Patent ID: 8730937

Claim:
A method, in a synchronization apparatus of a synchronization dedicated base station of a wireless communication network, for performing synchronization based on synchronization signals from one or more neighboring network devices, comprising: a. turning off a transmitter for a predefined time slot at one or more random moments within each downstream synchronization cycle; b. within the predefined time slot, receiving the synchronization signals from the one or more neighboring network devices via synchronization related channels, wherein the synchronization signals comprise synchronization reference information of the one or more neighboring network devices; and c. determining local synchronization reference information based on the synchronization reference information of the one or more neighboring network devices and on pre-stored signal transmission related information; detecting the received synchronization signals from the one or more neighboring network devices and determining a synchronization signal from the synchronization dedicated base station; and c1′. determining the local synchronization reference information based on the pre-stored signal transmission related information and the determined synchronization reference information in the synchronization signal from the synchronization dedicated base station.