Patent ID: 8755348

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an encoder configured to: determine a set of search space candidates of an enhanced-physical downlink control channel (E-PDCCH) based on an aggregation level of downlink control information (DCI), predetermined spacing between adjacent search space candidates, and a number of virtual resource blocks (VRBs) of the E-PDCCH, the set of search space candidates to be potential bearers of DCI; select one or more VRBs from the set of search space candidates; and encode DCI onto the selected VRBs; and a mapper configured to map the VRBs of the E-PDCCH to physical resource blocks (PRBs) for transmission to a user equipment in a downlink frame, wherein the predetermined spacing is to provide an even distribution of the search space candidates across VRBs of the E-PDCCH to enable a frequency scheduling gain.