Between Macro And Micro Cells Patents (Class 455/444)
  • Patent number: 8660099
    Abstract: An association request from a wireless station is received at an access point. A determination is made whether a reservation threshold for a pre-determined number of wireless stations for the access point has been met. If the reservation threshold has not been met, the wireless station is associated with the access point. If the reservation threshold has been met, and the wireless station is not already on a call through another access point, the association of the wireless station with the access point is rejected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2014
    Assignee: Aruba Networks, Inc.
    Inventors: Pradeep J Iyer, John Richard Taylor, Deepinder Setia
  • Patent number: 8660536
    Abstract: The use of mobile devices which are capable of communicating using uncontrolled networks (e.g., cellular networks) can be managed using multi-band access points and multi-band controllers which can monitor and apply policies to data sent over the uncontrolled networks. Technology for applying policies to data sent over uncontrolled networks can be deployed in a variety of configurations, including configurations where the application of policies is performed using functionality built into a multi-band access point, rather than a separate multi-band controller. These configurations also include configurations which use access points and/or controllers which are specifically designed for uncontrolled networks (e.g., cellular access points). Applications of this technology can be made in a wide variety of contexts, including corporate, military and law enforcement contexts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 7, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2014
    Assignee: Enterprising Apps, LLC
    Inventors: Jeremy Pogue, Robert G. Pace
  • Patent number: 8660568
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for interference control in a wireless communication system with a hierarchical cell layout are provided. The method includes acquiring edge-bands of femto BSs within an area of the macro BS, determining whether an MS receiving a service from the macro BS is located in an area adjacent to the femto BS, and, if the MS is located in the area adjacent to the femto BS, allocating, to the MS, an edge-band of the femto BS to which the MS is adjacent.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2014
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
    Inventors: Sang-Min Lee, Yung-Soo Kim, Tak-Ki Yu
  • Patent number: 8660559
    Abstract: When detecting occurrence of an event for transmitting a measurement report of a radio condition of a cell at a frequency set for a base station apparatus, to the base station apparatus (3) communicating with a terminal apparatus (2), the terminal apparatus (2) in a wireless communication system (1) creates a measurement report including information indicating radio conditions of cells at a frequency at which the event occurred and at another different frequency. The base station apparatus (3) controls whether or not to perform handover of the terminal apparatus (2) to another cell, on the basis of the measurement report transmitted from the terminal apparatus (2). Thereby, there is provided a wireless communication system in which a base station apparatus and the terminal apparatus are communicable with each other using multiple frequencies, the wireless communication system being capable of shortening time required for handover.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2014
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Takashi Tamura, Takahisa Aoyama, Jun Hirano
  • Patent number: 8660563
    Abstract: Provided is a handover method of a wireless communication system using a hierarchical cellular scheme. In the method, signal quality of a serving node is measured, so that whether to start scanning for a handover is determined. When the scanning for the handover starts, signal qualities of a serving cell including the serving node and one or more neighbor cells are measured through a first preamble including a first identifier for distinguishing a cell. An intra-cell handover or an inter-cell handover is selected using the signal qualities of the serving cell and the neighbor cells. Therefore, a terminal can easily distinguish between the inter-cell handover and the intra-cell handover, and an overhead during a handover can be reduced because an intra-cell handover procedure is simplified.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 25, 2014
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Chung-Ang University Industry-Academy Cooperation Foundation
    Inventors: Joo-Hyun Lee, Jin-Ghoo Choi, Sang-Boh Yun, Jong-Ho Lee, Yong-Soo Cho, Jae-Kwon Kim, Yeong-Jun Kim, Kyung-Soo Woo, Hyun-Il Yoo
  • Patent number: 8655391
    Abstract: A method for paging in a wireless access system is disclosed. A method for paging a mobile station of an idle mode comprises allocating large paging group identifier and small paging group identifier of a paging group to which the mobile station belongs to a header; allocating a large paging group flag and a small paging group flag to the header, the large paging group flag and the small paging group flag indicating the presence of a paging message for the mobile station; and transmitting the header to the mobile station of the idle mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 8, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: LG Electronics Inc.
