can refer to an integrated circuit, an application specific integrated circuit, a digital signal processor, a field programmable gate array, a programmable logic controller, a complex programmable logic device, a discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform the functions and/or processes described herein. Processors can exploit nano-scale architectures such as, but not limited to, molecular and quantum-dot based transistors, switches and gates, in order to optimize space usage or enhance performance of mobile devices. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing processing units.

[00128] In the subject specification, terms such as "store," "data store," data storage," "database," and substantially any other information storage component relevant to operation and functionality of a component and/or process, refer to "memory

components," or entities embodied in a "memory," or components including the memory. It is noted that the memory components described herein can be either volatile memory or nonvolatile memory, or can include both volatile and nonvolatile memory.

[00129] By way of illustration, and not limitation, nonvolatile memory, for example, can be included in a memory, non-volatile memory (see below), disk storage (see below), and memory storage (see below). Further, nonvolatile memory can be included in read only memory, programmable read only memory, electrically programmable read only memory, electrically erasable programmable read only memory, or flash memory.

Volatile memory can include random access memory, which acts as external cache memory. By way of illustration and not limitation, random access memory is available in many forms such as synchronous random access memory, dynamic random access memory, synchronous dynamic random access memory, double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory, enhanced synchronous dynamic random access memory, Synchlink dynamic random access memory, and direct Rambus random access memory. Additionally, the disclosed memory components of systems or methods herein are intended to include, without being limited to including, these and any other suitable types of memory.

[00130] Examples can include subject matter such as a method, means for performing acts or blocks of the method, at least one machine-readable medium including instructions that, when performed by a machine cause the machine to perform acts of the method or of an apparatus or system for concurrent communication using multiple communication technologies according to embodiments and examples described herein.

[00131 ] Example 1 may include an apparatus comprising: means to identify a message that is to be transmitted to a remote device; and means to transmit the message based on non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling (SPS).

[00132] Example 2 may include the apparatus of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the means to transmit the message include means to allocate resources for the transmission in accordance with a pattern that is based on periodicity of the SPS.

[00133] Example 3 may include the apparatus of example 2 and/or some other example herein, wherein the pattern is further based on a parameter (which may optionally be referred to as PAN₎ which relates to a position of an

acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) in a cycle of the SPS.

[00134] Example 4 may include the apparatus of example 2 and/or some other example herein, wherein the pattern is further based on a 1 -bit parameter (which may optionally be referred to as e) which relates to whether acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) early transmission is present.

[00135] Example 5 may include the apparatus of example 2 and/or some other example herein wherein, if an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement

(ACK/NACK) bundle is present, the pattern is further related to a parameter (which may optionally be referred to as BAN) that is related to a periodicity of the ACK/NACK.

[00136] Example 6 may include the apparatus of example 5 and/or some other example herein, wherein BAN is less than a periodicity of the SPS (which may optionally be referred to as PSPS) -

[00137] Example 7 may include the apparatus of example 5 and/or some other example herein, wherein information about the ACK/NACK bundle and the periodicity are multiplexed into the same signalling.

[00138] Example 8 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 -7 and/or some other example herein, wherein P_SPs, p_AN, BAN, and/or e, are signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) to a user equipment (UE) upon configuration of a scheme related to the SPS.

[00139] Example 9 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 -7 and/or some other example herein, wherein P_SPs, p_AN, BAN, and/or e, are signaled by a user equipment (UE) and confirmed by an evolved NodeB (eNB).

[00140] Example 10 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 -7 and/or some other example herein, wherein a subset of PSPS, PAN, BAN, and/or e, is signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) and a complimentary subset of PSPS, PAN, BAN, and/or e is signaled by a user equipment (UE) and confirmed by the eNB.

[00141 ] Example 1 1 may include the apparatus of example 2, wherein the pattern is periodic.

[00142] Example 12 may include the apparatus of example 2, wherein the pattern is aperiodic and reconfigured before starting a new cycle. [00143] Example 13 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 -12, wherein the apparatus is a UE (or implementation or portion thereof) and the remote device is an eNB (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00144] Example 14 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 -12, wherein the apparatus is an eNB (or implementation or portion thereof) and the remote device is a UE (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00145] Example 15 may include an apparatus comprising: means to identify a coverage need and/or a channel condition; and means to adjust, based on the coverage need and/or the channel condition, a connected mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle and/or an ON period.

[00146] Example 16 may include the apparatus of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the coverage need and/or channel condition is related to use of voice by reduced bandwidth devices such as internet of things (loT) devices.

[00147] Example 17 may include the apparatus of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the coverage need and/or channel condition are related to an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) ratio, channel conditions, and/or coverage extension need.

[00148] Example 18 may include the apparatus of example 15 and/or some other example herein, where the adjustment of the C-DRX cycle follows a transitory phase during which use of the DRX cycle is adapted dependent on coverage level and application type.

[00149] Example 19 may include the apparatus of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein adjustment of the C-DRX cycle triggers adjustment of an ON period in a remote device.

[00150] Example 20 may include the apparatus of example 19 and/or some other example herein, wherein the remote device is a user equipment (UE).

[00151 ] Example 21 may include the apparatus of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the means to adjust the C-DRX cycle include means to identify, prior to adjustment, that a current C-DRx cycle has been maintained for a minimum amount of time.

[00152] Example 22 may include the apparatus of any of examples 15-21 , wherein the apparatus is an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00153] Example 23 may include an apparatus comprising: means to identify that a system bandwidth includes 1 tone; and means to increase the system bandwidth to K tones. [00154] Example 24 may include the apparatus of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein K is greater than or equal to 2.

[00155] Example 25 may include the apparatus of example 24 and/or some other example herein, wherein K is equal to 1 2.

[00156] Example 26 may include the apparatus of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein the means to increase the system bandwidth include means to use a broadcast channel.

[00157] Example 27 may include the apparatus of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein a tone of the K tones spans between approximately 3.75 kilohertz (KHz) and approximately 15 KHz.

[00158] Example 28 may include the apparatus of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein a bandwidth of a tone of the K tones is a subcarrier spacing.

[00159] Example 29 may include the apparatus of example 23 and/or some other example herein, wherein a bandwidth of a tone of the K tones is signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) via a control channel.

[00160] Example 30 may include the apparatus of example 29 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a broadcast channel.

[00161 ] Example 31 may include the apparatus of example 29 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a user equipment (UE)-specific control channel that is signaled in a semi static manner.

