Methods, infrastructure equipment and communications device

An infrastructure equipment forming part of a wireless communications network for communicating with one or more communications devices, the infrastructure equipment comprising

• transmitter circuitry configured to transmit signals via a wireless access interface formed by the infrastructure equipment,
• receiver circuitry configured to receive signals transmitted by the one or more communications devices via the infrastructure equipment, and
• controller circuitry configured to control the transmitter and the receiver circuitry, the controller circuitry being configured
• to determine that a downlink signal should be transmitted to a communications device to provide information for the communications device,
• to form the downlink signal for transmission via a wireless access interface, the wireless access interface comprising in a frequency dimension resource elements, each of the resource elements for carrying a sub-carrier of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed, OFDM, symbol, the resource elements being formed in the frequency dimension into blocks of resource elements, and in a time dimension the wireless access interface is divided into time units, each of the time units for carrying a number of OFDM symbols, and
• controlling the transmitter to transmit the downlink signal from the infrastructure equipment to the communications device, wherein the controller is configured
• to form the downlink signal by selecting a plurality of component-signals from a set of component-signals, each of the component-signals from the set of component-signals being formed from a sequence of signal samples for transmission in one of the blocks of resource elements and in one of the time units by the number of OFDM symbols, each of the component-signals being detectable by a narrow bandwidth receiver, and
• to select for each of the plurality of component-signals one of the blocks of resource elements and one of the time units to transmit the component-signal, and
• to control the transmitter to transmit the plurality of selected component signals in the selected blocks of resource elements as a wider bandwidth signal, wherein
• one or both of the plurality of component-signals selected from the set of component-signals and a corresponding plurality of the blocks of resource elements and the one or more of the time units to transmit the plurality of component-signals are selected to reduce co-channel interference from at least one other signal formed from a plurality of component-signals from the set of component-signals transmitted in the blocks of resource elements of the wireless access interface.

An infrastructure equipment forming part of a wireless communications network for communicating with one or more communications devices, the infrastructure equipment comprising

• transmitter circuitry configured to transmit signals via a wireless access interface formed by the infrastructure equipment,
• receiver circuitry configured to receive signals transmitted by the one or more communications devices via the infrastructure equipment, and
• controller circuitry configured to control the transmitter and the receiver circuitry, the controller circuitry being configured
• to determine that a downlink signal should be transmitted to a communications device to provide information for the communications device,
• to form the downlink signal for transmission via a wireless access interface, the wireless access interface comprising in a frequency dimension resource elements, each of the resource elements for carrying a sub-carrier of an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexed, OFDM, symbol, the resource elements being formed in the frequency dimension into blocks of resource elements, and in a time dimension the wireless access interface is divided into time units, each of the time units for carrying a number of OFDM symbols, and
• controlling the transmitter to transmit the downlink signal from the infrastructure equipment to the communications device, wherein the controller is configured
• to form the downlink signal by selecting a plurality of component-signals from a set of component-signals, each of the component-signals from the set of component-signals being formed from a sequence of signal samples for transmission in one of the blocks of resource elements and in one of the time units by the number of OFDM symbols, each of the component-signals being detectable by a narrow bandwidth receiver, and
• to select for each of the plurality of component-signals one of the blocks of resource elements and one of the time units to transmit the component-signal by selecting the plurality of the component-signals to represent an identification of a cell of the wireless communications network formed by the infrastructure equipment, and
• to control the transmitter to transmit the plurality of selected component signals in the selected blocks of resource elements as a wider bandwidth signal.