    Inventors: Gi Won Park, Ki Seon Ryu
  • Patent number: 8655349
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for operating a femto-cell base station are disclosed. The femto-cell base station is configured to provide coverage to a User Equipment by connecting it to a core telecommunications network using a first frequency belonging to a first radio access technology. The method includes detecting that a fixed network connection of a femto-cell base station is not operative, and, in response to such failure, scanning frequencies in a second radio access technology available to a wireless network interface of the femto-cell base station, said second radio access technology being different than the first radio access technology. If there is any frequency available in said second radio access technology, said frequency in said second radio access technology is established as the operational frequency of a cellular wireless network connection established by the wireless network interface.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: Vodafone Group PLC
    Inventors: Luis Gabriel Zas Couce, Jose Angel Perez De La Rosa, Francisco Javier Dominguez Romero
  • Patent number: 8654686
    Abstract: In an embodiment, an application server receives a request to initiate a group communication session (GCS) over a Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) with a communication group. The application server obtains location information of a set of devices participating in the GCS and determines that the GCS can be supported between the set of devices via a Personal Area Network (PAN), after which the application server transitions support for the GCS from the WWAN to the PAN. In another embodiment, an originator begins a periodic broadcast of a local PAN signal announcing the GCS after failing to set-up the GCS via the WWAN. Target device(s) in the communication group receive the local PAN signal, determine not to transmit their own local PAN signal and then convey a session acceptance message to the originator. The GCS is then established between the target device(s) and the originator over the PAN.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 16, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventor: Kirankumar Anchan
  • Patent number: 8654707
    Abstract: Methods, systems, and devices are disclosed for wireless communication over unlicensed spectrum using a femto cell. In an implementation of the system, a dualmode mobile device adapted to communicate over a licensed frequency spectrum and over an unlicensed frequency spectrum is provided. The dual-mode mobile device detects the presence of a femto cell communicating over an unlicensed spectrum and in response, initiates a communication connection with the unlicensed spectrum femto cell. Subsequently, the connection over a license spectrum may be disconnected upon successful establishment of the connection over the unlicensed spectrum. In yet another implementation, a femto cell communicating over an unlicensed spectrum may be adapted to communicate with a mobile switching center and/or with a voice over IP switch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2014
    Assignee: Qwest Communications International Inc.
    Inventor: Charles I. Cook
  • Publication number: 20140045505
    Abstract: A system and methodology that facilitates macrocell-to-femtocell handovers during an on-going communication session by augmenting a neighbor list with femtocell data is provided. Moreover, the femtocell data associated with a set of femtocells that the a user equipment (UE) is authorized to access is added to a neighbor list. When a handover is initiated, the femtocell data is utilized to facilitate scanning of a radio environment of the user equipment to detect a target cell site for the handover. In one aspect, location data and/or serving cell data associated with the set of femtocells is utilized to limit the number of femtocells that are added to the neighbor list.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 8, 2012
    Publication date: February 13, 2014
    Applicant: AT&T INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY I, L.P.