[00162] Example 32 may include the apparatus of example 31 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a radio resource control (RRC) signal.

[00163] Example 33 may include the apparatus of any of examples 23-32, wherein the apparatus is an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00164] Example 34 may include an apparatus comprising: means to identify a schedule related to a user equipment (UE); and means to transmit an indication of the schedule to the UE via a control channel that uses persistent scheduling.

[00165] Example 35 may include the apparatus of example 34 and/or some other example herein, wherein a duration of the persistent scheduling is predefined.

[00166] Example 36 may include the apparatus of example 35 and/or some other example herein, wherein the duration is related to N-D subframes when N is a maximum latency parameter and D is an amount of time needed by the UE to decode a packet to switch from a receive (Rx) mode to a transmit (Tx) mode. [00167] Example 37 may include the apparatus of example 34 and/or some other example herein, wherein an allocation of persistent scheduling can be deactivated via control signal.

[00168] Example 38 may include the apparatus of example 34 and/or some other example herein, further comprising means to generate a new redundancy version for each repetition (e.g. by using rateless codes such that raptor codes)

[00169] Example 39 may include the apparatus of example 34 and/or example 38 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UE is to decode a packet every X milliseconds (ms).

[00170] Example 40 may include the apparatus of example 39 and/or some other example herein, wherein whenever the packet is decoded and before the maximum delay is achieved (N-D) the UE switches from Rx to Tx, buffers the packets received during the feedback computation and transmits the uplink (UL)

acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK).

[00171 ] Example 41 may include the apparatus of example 40 and/or some other example herein, further comprising means to, upon reception of ACK, start transmission of a new packet; means to stop, if the maximum delay is achieved (N-D), transmission of the current packet; and means to continue, if NACK is received and the maximum latency is not reached, generation of the new redundancy version.

[00172] Example 42 may include the apparatus of example 41 and/or some other example herein, further comprising means to decide, wherein if the packet cannot be received successfully, whether to retransmit it (in case the delay is still acceptable) or discard it and start a new transmission.

[00173] Example 43 may include the apparatus of example 41 and/or some other example herein, further comprising means to decide, after reception of several NACK (received after transmission of the maximum amount of repetitions, whether to increase dynamically the size N.

[00174] Example 44 may include the apparatus of any of examples 34-43, wherein the apparatus is an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00175] Example 45 may include a method comprising: identifying or causing to identify a message that is to be transmitted to a remote device; and transmitting or causing to transmit the message based on non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling (SPS).

[00176] Example 46 may include the method of example 45 and/or some other example herein, wherein the transmitting or causing to transmit the message include allocating or causing to allocate resources for the transmission in accordance with a pattern that is based on periodicity of the SPS.

[00177] Example 47 may include the method of example 46 and/or some other example herein, wherein the pattern is further based on a parameter (which may optionally be referred to as PAN₎ which relates to a position of an

acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) in a cycle of the SPS.

[00178] Example 48 may include the method of example 46 and/or some other example herein, wherein the pattern is further based on a 1 -bit parameter (which may optionally be referred to as e) which relates to whether acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) early transmission is present.

[00179] Example 49 may include the method of example 46 and/or some other example herein wherein, if an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement

[00180] Example 50 may include the method of example 49 and/or some other example herein, wherein BAN is less than a periodicity of the SPS (which may optionally be referred to as PSPS) -

[00181 ] Example 51 may include the method of example 49 and/or some other example herein, wherein information about the ACK/NACK bundle and the periodicity are multiplexed into the same signalling.

[00182] Example 52 may include the method of any of examples 45-51 and/or some other example herein, wherein P_SPs, p_AN, BAN, and/or e, are signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) to a user equipment (UE) upon configuration of a scheme related to the SPS.

[00183] Example 53 may include the method of any of examples 45-51 and/or some other example herein, wherein P_SPs, p_AN, BAN, and/or e, are signaled by a user equipment (UE) and confirmed by an evolved NodeB (eNB).

[00184] Example 54 may include the method of any of examples 45-51 and/or some other example herein, wherein a subset of PSPS, PAN, BAN, and/or e, is signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) and a complimentary subset of PSPS, PAN, BAN, and/or e is signaled by a user equipment (UE) and confirmed by the eNB.

[00185] Example 55 may include the method of example 46, wherein the pattern is periodic.

[00186] Example 56 may include the method of example 46, wherein the pattern is aperiodic and reconfigured before starting a new cycle. [00187] Example 57 may include the method of any of examples 45-56, wherein the method is performed, in whole or in part, by a UE (or implementation or portion thereof) and the remote device is an eNB (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00188] Example 58 may include the method of any of examples 45-56, wherein the method is performed, in whole or in part, by an eNB (or implementation or portion thereof) and the remote device is a UE (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00189] Example 59 may include a method comprising: identifying or causing to identify a coverage need and/or a channel condition; and adjusting or causing to adjust, based on the coverage need and/or the channel condition, a connected mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle and/or an ON period.

[00190] Example 60 may include the method of example 59 and/or some other example herein, wherein the coverage need and/or channel condition is related to use of voice by reduced bandwidth devices such as internet of things (loT) devices.

[00191 ] Example 61 may include the method of example 59 and/or some other example herein, wherein the coverage need and/or channel condition are related to an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) ratio, channel conditions, and/or coverage extension need.

[00192] Example 62 may include the method of example 59 and/or some other example herein, where the adjustment of the C-DRX cycle follows a transitory phase during which use of the DRX cycle is adapted dependent on coverage level and application type.

[00193] Example 63 may include the method of example 59 and/or some other example herein, wherein adjustment of the C-DRX cycle triggers adjustment of an ON period in a remote device.

[00194] Example 64 may include the method of example 63 and/or some other example herein, wherein the remote device is a user equipment (UE).

[00195] Example 65 may include the method of example 59 and/or some other example herein, wherein the adjusting or causing to adjust the C-DRX cycle include identifying or causing to identify, prior to adjustment, that a current C-DRX cycle has been maintained for a minimum amount of time.

[00196] Example 66 may include the method of any of examples 59-65, wherein the method is performed, in whole or in part, by an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or

implementation or portion thereof). [00197] Example 67 may include a method comprising: identifying or causing to identify that a system bandwidth includes 1 tone; and increasing or causing to increase the system bandwidth to K tones.

[00198] Example 68 may include the method of example 67 and/or some other example herein, wherein K is greater than or equal to 2.

[00199] Example 69 may include the method of example 68 and/or some other example herein, wherein K is equal to 1 2.

