Telecommunications – Radiotelephone system – Zoned or cellular telephone system
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-31
2004-02-10
Trost, William (Department: 2683)
Telecommunications
Radiotelephone system
Zoned or cellular telephone system
C455S438000, C455S439000, C455S442000, C455S443000, C455S444000, C370S331000, C370S332000, C370S335000, C370S342000, C370S441000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06690936
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of wireless communication systems, and in particular, by way of example but not limitation, to inter-frequency communications in wireless communication systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Access to wireless networks is becoming increasingly important and popular for business, social, and recreational purposes. Users of wireless networks now rely on them for both voice and data communications. Additionally, an ever increasing number of users demand both an increasing array of services and capabilities as well as greater and greater bandwidth for activities such as Internet surfing. To remedy the congestion caused by additional subscribers and to address demands for greater bandwidth, the wireless communications industry constantly strives to improve the number of services and the capacity of their wireless networks. Expanding and improving the infrastructure necessary to provide additional capacity and a larger coverage area is an expensive and manpower-intensive undertaking.
Nevertheless, the wireless communications industry continues to improve the capabilities of the technology upon which it relies as well as to increase the amount of technology deployed and made available to its customers. It is predicted that eventually one hurdle for growing the capacity of wireless systems will be the air-interface. In fact, the air-interface may eventually be optimized within what is possible between the standard walls. The air-interface will therefore be the bottleneck in public land mobile networks (PLMNs) (e.g, based on standards such as the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Wide-band Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), etc.). As the air-interface becomes a primary, or even the primary, roadblock to continued wireless growth, improvements thereto will become increasingly important and valuable to the wireless communications industry.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Deficiencies of prior art air-interfaces are overcome by the methods, systems, and arrangements of the present invention. For example, as heretofore unrecognized, it would be beneficial to expand beyond the standard defined carrier channel pairs. In fact, it would be beneficial if such channel expansion also enabled contemporaneous transmission and reception on multiple frequencies to further increase the flexibility and efficiency of an air-interface.
In various exemplary situations (e.g., hard handovers, soft handovers, macrodiversity, primarily data reception communications (e.g., Internet surfing), etc.), a remote communication station (e.g., a mobile station) is engaged in inter-frequency (IF) communication with one or more communication stations (e.g., base stations). In an exemplary soft handover situation, a remote communication station is in substantially contemporaneous communication with two communication stations using two different carrier sets. In an exemplary hard handover situation, a remote communication station switches from communicating with a first base station using a first carrier set to communicating with a second base station using a second carrier set, the first and second carrier sets differing, but differing only partially. In an exemplary primarily data reception communication situation, a remote communication station participates in a handover with one or more communication stations between two different downlink carriers while retaining an uplink carrier.
The above-described and other features of the present invention are explained in detail hereinafter with reference to the illustrative examples shown in the accompanying drawings. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the described embodiments are provided for purposes of illustration and understanding and that numerous equivalent embodiments are contemplated herein.
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RS 106045 US; Completed May 17, 2001.
Le Danh
Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
Trost William
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