    Inventors: Paul Shala Henry, Patrick P. Iannone, Byoung-Jo J. Kim
  • Patent number: 8644835
    Abstract: A communication method of a macro base station serving a target mobile terminal in a macrocell including a picocell includes receiving information about an uplink interference of a pico base station in the picocell from the pico base station, and determining whether to perform a handover of the target mobile terminal to the pico base station based on an uplink interference of the macro base station and an uplink interference of the pico base station.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
    Inventors: Hyun Ho Choi, Dong Ho Cho, Jung Min Moon, Yong Jin Kwon
  • Patent number: 8644855
    Abstract: A technique is provided for determining a location of a mobile device configured to a femtocell network. The technique includes a cluster of femtocell devices. Each of the femtocell devices is coupled to a macro network. The technique includes determining a position of mobile device coupled to a femtocell by transferring a request query to a switching device. The femtocell has been registered with the switching device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
    Inventor: Manish Kolhe
  • Patent number: 8644258
    Abstract: The invention proposes a method and an apparatus for reducing break duration in handover of a VoIP conversation from a packet switch domain to a circuit switch domain. The main idea is that a synchronization mechanism is introduced between the session handover procedure at IP multimedia subsystem IMS layer and a cell handover procedure at layer 2, so that enable the two handover procedures to start at or almost at the same time. When a Mobile Switching Center MSC server receives a request of handover from the source Mobility Management Entity MME, the time required from the time the MSC server transmitting a message to this message arriving at a remote end user equipment UE is computed first, and then is compared with a predetermined time required from the time the MSC server transmitting a message to this message arriving at the local UE.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: Alcatel Lucent
    Inventor: Zhengxiong Lei
  • Patent number: 8644841
    Abstract: A method and system is disclosed for dynamically adjusting a signal-to-noise (SNR) bias based on relative load between a macro type base station and a micro type base station of a wireless communication system. The SNR bias corresponds to a threshold differential SNR between SNRs of the macro base station and of the micro base station, wherein the SNR bias is configured to be provided to an access terminal (or user equipment) to cause the access terminal (i) to be biased to seek service from the micro base station if the access terminal detects an SNR from the micro base station that is less than the threshold differential SNR below an SNR that the access terminal detects from the macro base station, and (ii) to be biased to seek service from the macro base station otherwise. Once the SNR bias is determined based on the relative load, it is communicated to one or more access terminals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: Sprint Spectrum L.P.
    Inventors: Siddharth S. Oroskar, Sachin R. Vargantwar, Manoj Shetty, Maulik Shah
  • Patent number: 8644844
    Abstract: Methods and systems for indoor mobile unit positioning, for seamlessly toggling a mobile unit positioning between outdoor positioning and indoor positioning and for providing location based services or application generated by an external location server to the mobile unit while the mobile unit is indoors. The indoor mobile unit positioning includes mobile unit-based positioning which makes use of reception of access point signals by the mobile unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2008
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: Corning MobileAccess Ltd.
    Inventors: Isaac Shapira, Yair Shapira, Catherine Zatloukal
  • Patent number: 8644833
    Abstract: A multi-mode mobile station includes a first interface for wireless communication with a wireless local area network (WLAN) and a second interface for wireless communication with a wireless wide area network (WWAN). A mobility server facilitates call handoffs for the multi-mode mobile station, from the WLAN to the WWAN and vice versa. The mobility server maintains an activity log for the multi-mode mobile station. When the multi-mode mobile station becomes involved in a call, the mobility server stores call information regarding the call in the activity log. During the call, the multi-mode mobile station transmits a handoff request. In response to the handoff request, the mobility server controls establishment of a bearer path for call handoff between the WLAN and the WWAN, based on the call information contained in the activity log.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 4, 2014
    Assignee: Sprint Spectrum L.P.
    Inventors: Serge M. Manning, John M. Everson
  • Patent number: 8639210
    Abstract: When communication of a type, such as a priority call, to be prioritized over a normal call has occurred, appropriate measurement of CSG cells is performed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2014
    Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Katsunari Uemura, Hidekazu Tsuboi
  • Patent number: 8639254
    Abstract: A femto cell at a customer premises, such as an IP-based femto Base Transceiver System (IP-BTS), can be configured as a “private access” node intended to service a limited set of mobile stations. However, mobile stations not associated with the private femto cell may acquire and lock onto the femto BTS. To avoid service blockages in such cases, the private femto BTS will allow call access attempts by, and call deliveries to, a non-associated mobile station, despite the “private access” configuration. However, upon completion of call set-up, the non-associated mobile station is directed to initiate handoff, from the private femto cell coverage provided by the femto BTS into a cell coverage of a base station of the macro network, to conserve femto cell resources for use in servicing calls of the associated mobile station(s).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 5, 2012
