264 results about "Femtocell base stations" patented technology

Timing synchronization between base stations of uncoordinated communication networks includes obtaining timing synchronization information from one base station, and adjusting a clock of the other station in response to the synchronization information. The timing synchronization information can be identified from a strongest synchronization signal from nearby uncoordinated base stations. The timing synchronization can accommodate clock offsets and frequency offsets.

Embodiments of the invention relate to cellular wireless networks and are particularly suited to networks including different types of base stations. So-called femtocell base stations are typically deployed within a subscriber's premises and operate at low transmit power, providing a very limited area of wireless coverage. A femtocell is typically deployed within the area of wireless coverage of a conventional macrocell type of base station, and if handover from a macrocell is performed on the basis of the best signal to noise plus interference ratio, a connection is likely to be transferred to another macrocell rather than to a femtocell. However, in view of the low density of user equipments capable of transceiving with a femtocell, the femtocell could potentially provide a greater data rate to the user equipment terminal than is possible with a macrocell. A cellular wireless network according to an embodiment of the invention employs a method of handover algorithm that has dependence on both a measure of signal quality such as signal to noise plus interference ratio and on a measure of loading of the base station. The handover algorithm is thereby able to weight selection of a base station on the basis of data rate, and intelligently engineer handover to a femtocell.

A communication device that includes a femtocell base station and a mobile station transmitter / receiver. The femtocell base station may provide bidirectional internet protocol (IP) communication for one or mobile devices to a cellular network. The femtocell base station may be operable to communicate with the cellular network using a wide area network. The mobile station transmitter / receiver may be coupled to the femtocell base station (in a same housing). The mobile station transmitter / receiver may be operable to perform radio frequency (RF) wireless communication with the cellular network, e.g., to detect and / or report environmental parameters, performing testing (e.g., loopback testing), and / or provide communication for the one or more mobile devices (e.g., when the wide area network is down), among others.

The disclosure is related to controlling an operation bandwidth for a femtocell based on femtocell interference to a macrocell in order to minimize femtocell interference. A femtocell base station may include a measurement unit, a transmitting unit, and a control unit. The measurement unit may be configured to measure an interference amount of a macrocell adjacent to the femtocell base station. The transmitting unit may be configured to transmit the measured interference amount to a system. The control unit may be configured to i) accept an allocated operation bandwidth by the system and ii) control transmission and reception of signals with the allocated operation bandwidth. The operation bandwidth may be adjustable by the system based on the measured interference amount.

A method of providing interference avoidance in a femtocell network may include receiving, at a femtocell base station defining a femtocell coverage area, an allocation of reserved resources for control signaling and data transmission in which the allocation is received from a macro cell base station defining a macro cell coverage area. The femtocell base station may be located and the femtocell includes a portion of the macro cell coverage area. The method may further include enabling usage of the reserved resources by the femtocell base station responsive to receipt of the allocation to provide interference avoidance with respect to femtocell and macro cell communications. The method may further include disabling usage of the reserved resources by the macro cell base station responsive to the allocation of the reserved resources.

For use in a wireless network, a femtocell base station in communication with at least one first mobile station is provided. The femtocell base station is configured adjust a resource of the femtocell base station to mitigate interference at a second mobile station. In certain embodiments, the femtocell base station is configured to coordinate a handover of the at least one first mobile station from the femtocell base station to a neighboring base station. In certain embodiments, the femtocell base station is configured to transmit a message regarding the resource adjustment to the at least one first mobile station.

A method for transmitting scheduling information in a mobile communication system and a femtocell base station apparatus using the same are provided. Scheduling information can be transmitted using a hierarchical scheduling scheme in which a femtocell base station is allocated resources from a macrocell base station and the femtocell base station then allocates resources to femto users within its own resource region.

A wireless terminal transmits a result of measuring received power of a downlink wireless signal from a femtocell base station to a macrocell base station. The macrocell base station transmits an interference control request including identification information of the wireless terminal to a femtocell base station group of which received power of a downlink signal included in a measurement result transmitted from the wireless terminal is a predetermined value or more. The femtocell base station has an adjacent wireless terminal list in which identification information of a wireless terminal, which is capable of being connected to an adjacent femtocell base station but is not capable of being connected to the femtocell base station, is recorded, and downlink transmission power of the femtocell base station is reduced when the identification information included in the interference control request is included in this list.

The invention discloses a method for acquiring system messages, which comprises the following steps: receiving a system message block sent from a network side; and when a system message change tag contained in the received system message block indicates that the system messages are changed, acquiring the updated system messages. Simultaneously, the invention also discloses a device and a system for acquiring the system messages. By using a femtocell base station to broadcast all the system messages non-periodically, the invention can lower the system channel expense, reduce the intersystem interference, and lower the power consumption of the base station; and meanwhile, when the femtocell base station broadcasts all the system messages non-periodically, the invention can enable user equipment to establish wireless resource control connection by presetting the system messages and realize residence and connection establishment under a cell of the femtocell base station in a switching process.