[00200] Example 70 may include the method of example 67 and/or some other example herein, wherein the increasing or causing to increase the system bandwidth include using or causing to use a broadcast channel.

[00201 ] Example 71 may include the method of example 67 and/or some other example herein, wherein a tone of the K tones spans between approximately 3.75 kilohertz (KHz) and approximately 15 KHz.

[00202] Example 72 may include the method of example 67 and/or some other example herein, wherein a bandwidth of a tone of the K tones is a subcarrier spacing.

[00203] Example 73 may include the method of example 67 and/or some other example herein, wherein a bandwidth of a tone of the K tones is signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) via a control channel.

[00204] Example 74 may include the method of example 73 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a broadcast channel.

[00205] Example 75 may include the method of example 73 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a user equipment (UE)-specific control channel that is signaled in a semi static manner.

[00206] Example 76 may include the method of example 75 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a radio resource control (RRC) signal.

[00207] Example 77 may include the method of any of examples 67-76, wherein the method is performed, in whole or in part, by an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or

implementation or portion thereof).

[00208] Example 78 may include a method comprising: identifying or causing to identify a schedule related to a user equipment (UE); and transmitting or causing to transmit an indication of the schedule to the UE via a control channel that uses persistent scheduling.

[00209] Example 79 may include the method of example 78 and/or some other example herein, wherein a duration of the persistent scheduling is predefined. [00210] Example 80 may include the method of example 79 and/or some other example herein, wherein the duration is related to N-D subframes when N is a maximum latency parameter and D is an amount of time needed by the UE to decode a packet to switch from a receive (Rx) mode to a transmit (Tx) mode.

[00211 ] Example 81 may include the method of example 78 and/or some other example herein, wherein an allocation of persistent scheduling can be deactivated via control signal.

[00212] Example 82 may include the method of example 78 and/or some other example herein, further comprising generating or causing to generate a new

redundancy version for each repetition (e.g. by using rateless codes such that raptor codes).

[00213] Example 83 may include the method of example 78 and/or example 82 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UE is to decode a packet every X milliseconds (ms).

[00214] Example 84 may include the method of example 83 and/or some other example herein, wherein whenever the packet is decoded and before the maximum delay is achieved (N-D) the UE switches from Rx to Tx, buffers the packets received during the feedback computation and transmits the uplink (UL)

acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK).

[00215] Example 85 may include the method of example 84 and/or some other example herein, further comprising , upon reception of ACK, starting or causing to start transmission of a new packet; stopping or causing to stop, if the maximum delay is achieved (N-D), transmission of the current packet; and continuing or causing to continue, if NACK is received and the maximum latency is not reached, generation of the new redundancy version.

[00216] Example 86 may include the method of example 85 and/or some other example herein, further comprising deciding or causing to decide, wherein if the packet cannot be received successfully, whether to retransmit it (in case the delay is still acceptable) or discard it and start a new transmission.

[00217] Example 87 may include the method of example 85 and/or some other example herein, further comprising deciding or causing to decide, after reception of several NACK (received after transmission of the maximum amount of repetitions, whether to increase dynamically the size N. [00218] Example 88 may include the method of any of examples 78-87, wherein the method is performed, in whole or in part, by an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or

implementation or portion thereof).

[00219] Example 89 may include an apparatus comprising: baseband circuitry to identify a message that is to be transmitted to a remote device; and radio frequency (RF) circuitry coupled with the baseband circuitry, the RF circuitry to transmit the message based on non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) .

[00220] Example 90 may include the apparatus of example 89 and/or some other example herein, wherein the RF and/or baseband circuitry is further to allocate resources for the transmission in accordance with a pattern that is based on periodicity of the SPS.

[00221 ] Example 91 may include the apparatus of example 90 and/or some other example herein, wherein the pattern is further based on a parameter (which may optionally be referred to as PAN₎ which relates to a position of an

acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) in a cycle of the SPS.

[00222] Example 92 may include the apparatus of example 90 and/or some other example herein, wherein the pattern is further based on a 1 -bit parameter (which may optionally be referred to as e) which relates to whether acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) early transmission is present.

[00223] Example 93 may include the apparatus of example 90 and/or some other example herein wherein, if an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement

[00224] Example 94 may include the apparatus of example 93 and/or some other example herein, wherein BAN is less than a periodicity of the SPS (which may optionally be referred to as PSPS) -

[00225] Example 95 may include the apparatus of example 93 and/or some other example herein, wherein information about the ACK/NACK bundle and the periodicity are multiplexed into the same signalling.

[00226] Example 96 may include the apparatus of any of examples 89-95 and/or some other example herein, wherein P_SPs, p_AN, BAN, and/or e, are signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) to a user equipment (UE) upon configuration of a scheme related to the SPS. [00227] Example 97 may include the apparatus of any of examples 89-95 and/or some other example herein, wherein P_SPs, p_AN, BAN, and/or e, are signaled by a user equipment (UE) and confirmed by an evolved NodeB (eNB).

[00228] Example 98 may include the apparatus of any of examples 89-95 and/or some other example herein, wherein a subset of PSPS, PAN, BAN, and/or e, is signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) and a complimentary subset of PSPS, PAN, BAN, and/or e is signaled by a user equipment (UE) and confirmed by the eNB.

[00229] Example 99 may include the apparatus of example 90, wherein the pattern is periodic.

[00230] Example 100 may include the apparatus of example 90, wherein the pattern is aperiodic and reconfigured before starting a new cycle.

[00231 ] Example 101 may include the apparatus of any of examples 89-100, wherein the apparatus is a UE (or implementation or portion thereof) and the remote device is an eNB (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00232] Example 102 may include the apparatus of any of examples 89-100, wherein the apparatus is an eNB (or implementation or portion thereof) and the remote device is a UE (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00233] Example 103 may include an apparatus comprising:baseband circuitry to identify a coverage need and/or a channel condition; andradio frequency (RF) circuitry coupled with the baseband circuitry, the baseband and/or RF circuitry to adjust, based on the coverage need and/or the channel condition, a connected mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle and/or an ON period.

[00234] Example 104 may include the apparatus of example 103 and/or some other example herein, wherein the coverage need and/or channel condition is related to use of voice by reduced bandwidth devices such as internet of things (loT) devices.

[00235] Example 105 may include the apparatus of example 103 and/or some other example herein, wherein the coverage need and/or channel condition are related to an acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) ratio, channel conditions, and/or coverage extension need.

