Telecommunications apparatus and methods

A method of communicating an indication of an allocation of radio resources on a radio channel for communicating data between a network infrastructure equipment and a terminal device in a wireless telecommunications system, wherein the radio channel spans a channel frequency bandwidth divided into frequency resource units which may be selectively allocated for communicating data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, and wherein the method comprises, at the terminal device,

• receiving an indication of a selected combination of resource units from the network infrastructure equipment;
• and
• establishing from the indication of the selected combination of the resource units which one of a set of allowable combinations of the resource units is the selected combination of the resource units, wherein the set of the allowable combinations of the resource units includes non-contiguous combinations of the resource units, wherein
• the radio channel is one of a plurality of narrowband channels supported within a wider system bandwidth of the wireless telecommunications system, and wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes an indication of which one of the plurality of narrowband channels contains the selected combination of the resource units, and
• the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes a first set of data bits indicating which one of the plurality of narrowband channels the allocation of radio resources applies to, a second set of data bits indicating which of one or more sub-channels the allocation of radio resources applies to, and a third set of data bits indicating which of the resource units are allocated in the one or more sub-channels.

Circuitry for a terminal device for use in a wireless telecommunications system for communicating an indication of an allocation of radio resources on a radio channel for communicating data between a network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, wherein the radio channel spans a channel frequency bandwidth divided into frequency resource units which may be selectively allocated for communicating data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, wherein the circuitry comprises controller circuitry and transceiver circuitry configured to operate together such that the circuitry is operable to:

• receive an indication of a selected combination of resource units from the network infrastructure equipment;
• and
• establish from the indication of the selected combination of resource units which one of a set of allowable combinations of the resource units is the selected combination of the resource units, wherein the set of the allowable combinations of the resource units includes non-contiguous combinations of the resource units, wherein
• the radio channel is one of a plurality of narrowband channels supported within a wider system bandwidth of the wireless telecommunications system, and wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes an indication of which one of the plurality of narrowband channels contains the selected combination of the resource units, and
• the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes a first set of data bits indicating which one of the plurality of narrowband channels the allocation of radio resources applies to, a second set of data bits indicating which of one or more sub-channels the allocation of radio resources applies to, and a third set of data bits indicating which of the resource units are allocated in the one or more sub-channels.