Inter-Site Carrier Aggregation

• US 20150003418A1
• Filed: 02/10/2012
• Published: 01/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Solutions and Networks US LLC (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Rosa, Claudio, Wu, Chunli, Hwang, Woonhee, Koskinen, Henri Markus
• Granted Patent: US 9,516,627 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/331
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/001 the frequencies being arranged in component carriers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0035 Resource allocation in a cooperative multipoint environment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0044 allocation of payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0098 Signalling of the activation or deactivation of component carriers, subcarriers or frequency bands
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/20 Control channels or signalling for resource management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 74/0833 Random access procedures, e.g. with 4-step access

Abstract

The invention relates to an apparatus including at least one processor and at least one memory including a computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to: convey a radio resource reconfiguration message to a user device for carrying out secondary cell configuration for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and obtain and/or convey information on completion of the secondary cell configuration and/or activate downlink data forwarding to a secondary cell node.

Claims

1-43. -43. (canceled)

44. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor and at least one memory including a computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to;

convey a radio resource reconfiguration message to a user device for carrying out secondary cell configuration for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and

obtain and/or convey information on completion of the secondary cell configuration and/or

activate downlink data forwarding to a secondary cell node.

45. The apparatus of claim 44, further comprising causing the apparatus to:

provide an umbrella cell operating as a primary cell supporting X2 interface-based inter-site carrier aggregation.

46. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the radio resource reconfiguration message is a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising at least one of:

secondary cell system information, pico(micro/femto)-macro cell switching pattern for uplink, cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) used by pico/slave node,

primary cell physical uplink control channel configuration and secondary cell physical uplink control channel configuration.

47. The apparatus of claim 44, wherein the radio resource reconfiguration message is an activation message of radio resource control or medium access control type.

48. The apparatus of claim 44, further comprising causing the apparatus to:

convey as a part of the radio resource reconfiguration message primary cell and/or secondary cell physical uplink control channel configurations to be used after the secondary cell configuration.

49. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor and at least one memory including a computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to;

obtain information on completion of a secondary cell configuration from a primary node or a user device and/or downlink data from the primary node for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and

carry out a random access channel procedure for enabling switching to the configured secondary cell.

50. The apparatus of claim 49, further comprising causing the apparatus to:

provide a small cell operating under a macro cell as a secondary cell supporting X2 interface-based inter-site carrier aggregation.

51. The apparatus of claim 49, wherein the information on the completion of the secondary cell configuration is a radio resource reconfiguration complete message.

52. The apparatus of claim 49, wherein the random access channel (RACH) procedure comprises a random access preamble and a random access response (RAR).

53. The apparatus of claim 49, wherein the random access channel (RACH) procedure comprises a random access preamble and a random access response (RAR) and wherein the random access procedure is used to switch to a physical layer (PHY) configuration supporting the usage of the secondary cell.

54. The apparatus of claim 49, wherein the information on completion of a secondary cell configuration is obtained from a primary node or a user device.

55. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor and at least one memory including a computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to;

carry out a random access channel procedure for enabling switching to a configured secondary cell for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and/or

carry out a non-contention based random access channel procedure for obtaining uplink timing for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality.

56. The apparatus of claim 55, wherein the random access channel (RACH) procedure comprises a random access preamble and a random access response (RAR).

57. The apparatus of claim 55, further comprising causing the apparatus to:

clear hybrid adaptive repeat and request (HARQ) buffers at least partly.

58. The apparatus of claim 55, wherein the uplink timing is obtained by using a random access channel preamble or via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) order.

59. The apparatus of claim 55, further comprising causing the apparatus to:

obtain a radio resource reconfiguration message from a primary cell, the radio resource reconfiguration message being a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising at least one of;

secondary cell system information, pico(micro/femto)-macro cell switching pattern for uplink, cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) used by pico/slave node, primary cell physical uplink control channel configuration and secondary cell physical uplink control channel configuration.

60. A method comprising:

conveying a radio resource reconfiguration message to a user device for carrying out secondary cell configuration for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and

obtaining and/or convey information on completion of the secondary cell configuration and/or

activating downlink data forwarding to a secondary cell node.

61. The method of claim 60, further comprising:

providing an umbrella cell operating as a primary cell supporting X2 interface-based inter-site carrier aggregation.

62. The method of claim 60, wherein the radio resource reconfiguration message is a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising at least one of:

secondary cell system information, pico(micro/femto)-macro cell switching pattern for uplink, cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) used by pico/slave node, primary cell physical uplink control channel configuration and secondary cell physical uplink control channel configuration.

63. The method of claim 60, wherein the radio resource reconfiguration message is an activation message of radio resource control or medium access control type.

64. The method of claim 60, further comprising:

conveying as a part of the radio resource reconfiguration message primary cell and/or secondary cell physical uplink control channel configurations to be used after the secondary cell configuration.

66. The method of claim 62, further comprising:

providing a small cell operating under a macro cell as a secondary cell supporting X2 interface-based inter-site carrier aggregation.

65. A method comprising:

obtaining information on completion of a secondary cell configuration from a primary node or a user device and/or downlink data from the primary node for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and

carrying out a random access channel procedure for enabling switching to the configured secondary cell.

67. The method of claim 65, wherein the information on the completion of the secondary cell configuration is a radio resource reconfiguration complete message.

68. The method of claim 65, wherein the random access channel (RACH) procedure comprises a random access preamble and a random access response (RAR).

69. The method of claim 65, wherein the random access channel (RACH) procedure comprises a random access preamble and a random access response (RAR) and wherein the random access procedure is used to switch to a physical layer (PHY) configuration supporting the usage of the secondary cell.

70. The method of claim 65, wherein the information on completion of a secondary cell configuration is obtained from a primary node or a user device.

71. A method comprising:

carrying out a random access channel procedure for enabling switching to a configured secondary cell for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality, and/or

carrying out a non-contention based random access channel procedure for obtaining uplink timing for downlink data conveyance using inter-site carrier aggregation functionality.

72. The method of claim 71, wherein the random access channel (RACH) procedure comprises a random access preamble and a random access response (RAR).

73. The method of claim 71, further comprising:

clearing hybrid adaptive repeat and request (HARQ) buffers at least partly.

74. The method of claim 71, wherein the uplink timing is obtained by using a random access channel preamble or via a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) order.

75. The method of any claim 71, further comprising:

obtaining a radio resource reconfiguration message from a primary cell, the radio resource reconfiguration message being a radio resource control (RRC) message comprising at least one of;

secondary cell system information, pico(micro/femto)-macro cell switching pattern for uplink, cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) used by pico/slave node, primary cell physical uplink control channel configuration and secondary cell physical uplink control channel configuration.