[00236] Example 106 may include the apparatus of example 103 and/or some other example herein, where the adjustment of the C-DRX cycle follows a transitory phase during which use of the DRX cycle is adapted dependent on coverage level and application type. [00237] Example 107 may include the apparatus of example 103 and/or some other example herein, wherein adjustment of the C-DRX cycle triggers adjustment of an ON period in a remote device.

[00238] Example 108 may include the apparatus of example 107 and/or some other example herein, wherein the remote device is a user equipment (UE).

[00239] Example 109 may include the apparatus of example 103 and/or some other example herein, wherein the RF and/or baseband circuitry are further to identify, prior to adjustment, that a current C-DRX cycle has been maintained for a minimum amount of time.

[00240] Example 1 1 0 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 03-109, wherein the apparatus is an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00241 ] Example 1 1 1 may include an apparatus comprising: baseband circuitry and/orradio frequency (RF) circuitry to identify that a system bandwidth includes 1 tone; andwherein the baseband and/or RF circuitry are further to increase the system bandwidth to K tones.

[00242] Example 1 1 2 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein K is greater than or equal to 2.

[00243] Example 1 1 3 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 2 and/or some other example herein, wherein K is equal to 1 2.

[00244] Example 1 14 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the baseband and/or RF circuitry are further to use a broadcast channel to increase the system bandwidth to K tones.

[00245] Example 1 1 5 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein a tone of the K tones spans between approximately 3.75 kilohertz (KHz) and approximately 15 KHz.

[00246] Example 1 1 6 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein a bandwidth of a tone of the K tones is a subcarrier spacing.

[00247] Example 1 1 7 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein a bandwidth of a tone of the K tones is signaled by an evolved NodeB (eNB) via a control channel.

[00248] Example 1 1 8 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 7 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a broadcast channel. [00249] Example 1 1 9 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 7 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a user equipment (UE)-specific control channel that is signaled in a semi static manner.

[00250] Example 120 may include the apparatus of example 1 1 9 and/or some other example herein, wherein the control channel is a radio resource control (RRC) signal.

[00251 ] Example 121 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 1 1 -120, wherein the apparatus is an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00252] Example 122 may include an apparatus comprising: baseband circuitry to identify a schedule related to a user equipment (UE); and radio frequency (RF) circuitry coupled with the baseband circuitry, the RF circuitry to transmit an indication of the schedule to the UE via a control channel that uses persistent scheduling.

[00253] Example 123 may include the apparatus of example 122 and/or some other example herein, wherein a duration of the persistent scheduling is predefined.

[00254] Example 124 may include the apparatus of example 123 and/or some other example herein, wherein the duration is related to N-D subframes when N is a maximum latency parameter and D is an amount of time needed by the UE to decode a packet to switch from a receive (Rx) mode to a transmit (Tx) mode.

[00255] Example 125 may include the apparatus of example 122 and/or some other example herein, wherein an allocation of persistent scheduling can be deactivated via control signal.

[00256] Example 126 may include the apparatus of example 122 and/or some other example herein, wherein the baseband and/or RF circuitry are further to generate a new redundancy version for each repetition (e.g. by using rateless codes such that raptor codes).

[00257] Example 127 may include the apparatus of example 122 and/or example 1 26 and/or some other example herein, wherein the UE is to decode a packet every X milliseconds (ms).

[00258] Example 128 may include the apparatus of example 127 and/or some other example herein, wherein whenever the packet is decoded and before the maximum delay is achieved (N-D) the UE switches from Rx to Tx, buffers the packets received during the feedback computation and transmits the uplink (UL)

acknowledgement/negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK).

[00259] Example 129 may include the apparatus of example 128 and/or some other example herein, wherein the RF and/or baseband circuitry are further to: start, upon reception of ACK, transmission of a new packet; stop, if the maximum delay is achieved (N-D), transmission of the current packet; and continue, if NACK is received and the maximum latency is not reached, generation of the new redundancy version.

[00260] Example 130 may include the apparatus of example 129 and/or some other example herein, wherein the baseband and/or RF circuitry are further to decide, wherein if the packet cannot be received successfully, whether to retransmit it (in case the delay is still acceptable) or discard it and start a new transmission.

[00261 ] Example 131 may include the apparatus of example 129 and/or some other example herein, wherein the baseband and/or RF circuitry arefurther to decide, after reception of several NACK (received after transmission of the maximum amount of repetitions, whether to increase dynamically the size N.

[00262] Example 132 may include the apparatus of any of examples 1 22-131 , wherein the apparatus is an evolved NodeB (eNB) (or implementation or portion thereof).

[00263] Example 1 33 may include the method of communication between the eNodeB and the device based on non contiguous semi-persistent scheduling (SPS).

[00264] Example 134 may include the method as in example 133 and or some other example herein, such that the resources are allocated according to a specific pattern. The specific pattern is described in subsequent examples.

[00265] Example 135 may include the method as in example 134 and or some other example herein, such that the pattern is defined at least by the periodicity ' PSPS', (as in the legacy SPS pattern) and by additional indeces which indicate one or many/any combination of the following: The position of the ACK/NACK in the SPS cycle, 'PANS Whether ACK/NACK early transmission is present or not (1 bit parameter), ,e'; In case the ACK/NACK bundle is present, an additional required information is the the periodicity of the ACK/NACK, this parameter is called BAN where 'BAN <= PSPS' ;ln a specific embodiment the information about the ACK/NACK bundle and the periodicity could be multiplexed into the same signalling (e.g. a set of indices are defined for several possible ACK/NACK periodicity and if the periodicity is = to a certain specific value this would implicitly means that there is no ACK/NACK pipelining.

[00266] Example 136 may include the method as in example 135 and/or some other example herein, such that the specific pattern (PSPS, pan, BAN, e) is signaled by the eNB to the device upon configuration of the SPS scheme.. [00267] Example 137 may include the method as in example 135 and/or some other example herein, such that the device indicates to the network the preferred

configuration (PSPS,pan,BAN,e) and the network confirm the usage of the pattern.

[00268] Example 138 may include the method as in example 135 and/or some other example herein, where any subset of indexes (PSPS,pan,BAN,e) is configured by the network and the complementary subset is indicated by the device and confirmed by the network.

[00269] Example 139 may include the method as in example 134 and/or some other example herein, such that the specific pattern is periodic and repeated every BAN ms. a) In a specific embodiment the signalling is transmitted in a semi-static manner.

