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US 9,320,058 B1Granted
Use of special random access channel instances for access request interception and forwarding
AssigneeSprint Spectrum L.P.
InventorsMuhammad A. Naim, Yu Zhou
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
One or more random access channel (RACH) instances may be specially designated for use by mobile terminals that are in threshold poor coverage of an intended base station. Further, one or more other base stations that provide coverage overlapping with, within, or near coverage of the intended base station may be arranged to monitor the one or more specially designated RACH instances for mobile terminal access requests and, upon detecting any such access request, to forward the access request via an inter-base station link to the intended base station. The intended base station may then respond to the mobile terminal access request through a direct downlink communication to the mobile terminal.
Claims19
A wireless communication system comprising:
- a first base station providing wireless service on a first air interface;
- and
- a second base station providing wireless service on a second air interface, the second air interface defining a plurality of mutually exclusive random access channel (RACH) instances for carrying random access requests from mobile terminals to the second base station, the plurality of RACH instances including one or more first RACH instances and one or more second RACH instances,
- wherein the second base station differentially handles random access requests based on whether the second base station receives the requests on any of the one or more first RACH instances or on any of the one or more second RACH instances, wherein (i) the second base station processes a random access request received on any of the one or more first RACH instances as a request to access the second base station rather than as a request to access the first base station, and (ii) the second base station automatically forwards to the first base station a random access request received on any of the one or more second RACH instances, for processing of the random access request as a request to access the first base station rather than as request to access the second base station.
1 more element
A method comprising:
- providing, by a cellular base station, wireless service on an air interface defining a plurality of mutually exclusive random access channel (RACH) instances for carrying random access requests from mobile terminals to the cellular base station, the plurality of RACH instances including one or more first RACH instances and one or more second RACH instances;
- receiving, by the cellular base station, a random access request transmitted from a mobile terminal on a particular one of the plurality of RACH instances;
- and
- differentially handling the received random access request, by the cellular base station, based on whether the particular RACH instance on which the random access request was transmitted is one of the one or more first RACH instances or rather one of the one or more second RACH instances,
- wherein differentially handling the received random access request comprises (i) if the particular RACH instance is one of the one or more first RACH instances, then processing the random access request as a request to access the cellular base station and thus transmitting by the cellular base station on the air interface a response to the random access request message, whereas (ii) if the particular RACH instance is instead one of the one or more second RACH instances, then automatically forwarding the random access request via an inter-base station interface to another base station for processing by the other base station as a request to access the other base station rather than as a request to access the cellular base station.
2 more elements
A method comprising:
- detecting, by a mobile terminal, coverage of a first base station, wherein the first base station provides wireless service on an air interface defining a plurality of mutually exclusive random access channel (RACH) instances for carrying random access requests to the first base station, the plurality of RACH instances including one or more first RACH instances and one or more second RACH instances;
- determining, by the mobile terminal, a quality of the detected coverage of the first base station;
- selecting, by the mobile terminal, based on the determined quality of the detected coverage of the first base station, one of the plurality of RACH instances on which to transmit to a random access request seeking to access the first base station, wherein the mobile terminal selects the RACH instance from the one or more first RACH instances if the determined quality is not threshold low, but the mobile terminal selects the RACH instance from the one or more second RACH instances if the determined quality is threshold low;
- and
- transmitting, by the mobile terminal, the random access request on the selected RACH instance,
- wherein, when the selected RACH instance is one of the one or more second RACH instances, a second base station that provides wireless service on a second air interface also defining at least one of the one or more second RACH instances (i) intercepts the transmitted random access request and (ii) automatically forwards to the first base station the random access request because the RACH instance on which the random access request was transmitted was one of the one or more second RACH instances.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.