Patent ID: 9544835
Date: 2017-01-10
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. An apparatus, comprising: a transceiver configured to maintain attachment of the apparatus to a cellular macro cell; at least one processing core configured to direct searching for small cells during the attachment of the apparatus to the macro cell; the at least one processing core being configured to, responsive to detecting a first small cell with a received signal characteristic exceeding a predetermined first threshold, cause searching for further small cells other than the first small cell to be interrupted, wherein the apparatus is configured to communicate with and attach to cells comprised in a heterogeneous network, and the macro cell, the first small cell and the further small cells are heterogeneous network cells, and wherein the at least one processing core is configured to maintain the attachment to the macro cell after detecting the first small cell and only switch the attachment from the macro cell to the first small cell responsive to a change in connection requirements of the apparatus.