[00270] Example 140 may include the method as in example 134 and/or some other example herein, such that the specific pattern is aperiodic and reconfigured before starting a new cycle. A) In a specific embodiment only the parameter P_SPS would be configured in a semi static manner while the other parameters could be re-configured for each new cycle in a dynamic manner via MAC CE or DCI.

[00271 ] Example 141 may include the method in the eNB where the Connected mode DRX (C-DRX) cycle and ON period can be dynamically adjusted in order to meet e.g. coverage need and channel conditions (not only changed between long and short DRX cycle). A) In a particular embodiment this is applicable only for specific application such that the use of voice of reduced bandwidth devices (IOT).

[00272] Example 142 may include the method as in example 141 and/or some other example herein, where the metric used in order to adjust the C-DRX cycle and on period is based on the NACK/ACK ratio, channel conditions and or coverage extension need.

[00273] Example 143 may include the method in the eNB where the adaptation of the C-DRX cycle follows a transitory phase during which the eNB adapts the use of the DRX cycle depending on the coverage level needed and the application type needed.

[00274] Example 144 may include the method in the UE which is capable to adapt the ON period dynamically according to dynamic reconfiguration of the DRX cycle.

[00275] Example 145 may include the method as in example 141 and/or some other example herein, where the same C-DRX cycle should be kept for a minimum amount.

[00276] Example 146 may include the method in the eNB where the system bandwidth can be increased from 1 tone to K tones. A) In a specific embodiment K = 12 tones, B) In alternative embodiment K can be any number >=2. [00277] Example 147 may include the method as in example 146 and/or some other example herein, where the network adjusts the maximum bandwidth via the use of broadcast channel.

[00278] Example 148 may include the method as in example 146 and/or some other example herein, where the single tone can span between specific values XKhz to YKHz. A) In a specific embodiment X=3.75KHz and Y =15KHz. Other values are not precluded.

[00279] Example 149 may include the method as in examples 146 and 148 and/or some other example herein, where the selected value of the subcarrier spacing (single tone bandwidth) is signaled by the network via the use of a specific predefined control channel. A) In a specific embodiment this is transmitted in the broadcast channel. B) In an alternative embodiment the subcarrier spacing is signaled in a UE specific way via UE specific control channel in a semi static manner via for e.g. RRC signalling.

[00280] Example 150 may include the method in the network such that the UE is scheduled with a persistent scheduling. In a specific embodiment this scheduling information is provided via control channel.

[00281 ] Example 151 may include the method as in example 150 and/or some other example herein where the duration of the persistent scheduling can be fixed up to a ccertain maximum duration. According to a specific embodiment the allocatis lasts N-D subframes when N is the maximum latency and D is the time the UE needs to decode a packet to switch from RX to TX.

[00282] Example 152 may include the method as in example 150 and/or some other example herein, where the persistent scheduling allocation can be deactivated via control signal.

[00283] Example 153 may include the method as in example 150 and/or some other example herein, where the network is capable of generating new redundancy version for each repetition (e.g. by using rateless codes such that raptor codes).

[00284] Example 154 may include the method as in example 150 and 1 53 and/or some other example herein, where the device will try to decode the packet every X ms are transmitted.

[00285] Example 155 may include the method as in any of examples 150-154 and/or some other example herein, where whenever the packet can be sucesfully decoded and before the maximum delay is achieved (N-D) the device switches from rx to tx, buffer the packets received during the feedback computation and transmits the UL

ACK/NACK. [00286] Example 156 may include the method as in example 155 and/or some other example herein, such that upon reception of ACK the eNB starts transmission of the new packet. If the maximum delay is achieved (N-D) the eNB stops transmission of the current packet. If NACK is received and the mximum latency is not reached the eNB continue generating new redundancy version.

[00287] Example 157 may include the method as in example 155 and/or some other example herein, such that in case the packet cannot be received successfully the eNB can decide whether to retransmit it (in case the delay is still acceptable) or discard it and start a new transmission.

[00288] Example 158 may include the method as in example 155 and/or some other example herein, such that after reception of several NACK (received after transmission of the maximum amount of repetitions, the eNB can decide whether to increase dynamically the size N.

[00289] Example 159 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1 -1 58, or any other method or process described herein.

[00290] Example 160 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1 -1 58, or any other method or process described herein.

[00291 ] Example 161 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, and/or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1 -1 58, or any other method or process described herein.

[00292] Example 162 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1 -158, or portions or parts thereof.

[00293] Example 163 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1 -158, or portions thereof.

[00294] Example 164 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[00295] Example 165 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein. [00296] Example 166 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

[00297] Example 167 is an apparatus configured to be employed in an evolved NodeB (eNB), comprising: one or more processors configured to: identify an SoS signal of an internet of things (loT) device; and in response to an identification of the SoS signal, generate a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to the loT device and enables the loT device to communicate via a delay-sensitive application comprising a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) application; and a communication interface configured to transmit the DL communication to a radio frequency interface for transmission.

[00298] Example 168 includes the subject matter of Example 167, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device via one or more scheduling opportunities of the DL communication that enable communication of the delay-sensitive application, based on a delay sensitive optimization of network parameters to provide the enhanced coverage to the loT device.

[00299] Example 169 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-168, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate the DL communication by a non-contiguous semi- persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities based on a semi- persistent scheduling (SPS) pattern.

[00300] Example 170 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-169, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the SPS pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP application of the delay sensitive application to be transmitted by the communication interface on an air interface independent of a control channel, and wherein the SPS pattern allocates resources based on a periodicity of the SPS pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), a first indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission is present in the DL communication, or a second indication of whether ACK/NACK bundling is present in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the SPS pattern.

[00301 ] Example 171 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-170, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to configure the SPS pattern periodically, or a-periodically reconfigure the SPS pattern before an additional discontinuous reception cycle (DRx). [00302] Example 172 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-171 , including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device by a delay sensitive optimization of network parameters based on at least one of: a channel condition or the enhanced coverage.

[00303] Example 173 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-172, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to perform the delay sensitive optimization of network parameters by signaling an incremental increase in: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, and a call latency, in response to a determination of the channel condition comprising a number of NACKs exceeding a threshold number.

[00304] Example 174 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-173, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to signal the incremental increase based on a channel statistic of a period of time based on a position of the loT device in a network area of the enhanced coverage.

[00305] Example 175 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-174, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device by signaling an increase in a bandwidth by one or more tones via a physical broadcast channel.

[00306] Example 176 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-175, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device by a persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities with a scheduling pattern, and modify the scheduling pattern based on an amount of repetitions.

