Patent ID: 9743359
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: H04L,H04W

Claim:
1. A method of operating a base station in a wireless telecommunication system comprising one or more base stations which support a virtual carrier operating mode in which at least some downlink communications are made using a virtual carrier formed of a restricted subset of transmission resources selected from within a system frequency bandwidth and comprising a restricted bandwidth downlink channel having a channel bandwidth which is smaller than the system frequency bandwidth, the method comprising: establishing an extent to which the base station and at least one neighboring base station support the virtual carrier operating mode; and conveying an indication of the extent to which the base station and the at least one neighboring base station support the virtual carrier operating mode to a terminal device operating in the wireless telecommunication system so the terminal device can take account of the indication of the extent to which the base station and the at least one neighboring base station support the virtual carrier operating mode for controlling its acquisition of a base station of the wireless telecommunication system.