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2014
    Assignee: Cellco Partnership
    Inventors: Derek Hongwei Bao, David Chiang
  • Patent number: 8639243
    Abstract: According to some wireless network standards the size of a neighbor cell list is restricted to a maximum size. The limited size of a neighbor cell list may not reflect the realities of a wireless network deployment, especially for deployments including numerous femto cells clustered in close proximity. Accordingly, as the concentration of macro cells and/or femto cells in an area increases, there lies a challenge to identify and communicate neighbor lists to user devices that reflect the arrangement of a particular portion of the deployment and the needs of the user devices. Various systems, methods and apparatus described herein are configured to provide a user device or a group of user devices a neighbor cell list that includes neighbor cell identifiers chosen from a candidate list.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Andrei Dragos Radulescu, Peter Hans Rauber, Sanjiv Nanda, Damanjit Singh, Jen M. Chen, Farhad Meshkati
  • Patent number: 8639248
    Abstract: A basestation (50) in a mobile communications network is connected to the core network of the mobile communications network over a public wide area network. In the event of a handover between the basestation and another of the network nodes of the PLMW (120), handover information (130, 132, 134) is sent between the basestation and the core network over the public wide area network, for example embedded in a SIP message or in a UMA message.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 28, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 28, 2014
    Assignee: Ubiquisys Limited
    Inventors: Andrea Giustina, Richard Byrne
  • Publication number: 20140018081
    Abstract: A femtocell base station in a telecommunications network identifies, for each user device served by the base station, which other base stations in the network that user device is authorized to access. The base station also determines a group identity for each of a plurality of possible neighbour cell base stations in the network. Based on this information, the base station identifies at least one possible handover target cell base station for each user device served by the base station, based on the identified other base stations in the network that user device is authorized to access; and based on the identified group identity for each of a plurality of possible neighbour cell base stations in the network.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 20, 2012
    Publication date: January 16, 2014
    Applicant: Ubiquisys Limited
    Inventors: Justin Gordon Johnstone, James Briers
  • Publication number: 20140018082
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, an apparatus, and a system for handover processing. The method includes: receiving a handover request sent by a UE for handover to a micro base station; and sending instruction information to the UE according to a preset rule and the handover request, so as to instruct the UE to send start information, where the start information is used to instruct the micro base station to start an interference coordination mode used to enable the micro base station to mute preset time-frequency resources and corresponding to the start information. This prevents formation of a victim UE and greatly mitigates impacts caused by a coverage hole.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 17, 2013
    Publication date: January 16, 2014
    Applicant: HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Hong CHENG, Lu RONG, Jinfang ZHANG, Yinggang DU
  • Patent number: 8630650
    Abstract: A method for operating a femtocell in a wireless communication system comprises the steps of: triggering the switching from the operation mode for providing a service to closed subscriber group (CSG) terminals which belong to a specific terminal group and to non-CSG terminals which do not belong to the specific terminal group, to the operation mode for providing the service only to said CSG terminals; and commanding said non-CSG terminals to change the operation mode, and carrying out a handover. The method of the present invention improves efficiency of femtocell operation, and reduces restrictions on terminals disposed in the vicinity of the femtocell. The method of the present invention can utilize the unused frequency range of the femtocell, thereby providing a service with a high data ratio.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: Ibex PT Holdings Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Yongseok Lee
  • Patent number: 8630261
    Abstract: A notification unit conveys a transmit timing of a signal to a target radio apparatus. A receiver receives the signal transmitted from the target radio apparatus with a neighborhood of the transmit timing conveyed. A demodulation unit derives a difference between the receive timing and an estimated timing. A determining unit determines a new transmit timing for the target radio apparatus, based on the difference and outputs the new transmit timing determined to the notification unit. When a state in which the receive timing lags the estimated receive timing occurs more than a predetermined frequency, the determining unit instructs the target radio apparatus to start a handover.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: Kyocera Corporation
    Inventor: Takaaki Makita
  • Patent number: 8630640