A method of handover in a wireless communication system is disclosed. A method of handover of a mobile station in a wireless communication system with femtocells comprises transmitting a control message including at least one among information of first femtocell base station detected through initial scanning and location information of the mobile station to a base station; receiving information of one or more second femtocell base stations to which the mobile station is accessible, wherein the second femtocell base stations are searched based on the control message from the base station; and performing a handover to one of the second femtocell base stations.

Disclosed are a method for transmitting scheduling information in a mobile communication system and a femtocell base station using the method. A femtocell base station transmits scheduling information using a layered scheduling system in which the femtocell base station receives an allocated resource from a macrocell base station, and allocates the resource to femtocell users within a resource region thereof.

Methods and systems for reusing macro cell resources in femto cell base stations or relay stations in a non-collaborative manner are disclosed. In addition, orthogonal resource allocation between a macro cell base station and femto cell base stations / relay stations may be dynamically adjusted by considering user-population variance. Moreover, an additional level of spatial reuse by femto cell base stations or relay stations can be provided by employing macro cell user location information.

There is provided a method of operating a communication system, the communication system comprising at least a macrocell base station and a femtocell base station that is within the coverage area of the macrocell base station, the method comprising providing an indication of the noise rise or interference at the macrocell base station to the femtocell base station; and the femtocell base station adjusting a maximum permitted transmission power based on the indication.

A method may be provided for load balancing in femtocells. Determination may be made as to whether a cell load status of the femtocell base station exceeds a certain load level. When the cell load status of the femtocell base station reaches and / or exceeds the certain load level, handover of at least one user equipment coupled to the femtocell base station to a target base station may be initiated by shrinking cell coverage of the femtocell base station.

A method is provided of identifying which one of a plurality of femtocell base stations neighbouring a first femtocell base station is to be the target for handover of a call connection with a user terminal from the first base station. The neighbour femtocell base stations use the same primary scrambling code as each other. The femtocell base stations use code-division multiple access, CDMA. Each of the neighbour femtocell base stations transmits a respective broadcast signal that include timing information such that each neighbour femtocell base station transmits a broadcast signal having different timing information to that of the other neighbour femtocell base stations. The user terminal receives broadcast signals, determines the timing information of at least one of the received broadcast signals and reports the timing information to the first femtocell base station. The first femtocell base station identifies the target femtocell base station for handover from the timing information.

A femtocell power control module is operative to: obtain at least one uplink communication characteristic associated with the uplink signal transmitted by the at least one cellular communication device and received by the femtocell base station; estimate, from the obtained uplink communication characteristic, the power level of the downlink signals transmitted by the femtocell base station, as received by the at least one cellular communication device; if the estimated power level of the downlink signals transmitted by the femtocell base station as received by the at least one cellular communication device exceeds a predefined threshold power level, reduce the power level of the downlink signals transmitted by the femtocell base station to a reduced power level.

A method and system are disclosed for operation of a cellular network comprising a first base station, a second base station and a mobile station being served by the first base station. Load information is received from the second base station at the mobile station, the load information indicating a load placed on the resources of the second base station and a load indication based on the received load information is communicated from the mobile station to the first base station. The first base station may be a macrocell base station and the second base station may be a non-planned or femtocell base station.

A femtocell base station collects the terminal distribution within the cell and selects terminals to represent the cell-center and the cell-edge from among the terminals within the cell. The femtocell base station also calculates maximum transmit power for the respective the cell-center and cell-edge terminals allowable by the macrocell base station. The femtocell base station sets the respective transmit power of the cell-center and the cell-edge in a range that will not exceed the maximum transmit power, adjusts the transmit power control parameter to allow control by the terminal at the power value that was set, and notifies the terminal. Communication with high throughput can in this way be attained for terminals in cells within the femtocell base station during uplink communications to the femtocell base station, and interference applied to the terminals in the macrocell base station can be suppressed.

A self-configuring method of a femtocell base station extracts preambles from signals received from adjacent macrocells and femtocells. Transmission power of the femtocell base station is set using the extracted macrocell preambles. In addition, the preambles of the femtocell base station are selected using the correlation values between the macrocell preambles and the pre-stored femtocell preambles. Moreover, the resources for data transmission of the femtocell base station are allocated considering the adjacent macrocells and the femtocells.

