A method, comprising: associating a first base station with a first base station identifier at a signaling protocol gateway, the signaling protocol gateway providing gateway services for a control plane signaling protocol between base stations, and with a first Internet Protocol, IP, address of the signaling protocol gateway; associating a second base station with a second base station identifier at the signaling protocol gateway, and with a second IP address of the signaling protocol gateway, wherein the first base station and the second base station are macro-eNBs, and wherein the first IP address of the signaling protocol gateway is different from the second IP address of the signaling protocol gateway; establishing a first signaling protocol connection between a third base station and the first base station via the signaling protocol gateway with the first base station using the first IP address of the signaling protocol gateway; and establishing a signaling protocol connection between the third base station and the second base station with the second base station using the second IP address of the signaling protocol gateway, wherein the signaling protocol gateway provides stateful proxying of the signaling protocol connection and aggregates small cells based on a 20 bits prefix of a Global-eNB-ID of the small cells, the small cells sharing their 20 bits prefix being advertised as a single macro-eNB by the signaling protocol gateway, and wherein the third base station is a small cell aggregated by the signaling protocol gateway, thereby enabling the aggregated third base station to establish an X2 connection to the first base station and the second base station via the signaling protocol gateway without an IP address of the first base station and an IP address of the second base station. associating a first base station with a first base station identifier at a signaling protocol gateway, the signaling protocol gateway providing gateway services for a control plane signaling protocol between base stations, and with a first Internet Protocol, IP, address of the signaling protocol gateway; associating a second base station with a second base station identifier at the signaling protocol gateway, and with a second IP address of the signaling protocol gateway, wherein the first base station and the second base station are macro-eNBs, and wherein the first IP address of the signaling protocol gateway is different from the second IP address of the signaling protocol gateway; establishing a first signaling protocol connection between a third base station and the first base station via the signaling protocol gateway with the first base station using the first IP address of the signaling protocol gateway; and establishing a signaling protocol connection between the third base station and the second base station with the second base station using the second IP address of the signaling protocol gateway, wherein the signaling protocol gateway provides stateful proxying of the signaling protocol connection and aggregates small cells based on a 20 bits prefix of a Global-eNB-ID of the small cells, the small cells sharing their 20 bits prefix being advertised as a single macro-eNB by the signaling protocol gateway, and wherein the third base station is a small cell aggregated by the signaling protocol gateway, thereby enabling the aggregated third base station to establish an X2 connection to the first base station and the second base station via the signaling protocol gateway without an IP address of the first base station and an IP address of the second base station. <EOS>