[00307] Example 177 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-176, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to define a duration of the persistent scheduling, wherein the duration is based on N-D subframes, wherein N comprises a maximum latency and D comprises an amount of time for the loT device to decode a packet of the DL communication and to switch from a receiving mode to a transmit mode.

[00308] Example 178 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-177, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processes are further configured to enable one or more emergency user interaction routines with the loT device in a narrow band (NB)-loT band with a non-delay sensitive application by providing the enhanced coverage beyond category (Cat) 1 M loT and Release 13 and 14 narrow band (NB)-loT standards.

[00309] Example 179 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-178, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processes are further configured to enable the one or more emergency user interaction routines with the loT device in response to a determination that the delay-sensitive application is inactive or unusable by the loT device, the one or more emergency user interaction routines comprise at least one of: providing for the VoIP application to communicate in at least one of: an uplink (UL) communication or the DL communication with or without a robust header compression respectively, enabling one or more short message service communications in the UL communication and the DL communication, or emergency communications based on a word / phrase index for a computer voice with the robust header compression.

[00310] Example 180 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 167-179, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processes are further configured to provide the enhanced coverage to the loT device in the DL communication and the UL communication to enable an SoS beacon in a narrowband of operation, provide the enhanced coverage with a data rate that is below the short message service communications via the word / phrase index and an attention command.

[00311 ] Example 181 is an apparatus employed in an internet of things (loT) device, comprising: one or more processors configured to: transmit an SoS signal; and receive a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to communicate via a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application in response to the SoS signal; a radio frequency interface configured to communicate the SoS signal.

[00312] Example 182 includes the subject matter of Example 183, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the DL communication comprises one or more scheduling opportunities by a non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling based on a pattern and a periodicity of the non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling associated with the pattern.

[00313] Example 183 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -182, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP application on an air interface independent of a control channel, and allocates resources based on a periodicity of the pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), an indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission or a pipelining is utilized in the DL communication, or an indication of whether ACK/NACK bundling is utilized in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the pattern.

[00314] Example 184 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -183, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to communicate a channel condition in response to receiving the DL communication or the enhanced coverage.

[00315] Example 185 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -184, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive an increase in: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, and a call latency, in response to transmitting a number of NACKs exceeding a threshold number.

[00316] Example 186 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -185, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive an allocation of resources that increases a bandwidth by one or more tones.

[00317] Example 187 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -186, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive an allocation of resources by a persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities with a scheduling pattern, and a modification of the scheduling pattern based on an amount of repetitions.

[00318] Example 188 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -187, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate one or more emergency user interaction routines in a narrow band (NB) loT band comprising: a first routine utilizing the VoIP application to communicate in at least one of: an uplink (UL) communication or the DL communication with or without a robust header compression respectively, a second routine enabling one or more short message service communications in the UL communication and the DL communication, or a third routine emergency communications based on a word / phrase index for a computer voice with the robust header compression, wherein the first routine, the second routine and the third routine are ranked in order of highest to lowest priority.

[00319] Example 189 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 181 -188, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the enhanced coverage comprises a data rate that is below a short message service communication data rate via the word / phrase index.

[00320] Example 190 is a computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause one or more processors of an internet of things (loT) device, or an evolved NodeB (eNB) to perform operations comprising: processing an SoS indication; and processing a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to the loT device and enables the loT device to communicate via a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) application.

[00321 ] Example 191 includes the subject matter of Example 190, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the operations further comprise: receiving or transmitting the DL communication with an allocation of resources associated with one or more scheduling opportunities for the VoIP application, wherein the allocation of resources is based on an optimization of network parameters with a pattern for a semi persistent scheduling.

[00322] Example 192 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 190-191 , including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the operations further comprise: receiving or transmitting the DL communication by a non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities based on the pattern, wherein the pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP application, and wherein the SPS pattern allocates resources based on a periodicity of the SPS pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an

acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), a first indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission is present in the DL communication, or a second indication of whether ACK/NACK bundling is present in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the SPS pattern.

[00323] Example 193 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 190-192, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the operations further comprise: receiving or transmitting, via a control channel, an allocation of resources from an optimization of network parameters based on at least one of: a channel condition or the enhanced coverage, wherein the delay sensitive optimization comprises an increase in at least one of: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, a call latency, or one or more tones comprising a subcarrier spacing.

[00324] Example 194 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 190-193, including or omitting any optional elements, wherein the operations further comprise: enabling one or more emergency user interaction routines via the control channel, wherein the control channel comprises a UE / loT specific control channel with a semi static scheduling or a configurable persistent scheduling, a broadcast channel, or a radio resource control channel.

[00325] Example 195 is an apparatus employed within an internet of things (loT) device or an evolved NodeB (eNB), comprising: means for processing an SoS indication; and means for processing a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to the loT device and enables the loT device to communicate via a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) application.

[00326] Example 196 includes the subject matter of Examples 195, including or omitting any optional elements, further comprising: means for receiving or means for transmitting the DL communication with an allocation of resources associated with one or more scheduling opportunities for the VoIP application, wherein the allocation of resources is based on an optimization of network parameters with a pattern for a semi persistent scheduling.

[00327] Example 197 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 195-196, including or omitting any optional elements, further comprising: means for receiving or means for transmitting the DL communication by a non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities based on the pattern, wherein the pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP application, and wherein the SPS pattern allocates resources based on a periodicity of the SPS pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an

[00328] Example 198 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 195-197, including or omitting any optional elements, further comprising: means for receiving or means for transmitting, via a control channel, an allocation of resources from an optimization of network parameters based on at least one of: a channel condition or the enhanced coverage, wherein the delay sensitive optimization comprises an increase in at least one of: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, a call latency, or one or more tones comprising a subcarrier spacing.

[00329] Example 199 includes the subject matter of any one of Examples 195-198, including or omitting any optional elements, further comprising: means for enabling one or more emergency user interaction routines via the control channel, wherein the control channel comprises a UE / loT specific control channel with a semi static scheduling or a configurable persistent scheduling, a broadcast channel, or a radio resource control channel.

