Patent ID: 9271324
Filing Date: 2016-02-23
CPC Classification: H04B,H04L,H04W

Claim Text:
1. A method for adding or changing to an assisted serving cell for a user equipment, the method comprising: receiving, at a macro cell acting as a serving cell for the user equipment, an inter-frequency measurement report from the user equipment; sending, from the macro cell, a preparation message to the assisted serving cell; receiving, at the macro cell, an acknowledgement from the assisted serving cell; providing, from the macro cell, an assisted serving cell activation message to the user equipment indicating the assisted serving cell is to act as an additional serving cell for the user equipment and is to provide user plane (U-plane) data communications with the user equipment; receiving, at the macro cell, an activation complete message from the user equipment; and sending, from the macro cell to a serving gateway or packet data node gateway, a path switch message to switch user plane data communications of the user equipment to the assisted serving cell, the macro cell remaining a serving cell for the user equipment for providing at least control plane data communications with the user equipment.