Methods and system for communicating control information using carrier aggregation

A system, comprising:

• a radio frequency (RF) transceiver to receive a first message over a first carrier in a first band in a downlink sub-frame of a first radio frame in a communications link, the communications link comprising interband carriers distributed over a primary and secondary cell;
• a processor;
• a reply message assignment module operable on the processor to:
• determine a first time division duplex uplink-downlink (UL-DL) configuration employed by the system;
• map the first UL-DL configuration to a first UL-DL group of a multiplicity of UL-DL groups, the first UL-DL group comprising a set of UL-DL configurations sharing a common uplink sub-frame set of each radio frame;
• and
• adjust timing of a reply message to be sent by the RF transceiver in response to the first message so as to coincide with a common uplink sub-frame of the common uplink sub-frame set of each radio frame;
• and
• a digital display to present information received by the RF transceiver over the interband carriers.

An article of manufacture, comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that when executed by a processor enable a system to:

• determine a first time division duplex uplink-downlink (UL-DL) configuration employed by the system;
• map the first UL-DL configuration to a first UL-DL group of a multiplicity of UL-DL groups, the first UL-DL group comprising a set of UL-DL configurations sharing a common uplink sub-frame set of each radio frame;
• and
• adjust timing of a reply message to be sent by the RF transceiver in response to the first message so as to coincide with a common uplink sub-frame of the common uplink sub-frame set of each radio frame.

An apparatus, comprising:

• a radio frequency (RF) transceiver to receive a first message over a carrier in a downlink sub-frame of a first radio frame in a communications link, the communications link comprising a multiplicity of carriers distributed over a primary cell and set of secondary cells;
• a processor;
• and
• a reply message assignment module operable on the processor to:
• determine a downlink sub-frame in which the downlink transmission is received;
• schedule a first reply message to the first message in one or more uplink sub-frames of a first carrier of the multiplicity of carriers;
• and
• schedule a second reply message to the first message in one or more uplink sub-frames of a second carrier of the multiplicity of carriers.