Methods and systems for providing voice and date services in a femtocell wireless network. The proposed approach integrates IWLAN architecture into femtocell architecture by introducing a gateway to serve both IWLAN and femtocell users. The proposed approach handles the voice and data in a different way so that it enhances the data handling efficiency while re-using existing MSC investment. The proposed approach carries the data traffic from a femtocell base station to the gateway in native IP packet, instead of encapsulating them in 3G data, thus enhancing the efficiency and performance for the data traffic. The data traffic can then be sent to GGSN or directly to packet data network. The approach tunnels voice traffic to MSC through the gateway as in conventional Iu-CS approach.

A low duty mode is provided for a femtocell base station operating as part of a cellular communications system. Methods and systems are described for reducing the service impact of the low-duty mode on mobile stations that are either already attached or are attempting to attach to a femtocell base station.

Provided is a power control method and resource management method of a femtocell base station in a wideband wireless access system. A macrocell base station receives received signal strength from a femtocell base station in a macrocell of the macrocell base station, compares it with received signal strength reported by a terminal in the macrocell, and when a difference between the two received signal strength is less than a threshold value, it receives received signal strength on a signal received by the terminals in the macrocell from the corresponding femtocell base station. Further, the macrocell base station determines whether the corresponding macrocell terminal is located in the coverage of the femtocell base station based on the reported received signal strength of the femtocell base station, and transmits information for controlling power of the femtocell base station or managing a radio resource to the femtocell base station according to the determination result.

The present invention provides a method and apparatus for operating a femtocell base station of a wireless communication system. A method of the present invention comprises obtaining a list of designated wireless devices capable of communication with the base station; counting the number of designated wireless devices currently within range of the base station; and switching the base station between an active state and a standby state based on the count. The base station may obtain information for counting wireless devices currently within range by monitoring the wireless environment, and / or by monitoring information received through a network interface.

Methods and systems for reusing macro cell resources in femto cell base stations or relay stations in a non-collaborative manner are disclosed. In addition, orthogonal resource allocation between a macro cell base station and femto cell base stations / relay stations may be dynamically adjusted by considering user-population variance. Moreover, an additional level of spatial reuse by femto cell base stations or relay stations can be provided by employing macro cell user location information.

A method and apparatus for updating a whitelist in a mobile communication system are disclosed. The user equipment can selectively update the whitelist when connecting to the mobile communication system not only through a macro base station but also through a femtocell base station. The apparatus includes a User Equipment (UE), a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a macro base station (eNB), and a femtocell base station (HeNB).

A radio communication system wherein a femto cell base station (100a) is located in a macro cell (MC1) and a radio terminal (200a) is connected to the femto cell base station (100a) and wherein the femto cell base station (100a) or radio terminal (200a) controls, based on a propagation loss between the radio terminal (200a) and a macro cell base station (300a) existing in the neighborhood of the radio terminal (200a), the transmission power of a radio signal to be transmitted from the radio terminal (200a) to the femto cell base station (100a).

The present invention describes systems and methods that facilitate performing idle handoffs in a wireless communications environment. The signal quality of pilots received from base stations can be measured; the type of base station from which the pilots were received can be identified (eg, femto, macro, etc.). According to an example, when the type of base station is identified as a femtocell base station, the base station may be identified as preferred or non-preferred. Additionally, a stall timer may be started when the signal quality of the pilot exceeds an entry threshold and the base station is identified as a femtocell base station. Furthermore, an idle handover to the base station is performed upon expiration of the hold-off timer based on at least one subsequent measurement of signal quality of a pilot received from the base station.

A system and method for wireless communication indoors includes a femtocell base station coupled for operable interaction with an in-building router having a virtual private network server client connection embedded therein. A user equipment unit within range of the femtocell base station for interaction therewith cooperates with a virtual private network server, an internet protocol network, and a cellular network to provide improved wireless coverage and quality of service indoors.

In order for a femto cell base station located within an area of a macro cell base station to provide a paging service to a terminal, the femto cell base station receives paging information from the macro cell base station having the same paging group ID as that of the femto cell base station. Then, common paging area information including paging information is transmitted to the terminal, and when a paging message is received from a paging controller, the received paging message is transmitted based on the common paging area information to the terminal, thereby providing a paging service to the terminal.

When a femto cell base station detects an intense uplink interference, the femto cell base station autonomously extends the femto cell so as to raise a probability that a mobile terminal around the original femto cell may be connected to the femto cell base station. If the mobile terminal connects to the femto cell base station, the uplink interference is reduced and total throughput is improved. Additionally, if a resultant effect of interference reduction is low, the femto cell base station returns the mobile terminal, which is connected to the femto cell base station due to the extension of the femto cell, to the original connection destination. If an evaluative criterion meets a predetermined condition, the femto cell base station restores the extended femto cell to the original size. These actions prevent degradation of performance caused by concentration of the connections of mobile terminals to the femto cell base station.