    Abstract: Systems, methods, devices, and computer program products are described for refinement of femtocell coverage area information in a wireless communication system, particularly in context of a femto-proxy architecture. Zones may be defined within a femtocell coverage area using beacon sources, and a zone map of zone signatures may be defined for each zone of the femtocell coverage area, according to macro signatures detected in those zones. The zone map can be used, by access terminals, the femto-proxy system, and/or the macro network, to provide functionality, including reduced power level femtocell discovery and association, enhanced network planning, improved femtocell troubleshooting, etc.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incororated
    Inventors: Soumya Das, Samir S. Soliman
  • Patent number: 8630621
    Abstract: Systems and methods for communication include components and methods for detecting, at an access point base station, location-verification data transmitted by at least one macro cell. Further, the components and method include transmitting a response message, including location information, via a backhaul network to a location authentication component to authenticate a location of the access point base station based on the location information, wherein the location information includes location data that is a function of the location-verification data. In some aspects, an operation of the access point base station may be allowed or disallowed based on an authentication of the location information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventor: Parag A. Agashe
  • Patent number: 8630649
    Abstract: A handover method of a terminal in a macro cell including a plurality of femto cells includes scanning information on a femto base station for managing a femto cell that is near the terminal from among the plurality of femto cells, and reporting information on the femto base station to a macro base station for managing the macro cell.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
    Inventors: Sung-Geun Jin, Sung Cheol Chang, Won-Ik Kim, Chul Sik Yoon
  • Patent number: 8630655
    Abstract: A femtocell basestation selects its carrier frequency by detecting a carrier used by at least one other basestation in its network, and selecting its own carrier frequency such that it partially overlaps with the detected carrier. The downlink power of the femtocell basestation is set based on the degree of overlap between the selected carrier and the detected carrier, so that a user equipment having a connection to the other basestation is forced to search for the selected carrier.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 14, 2014
    Assignee: Ubiquisys Limited
    Inventor: Housam Al Housami
  • Patent number: 8626070
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for mitigating inter-cell interference in a Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) system are provided. The method includes allocating a serving band for providing service to at least one Mobile Station (MS) through scheduling, receiving at least one request set for at least one neighboring cell, from at least one MS, updating the at least one request set considering a serving band of each MS, and transmitting the updated at least one request set to the at least one neighboring cell. The request set includes at least one piece of information among a band and Precoding Matrix Index (PMI) for making a use restriction request to a neighboring cell that exerts interference on an MS.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Sang-Woo Lee, Hee-Won Kang, Syuangfeng Han, David Mazzarese
  • Patent number: 8626166
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a subscription-based measurement concept where the detailed parameters for a certain measurement report are set by a measurement provider, i.e. a radio base station, instead of the measurement requester. For this purpose the measurement provider “publishes” a certain set of measurements that controller units for radio resource management (RRM) can subscribe to. According to the present invention parameters of measurements are defined in detail in the measuring entity, i.e. the target radio base station, as opposed to being defined by the requesting entity, i. e. the RRM controller.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson (publ)
    Inventors: Johan Johansson, Martin Israelsson, Mattias Wahlqvist
  • Patent number: 8626198
    Abstract: An embodiment relates to characterizing a signaling environment by gathering a plurality of measurements, generated during a period of time, in response to a determination that a mobile device is within an area of location uncertainty. Such an example mobile device may generate a position fix, e.g., at or subsequent to an end of the period of time, based, at least in part, on one or more signals received at the mobile device within an area of location certainty; and in response to a determination that it is to report a travel history for at least a portion of the area of location uncertainty, generate a travel log based, at least in part, on the plurality of measurements and the position fix, and transmit at least a portion of the travel log to one or more external devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2011
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Saumitra Mohan Das, Behrooz Khorashadi
  • Patent number: 8626182
    Abstract: A communication system is provided which includes different kinds of base stations such as a macro base station and a femto base station. This system may execute a method for controlling unfavorably occurring interference due to such different kinds of base stations. In the method, the femto base station sends a femtocell interference indication (FII) report to the resource allocation control unit when user equipment is connected to the femto base station. The FII report contains a request for the allocation of resources to avoid interference. Then the resource allocation control unit establishes a femto interference coordination (FIC) zone according to the received FII report. The FIC zone indicates a particular region used to define resources allocated to the femto base station. The resource allocation control unit may be the macro base station or a self-organizing network (SON) server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
