Patent ID: 8295837

Claim:
A method comprising: at an access controller apparatus, receiving a registration request from a radio access point device configured to operate in a wireless wide area network to serve one or more wireless client devices in the wireless wide area network in respective relatively small coverage areas, wherein the registration request comprises a macro cell identifier associated with a macro cell base station that operates in the wireless wide area network to serve one or more wireless client devices in a relatively large coverage area, a radio access point cell identifier associated with the radio access point device, and a particular primary scrambling code selected for use by the radio access point device; comparing the macro cell identifier and the particular primary scrambling code contained in the registration request received from the radio access point device with stored data that associates macro cell identifiers and primary scrambling codes already in use or otherwise restricted for use; and storing an indication that the radio access point cell identifier for the radio access point device that has been previously registered with the particular primary scrambling code is a shared radio access point cell identifier that is associated with more than one radio access point device.