[00330] It is to be understood that aspects described herein can be implemented by hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof. When implemented in software, functions can be stored on or transmitted over as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer-readable media includes both computer storage media and communication media including any medium that facilitates transfer of a computer program from one place to another. A storage media or a computer readable storage device can be any available media that can be accessed by a general purpose or special purpose computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media can comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD- ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or other tangible and/or non-transitory medium, that can be used to carry or store desired information or executable instructions. Also, any connection is properly termed a computer-readable medium. For example, if software is transmitted from a website, server, or other remote source using a coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, digital subscriber line (DSL), or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave, then coaxial cable, fiber optic cable, twisted pair, DSL, or wireless technologies such as infrared, radio, and microwave are included in the definition of medium. Disk and disc, as used herein, includes compact disc (CD), laser disc, optical disc, digital versatile disc (DVD), floppy disk and blu-ray disc where disks usually reproduce data magnetically, while discs reproduce data optically with lasers.

Combinations of the above should also be included within the scope of computer- readable media.

[00331 ] Various illustrative logics, logical blocks, modules, and circuits described in connection with aspects disclosed herein can be implemented or performed with a general purpose processor, a digital signal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other

programmable logic device, discrete gate or transistor logic, discrete hardware components, or any combination thereof designed to perform functions described herein. A general-purpose processor can be a microprocessor, but, in the alternative, processor can be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor can also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, for example, a combination of a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core, or any other such configuration. Additionally, at least one processor can comprise one or more modules operable to perform one or more of the s and/or actions described herein.

[00332] For a software implementation, techniques described herein can be implemented with modules (e.g., procedures, functions, and so on) that perform functions described herein. Software codes can be stored in memory units and executed by processors. Memory unit can be implemented within processor or external to processor, in which case memory unit can be communicatively coupled to processor through various means as is known in the art. Further, at least one processor can include one or more modules operable to perform functions described herein.

[00333] Techniques described herein can be used for various wireless communication systems such as CDMA, TDMA, FDMA, OFDMA, SC-FDMA and other systems. The terms "system" and "network" are often used interchangeably. A CDMA system can implement a radio technology such as Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA), CDMA1800, etc. UTRA includes Wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) and other variants of CDMA. Further, CDMA1800 covers IS-1800, IS-95 and IS-856 standards. A TDMA system can implement a radio technology such as Global System for Mobile

Communications (GSM). An OFDMA system can implement a radio technology such as Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), IEEE 802.1 1 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.18, Flash-OFDML , etc. UTRA and E-UTRA are part of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS). 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is a release of UMTS that uses E-UTRA, which employs OFDMA on downlink and SC-FDMA on uplink. UTRA, E-UTRA, UMTS, LTE and GSM are described in documents from an organization named "3rd Generation Partnership Project" (3GPP). Additionally, CDMA1 800 and UMB are described in documents from an organization named "3rd Generation Partnership Project 2" (3GPP2). Further, such wireless communication systems can additionally include peer-to-peer (e.g., mobile-to-mobile) ad hoc network systems often using unpaired unlicensed spectrums, 802. xx wireless LAN, BLUETOOTH and any other short- or long- range, wireless communication techniques.

[00334] Single carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA), which utilizes single carrier modulation and frequency domain equalization is a technique that can be utilized with the disclosed aspects. SC-FDMA has similar performance and essentially a similar overall complexity as those of OFDMA system. SC-FDMA signal has lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) because of its inherent single carrier structure. SC-FDMA can be utilized in uplink communications where lower PAPR can benefit a mobile terminal in terms of transmit power efficiency.

[00335] Moreover, various aspects or features described herein can be implemented as a method, apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/or engineering techniques. The term "article of manufacture" as used herein is intended to encompass a computer program accessible from any computer-readable device, carrier, or media. For example, computer-readable media can include but are not limited to magnetic storage devices (e.g., hard disk, floppy disk, magnetic strips, etc.), optical disks (e.g., compact disk (CD), digital versatile disk (DVD), etc.), smart cards, and flash memory devices (e.g., EPROM, card, stick, key drive, etc.). Additionally, various storage media described herein can represent one or more devices and/or other machine-readable media for storing information. The term "machine-readable medium" can include, without being limited to, wireless channels and various other media capable of storing, containing, and/or carrying instruction(s) and/or data. Additionally, a computer program product can include a computer readable medium having one or more instructions or codes operable to cause a computer to perform functions described herein.

[00336] Communications media embody computer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other structured or unstructured data in a data signal such as a modulated data signal, e.g., a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes any information delivery or transport media. The term "modulated data signal" or signals refers to a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in one or more signals. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media include wired media, such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.

[00337] Further, the actions of a method or algorithm described in connection with aspects disclosed herein can be embodied directly in hardware, in a software module executed by a processor, or a combination thereof. A software module can reside in RAM memory, flash memory, ROM memory, EPROM memory, EEPROM memory, registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, or any other form of storage medium known in the art. An exemplary storage medium can be coupled to processor, such that processor can read information from, and write information to, storage medium. In the alternative, storage medium can be integral to processor. Further, in some aspects, processor and storage medium can reside in an ASIC. Additionally, ASIC can reside in a user terminal. In the alternative, processor and storage medium can reside as discrete components in a user terminal. Additionally, in some aspects, the s and/or actions of a method or algorithm can reside as one or any combination or set of codes and/or instructions on a machine-readable medium and/or computer readable medium, which can be incorporated into a computer program product.

[00338] The above description of illustrated embodiments of the subject disclosure, including what is described in the Abstract, is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the disclosed embodiments to the precise forms disclosed. While specific embodiments and examples are described herein for illustrative purposes, various modifications are possible that are considered within the scope of such embodiments and examples, as those skilled in the relevant art can recognize.

[00339] In this regard, while the disclosed subject matter has been described in connection with various embodiments and corresponding Figures, where applicable, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments can be used or modifications and additions can be made to the described embodiments for performing the same, similar, alternative, or substitute function of the disclosed subject matter without deviating therefrom. Therefore, the disclosed subject matter should not be limited to any single embodiment described herein, but rather should be construed in breadth and scope in accordance with the appended claims below.

[00340] In particular regard to the various functions performed by the above described components (assemblies, devices, circuits, systems, etc.), the terms (including a reference to a "means") used to describe such components are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, to any component or structure which performs the specified function of the described component (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though not structurally equivalent to the disclosed structure which performs the function in the herein illustrated exemplary implementations of the disclosure. In addition, while a particular feature may have been disclosed with respect to only one of several implementations, such feature may be combined with one or more other features of the other implementations as may be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application.

Claims

CLAIMS What is claimed is:

1 . An apparatus configured to be employed in an evolved NodeB (eNB), comprising:

one or more processors configured to:

identify an SoS signal of an internet of things (loT) device; and in response to an identification of the SoS signal, generate a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to the loT device and enables the loT device to communicate via a delay-sensitive application comprising a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) application; and

a communication interface configured to transmit the DL communication to a radio frequency interface for transmission.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device via one or more scheduling opportunities of the DL communication that enable communication of the delay-sensitive application, based on a delay sensitive optimization of network parameters to provide the enhanced coverage to the loT device.