    Inventors: Il Won Kwon, Sang Min Lee, Yung Soo Kim, Mi Sun Do
  • Patent number: 8625482
    Abstract: The traffic of wireless communication between wireless access points can be lowered without requiring a change in the access point to which an associated station belongs, to thereby efficiently use a band for the wireless communication. For this purpose, (1) a station sends a packet, and a wireless access point and a wired access point receives the packet; (2) the wired access point stores an identifier indicating proxy transmission in an ACK packet and then transmits the ACK packet, and (3) the wireless access point confirms the proxy processing identifier of the ACK packet from wired access point and stops delivery of packets to the backhaul. The wired access point delivers the packet to a destination of the packet.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: NEC Infrontia Corporation
    Inventor: Hideki Kurokawa
  • Patent number: 8626172
    Abstract: A wireless communication method, apparatus, and system for simultaneous communication of a wide area network with a wireless local area network. The system having the wide area network configured to transmit control signals, the wireless local area network configured to transmit data signals, and a mobile station configured to receive control signals from the wide area network and data signals from the wireless local area network.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2006
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Subrahmanyam Dravida, Jay Rodney Walton, Shravan K. Surineni
  • Patent number: 8626154
    Abstract: In one aspect, an exemplary method involves a WCD: (i) determining a likelihood of roaming, wherein the likelihood of roaming indicates a likelihood that the WCD will be handed off from a preferred coverage area to a non-preferred coverage area; and (ii) using the likelihood of roaming as a basis for managing an active set of the WCD. In particular, the WCD may manage its active set by setting at least one active-set parameter affecting the number of active sectors in an active set of the WCD, and then maintaining its active set according to the setting of the at least one active-set parameter. According to an exemplary embodiment, a WCD will make an effort to increase the number of sectors in its active set when the likelihood of roaming is greater, and vice versa.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 5, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Sprint Spectrum L.P.
    Inventors: Siddharth S. Oroskar, Srikanth Pulugurta, Maulik K. Shah
  • Patent number: 8626173
    Abstract: When a handover request for performing a handover of a terminal (70) from a macro cell C1 to a CSG cell C2 is received from an SeNB 10 (S8), a base station (TeNB) (40) of the CSG cell C2 transmits a handover response in accordance with a handover enabled/disabled state (S12). The handover response includes an identifier of the terminal (70) in the CSG cell C2. Upon receiving the response, the SeNB (10) notifies the identifier to the terminal (70) (S14). The TeNB (40) repeatedly transmits a dedicated signal containing a handover command via a dedicated channel set using the identifier at an interval shorter than a gap period (S18). Accordingly, whether or not access is permitted can be judged promptly and a smooth handover can be realized.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 9, 2008
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Hidenori Matsuo, Takahisa Aoyama, Hong Tat Toh, Hidetoshi Suzuki
  • Patent number: 8625532
    Abstract: Various embodiments enable a device to maintain a plurality of connections to a plurality of wireless networks simultaneously using one radio. For instance, a device can partition in time, or “time-slice”, when it transmits and receives data such that a device can maintain a plurality of connections with a plurality of networks concurrently. With the plurality of connections, the device can receive multiple copies of data. In some embodiments, a device can compare multiple copies of data and determine which copy of data is a best representation. Once a best representation has been determined, it can be selected for further usage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: January 7, 2014
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventor: Thomas W. Kuehnel
  • Publication number: 20140004863
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method for accessing a base station, a base station and a user equipment, belonging to the field of communications technologies. The method includes: establishing, by a current macro base station, a control plane connection with a user equipment according to an access request of the user equipment, and assigning a first cell-radio network temporary identity to the user equipment; and when receiving a measurement report of pico base stations reported by the user equipment, selecting a pico base station for the user equipment according to a preset policy so that the user equipment establishes a data plane connection with the pico base station, and notifying context information of the user equipment to the pico base station, where the context information includes the first cell-radio network temporary identity assigned to the user equipment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 15, 2013
    Publication date: January 2, 2014
    Applicant: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Jinfang Zhang, Lu Rong, Yinggang Du
  • Patent number: 8620329
