Discovery of neighbor radio access systems by a user mobile communications device serviced by a radio access network (RAN) for reporting discovered systems to a serving system in the RAN

A user mobile communications device, comprising:

• a transmitter circuit configured to transmit a communications signal to a serving radio access network (RAN);
• a receiver circuit configured to receive communications signals from the serving RAN;
• a processor circuit communicatively coupled to the transmitter circuit and the receiver circuit, the processor circuit configured to:
• determine one or more frequency ranges to scan to discover one or more neighbor radio access systems to the serving RAN based on scan frequency criteria that does not comprise a pre-known transmission frequency for the one or more neighbor radio access systems;
• and
• control the receiver circuit to discover a presence of the one or more neighbor radio access systems to the serving RAN based on receiving the communications signals over the one or more frequency ranges transmitted by the one or more neighbor radio access systems;
• wherein the receiver circuit is further configured to discover a presence of the communications signals over the one or more frequency ranges.

A serving cell in a serving radio access network (RAN), comprising:

• a transmitter circuit configured to transmit a communications signal to a user mobile communications device;
• a receiver circuit configured to receive communications signals from the user mobile communications device;
• and
• a processor circuit communicatively coupled to the transmitter circuit and the receiver circuit, the processor circuit configured to:
• control the transmitter circuit to transmit the communications signal comprising a scan frequency criteria that does not comprise a pre-known transmission frequency for one or more neighbor radio access systems to cause the user mobile communications device to discover the one or more neighbor radio access systems transmitting communications signals that satisfy the scan frequency criteria.