3. The apparatus of any one of claims 1 -2, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate the DL communication by a non-contiguous semi- persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities based on a semi- persistent scheduling (SPS) pattern.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the SPS pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP application of the delay sensitive application to be transmitted by the communication interface on an air interface independent of a control channel, and wherein the SPS pattern allocates resources based on a periodicity of the SPS pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), a first indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission is present in the DL communication, or a second indication of whether ACK/NACK bundling is present in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the SPS pattern.

5. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to configure the SPS pattern periodically, or a-periodically reconfigure the SPS pattern before an additional discontinuous reception cycle (DRx).

6. The apparatus of any one of claims 1 -5, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device by a delay sensitive optimization of network parameters based on at least one of: a channel condition or the enhanced coverage.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to perform the delay sensitive optimization of network parameters by signaling an incremental increase in: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, and a call latency, in response to a determination of the channel condition comprising a number of NACKs exceeding a threshold number.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to signal the incremental increase based on a channel statistic of a period of time based on a position of the loT device in a network area of the enhanced coverage.

9. The apparatus of any one of claims 1 -8, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device by signaling an increase in a bandwidth by one or more tones via a physical broadcast channel.

10. The apparatus of any one of claims 1 -9, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate an allocation of resources to the loT device by a persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities with a scheduling pattern, and modify the scheduling pattern based on an amount of repetitions.

1 1 . The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to define a duration of the persistent scheduling, wherein the duration is based on N-D subframes, wherein N comprises a maximum latency and D comprises an amount of time for the loT device to decode a packet of the DL communication and to switch from a receiving mode to a transmit mode.

12. The apparatus of any one of claims 1 -1 1 , wherein the one or more processes are further configured to enable one or more emergency user interaction routines with the loT device in a narrow band (NB)-loT band with a non-delay sensitive application by providing the enhanced coverage beyond category (Cat) 1 M loT and Release 13 and 14 narrow band (NB)-loT standards.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the one or more processes are further configured to enable the one or more emergency user interaction routines with the loT device in response to a determination that the delay-sensitive application is inactive or unusable by the loT device, the one or more emergency user interaction routines comprise at least one of: providing for the VoIP application to communicate in at least one of: an uplink (UL) communication or the DL communication with or without a robust header compression respectively, enabling one or more short message service communications in the UL communication and the DL communication, or emergency communications based on a word / phrase index for a computer voice with the robust header compression.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the one or more processes are further configured to provide the enhanced coverage to the loT device in the DL

communication and the UL communication to enable an SoS beacon in a narrowband of operation, provide the enhanced coverage with a data rate that is below the short message service communications via the word / phrase index and an attention command.

15. An apparatus employed in an internet of things (loT) device, comprising:

one or more processors configured to:

transmit an SoS signal; and

receive a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to communicate via a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application in response to the SoS signal;

a radio frequency interface configured to communicate the SoS signal.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the DL communication comprises one or more scheduling opportunities by a non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling based on a pattern and a periodicity of the non-contiguous semi-persistent scheduling associated with the pattern.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP application on an air interface independent of a control channel, and allocates resources based on a periodicity of the pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), an indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission or a pipelining is utilized in the DL communication, or an indication of whether

ACK/NACK bundling is utilized in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the pattern.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to communicate a channel condition in response to receiving the DL communication or the enhanced coverage.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive an increase in: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, and a call latency, in response to transmitting a number of NACKs exceeding a threshold number.

20. The apparatus of any one of claims 15-19, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive an allocation of resources that increases a bandwidth by one or more tones.

21 . The apparatus of any one of claims 15-20, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to receive an allocation of resources by a persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities with a scheduling pattern, and a modification of the scheduling pattern based on an amount of repetitions.

22. The apparatus of any one of claims 15-21 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to generate one or more emergency user interaction routines in a narrow band (NB) loT band comprising: a first routine utilizing the VoIP application to communicate in at least one of: an uplink (UL) communication or the DL communication with or without a robust header compression respectively, a second routine enabling one or more short message service communications in the UL communication and the DL communication, or a third routine emergency communications based on a word / phrase index for a computer voice with the robust header compression, wherein the first routine, the second routine and the third routine are ranked in order of highest to lowest priority.

23. The apparatus of any one of claims 15-22, wherein the enhanced coverage comprises a data rate that is below a short message service communication data rate via the word / phrase index.

24. A computer-readable storage medium storing executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause one or more processors of an internet of things (loT) device, or an evolved NodeB (eNB) to perform operations comprising:

processing an SoS indication; and

processing a downlink (DL) communication that provides an enhanced coverage to the loT device and enables the loT device to communicate via a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) or voice over long term evolution (VoLTE) application.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 24, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving or transmitting the DL communication with an allocation of resources associated with one or more scheduling opportunities for the VoIP or VoLTE application, wherein the allocation of resources is based on an optimization of network parameters with a pattern for a semi persistent scheduling.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claims 24-25, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving or transmitting the DL communication by a non-contiguous semi- persistent scheduling of one or more scheduling opportunities based on the pattern, wherein the pattern allocates a speech frame for the VoIP or VoLTE application, and wherein the SPS pattern allocates resources based on a periodicity of the SPS pattern and an index that indicates a set of parameters comprising at least one of: a position of an acknowledgement / negative acknowledgement (ACK/NACK), a first indication of whether ACK/NACK early transmission is present in the DL communication, or a second indication of whether ACK/NACK bundling is present in the DL communication based on a periodicity of the ACK/NACK bundling and the periodicity of the SPS pattern.

27. The computer-readable storage medium of claims 24-26, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving or transmitting, via a control channel, an allocation of resources from an optimization of network parameters based on at least one of: a channel condition or the enhanced coverage, wherein the delay sensitive optimization comprises an increase in at least one of: a number of DRxs, a total number of bits per voice packet, a call latency, or one or more tones comprising a subcarrier spacing.

28. The computer-readable storage medium any one of claims 24-27, wherein the operations further comprise:

enabling one or more emergency user interaction routines via the control channel, wherein the control channel comprises a UE / loT specific control channel with a semi static scheduling or a configurable persistent scheduling, a broadcast channel, or a radio resource control channel.