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method for performing switching between a macro evolved Node B (eNB) and a home eNB (HeNB) in a mobile communication system including broadcasting, by the HeNB, a length of an HeNB ID to a UE; notifying, by the UE, an HeNB indication information containing the length of the HeNB ID to the macro eNB; transmitting, by the macro eNB, a switching request message to a mobile station mobility management entity, the message including a target ID; finding, by the MME, the HeNB or an HeNB gateway according to the target ID, and performing a switching process from the macro eNB to the HeNB. With the described switching method for the mobile communication system, UE can move between the macro eNB and the HeNB.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 17, 2009
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, Beijing Samsung Telecom R&D Center
    Inventors: Lixiang Xu, Hong Wang, Xiaoqiang Li
  • Patent number: 8619650
    Abstract: Devices, systems and methods to schedule a service period at a wireless network. A wireless network controller of the wireless network may set a start time of a service period. The start time is no less than a predefined time after transmitting by the wireless network controller an information element containing the service period scheduling information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 11, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Solomon B. Trainin, Carlos Cordeiro
  • Patent number: 8620328
    Abstract: Various techniques for handing over a wireless terminal from a serving node to a target node in a radio access network is disclosed. transferring a session in a cluster are disclosed. These techniques include exchanging messages between a wireless terminal and with a serving node to support a handover to a target node. Each of the messages includes an identifier. The wireless terminal is configured to determine whether it has received any stale messages from the target node following handover based on one or more of the identifiers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 16, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventor: Masato Kitazoe
  • Patent number: 8619705
    Abstract: In order to prevent breaks in a communication network comprising at least one subscriber station and at least two base stations synchronised and connected to each other by a communication link, a method is provided comprising a time resource allocation step for the transmission and/or reception of packets by the at least one subscriber station, the time resource being specific to each subscriber station and being able to be used with all the base stations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Renaud Dore, Patrick Fontaine, Ludovic Jeanne
  • Patent number: 8620323
    Abstract: An access terminal establishes a session with a first radio access network (RAN). As a result, the access terminal receives a Unicast Access Terminal Identifier (UATI) assigned by the first RAN and establishes configuration settings for radio communications between the access terminal and the first RAN. The access terminal moves from the first RAN to a second RAN. Before the access terminal has a session established with the second RAN, the access terminal receives a request from a user to originate a call. In response, the access terminal sends the second RAN a connection request that includes the UATI assigned by the first RAN. The second RAN evaluates the UATI included in the connection request and determines that it was previously assigned to the access terminal by another RAN. Based on this determination, the second RAN grants the connection request by assigning a traffic channel to the access terminal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Sprint Spectrum L.P.
    Inventors: Jasinder P. Singh, Sachin R. Vargantwar, Manoj Shetty, Bhagwan Khanka
  • Patent number: 8620322
    Abstract: A base station may decide to initiate a handover of a communication with a mobile station from a first wireless link to a new wireless link and identify one or more wireless links for the handover. For each identified wireless link, the base station may then determine a channel-quality metric, a wireless-link loading metric, and perhaps a coverage-area loading metric. In turn, the base station may then select the new wireless link based on the channel-quality metric and one or both of the wireless-link loading metric and the coverage-area loading metric. For example, the base station may apply a linear function that includes as variables the channel-quality metric and the wireless-link loading metric, and the base station may select the identified wireless link that best satisfies this function. The base station may then facilitate the handover of the communication from the first wireless link to the selected new wireless link.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Clearwire IP Holdings LLC
    Inventors: Sungki Park, Durga P. Satapathy
  • Patent number: 8619673
    Abstract: Two preamble partition schemes are provided for flexible network deployment and efficient utilization of limited cell identification resources in a wireless network. In a soft partition scheme, the entire preamble sequences are partitioned into several configurable non-overlapping subsets, and each subset is associated with a corresponding cell type. In a hybrid partition scheme, a combination of fixed and configurable subsets is used for preamble partition. The partitioning information is carried in a broadcasting channel broadcasted from base stations to mobile stations. In one embodiment, after a mobile station performs scanning and synchronization with a first base station, it derives the cell type of the first base station from cell identification and partitioning information. The mobile station completes ranging and network entry with the first base station if the cell type is preferred, and starts to perform scanning and synchronization with a second base station if the cell type is non-preferred.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Mediatek Inc.
