Abstract: A mobile station positioning method for a cellular communications system includes evaluating an initial position estimate of a target mobile station having an initial area of uncertainty, evaluating a position estimate of a further mobile station of the system, estimating distance between the target and further mobile stations and using the position and distance estimates to evaluate a new position estimate of the target mobile station having a reduced area of uncertainty. Bi-circular and tri-circular methods are described.

Abstract: A method of performing soft handover in a mobile communications system includes the steps of estimating a value of signal strengthfor the next sampling period and basing at least one threshold onthat value.

Abstract: A reconfiguration management architecture for a mobile communications system which includes a network and at least one software-definable terminal comprises a configuration management part (10) within the or each terminal and a configuration control part (20). The configuration management part (10) implements a proposed configuration to reconfigure the terminal provided the configuration control part (20) validates the proposed configuration.

Abstract: A protocol stack for a communications system has an architecture incorporating active programming interfaces capable of supporting reconfiguration of the stack. The stack has a plurality of layers (pro-layers) and a plurality of object-oriented interfaces (pro-interfaces) whose respective functionalities are defined by layer classes and programming interface classes. Execution of these functionalities is controlled by thread objects.

Abstract: A method of transmitting non-real-time data over a wireless link from a terminal (2) to an ATM switch (6) comprising the steps of generating in the terminal (2), a plurality of ATM cells derived from a protocol data unit, marking the last ATM cell of the protocol data unit, sequentially transmitting the ATM cells over the wireless link, determining in the ATM switch for each transmitted cell, whether that cell contains an error, and sending an error message back to the terminal if an ATM cell is determined to contain an error, the terminal (2) being arranged on receipt of the error message, to cease transmitting any remaining ATM cells of the protocol data unit from which the erroneous ATM cell was derived. Also, an ATM protocol stack for wireless ATM communications in which the physical layer below the ATM layer, has been adapted to include a radio access layer, the radio access layer including a medium access control protocol layer and a partial packet discard mechanism.