Patent ID: 8903400

Claim:
A method for use in a cellular telephony network, said cellular telephony network comprising: a first number of cells of a first kind comprising a cellular Macro system, each cell, of the first number of cells of the first kind, is configured to accommodate at least a first number of user terminals, with traffic of the user terminals in a cell of the first kind being controlled by a corresponding base station, a second number of cells of a second kind, each cell, of the second number of cells of the second kind, is configured to accommodate at least a second number of user terminals, with traffic of the user terminals in a cell of the second kind being controlled by a corresponding base station, said cells of the second kind having a coverage which at least partially coincides with a coverage of one or more cells of the first kind, the cellular telephony network configured to control the base stations of the first and second kinds of cells, and to hand over control of user terminals from one base station to another base station, the method corresponding to a handover of control of a user terminal in a cell of the second kind to a target base station of a cell of the first kind, the method comprising: receiving a request for handover comprising serving CGI (Cell Global Identity) information that distinguishes between a new BTS (Base Transceiver Station) and a previously-detected BTS, and identifies a type of BTS, wherein the type of BTS distinguishes between a Femto BTS and an LTE (Long Term Evolution) BTS, the request indicating that the control of the user terminal in the cell of the second kind is to be handed over to the target base station of the cell of the first kind; determining, by a controller associated with the target base station of the cell of the first kind, a position of the cell of the second kind; and sending, by the controller associated with the target base station of the cell of the first kind, instructions to a controller associated with a serving base station of the cell of the second kind in response to determining the position of the cell of the second kind, the serving CGI information, and a current frequency plan of the cellular Macro system, said instructions comprising information regarding one or more frequencies and a BSIC (Base Station Identity Code) on which the serving base station of the cell of the second kind may operate, to improve coexistence between the cell of the second kind and the first number of cells of the first kind, and between the cell of the second kind and other cells of the second kind in the network.