    Inventors: Yu-Hao Chang, Yih-Shen Chen, Pei-Kai Liao
  • Patent number: 8620320
    Abstract: A call in progress in a first communication network is handed over to a second communication network which uses a different air interface. To facilitate the handover, the present serving base station commands the mobile communication device to take measurements of surrounding cells of the second communication network. The measurements are sent along with a handover request from the serving base station to a radio network controller of the second network, which decides upon a cell to which the cal will be handed. A grant message including an identifier to be used by the mobile communication device and an identifier of the base station receiving the handover is transmitted back to the first network, and used by the mobile communication device in handing over the call.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 19, 2007
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2013
    Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC
    Inventor: Hao Bi
  • Patent number: 8615240
    Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for facilitating a handoff to a target sector that is not in the neighbor list of a mobile station's current source sector. In at least one embodiment, a mobile station detects (i) that a target sector is a handoff candidate and (ii) that the target sector is not listed in a neighbor list of a source sector; requests to be served by the target sector at least in part by sending an access probe to the target sector; and transitions from engaging in an active communication session via a communication path not including the target sector to doing so via a communication path that does include the target sector. The access probe may include an indication that the mobile station is in an active state. In at least one embodiment, at least one network entity may carry out the one or more network-side aspects that may facilitate the above-described method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 3, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 24, 2013
    Assignee: Sprint Spectrum L.P.
    Inventor: Sachin R. Vargantwar
  • Patent number: 8615243
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of broadcasting and receiving a neighboring base station advertisement message in a wideband wireless access system and a handover method using the same. In the present invention, a base station broadcasts a neighboring base station advertisement message including information that indicates that frequency overlay is supported in neighboring base stations to terminals. The terminal confirms whether frequency overlay is supported in the neighboring base stations included in the neighboring base station advertisement message, and can perform handover to a frequency overlay supporting base station as a destination base station.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 14, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 24, 2013
    Assignees: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
    Inventors: Chul Park, Chul Sik Yoon
  • Patent number: 8611906
    Abstract: A mobile communications system is disclosed. The mobile communications system includes a first unit, provided at a base station apparatus, which controls a base station status by determining a request from an upper-layer general base station apparatus; and a second unit, provided at the general base station apparatus, which monitors for one or more mobile station apparatuses entering into/appearing in, or exiting/disappearing from a cell formed by the general base station apparatus, and, if at least one of the mobile station apparatuses enters into/appears in the cell formed by the general base station apparatus, requests for changing the base station apparatus to a service status, and, if all of the mobile station apparatuses exit/disappear from the cell formed by the general base station apparatus, requests for changing the base station apparatus to a radio unit stop status.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2008
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2013
    Assignee: NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
    Inventors: Shinichi Mori, Akira Ishii, Mikio Iwamura
  • Patent number: 8611901
    Abstract: Techniques are provided for transmitting and receiving communications on behalf of wireless user equipment devices between a plurality of radio access point (RAP) devices and a gateway apparatus through a controller apparatus. A controller apparatus generates a plurality of first identifiers used for communications on behalf of corresponding wireless user devices between the controller apparatus and respective RAPs. Each first identifier identifies a wireless user device and a RAP to which the wireless user device is associated. The controller apparatus maps each first identifier to a corresponding one of a plurality of second identifiers for communications exchanged on behalf of the wireless user devices between the controller apparatus and a gateway apparatus in the wireless cellular communication network. The controller apparatus remaps a new first identifier to an existing second identifier when a particular wireless user device has handed over from a first RAP to a second RAP.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2010
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2013
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Rajesh Pazhyannur, Mark Grayson, Allaukik Abhishek, Daniel Wee, Santhalingam Balasekar, Hang Jin