Patent ID: 8380234

Claim:
A local area radio access information transmitter (LARAIT) for use in a communications area serviced by one or more different radio access technologies (RATs) allocated to different radio resources in different locations in the communications area, where each RAT is associated with one or more RAT radio transceivers for serving user equipments (UEs) at least in some portion of the communications area using at least one of the multiple RATs, the LARAIT being in addition to the RAT radio transceivers and located near or inside an associated hotspot service area at least partly inside the communications area, the LARAIT comprising: a receiver configured to receive broadcast information from a wide-area radio access information transmitter (WARAIT) having a set of WARAIT radio resources initially available for use by the WARAIT; processing circuitry configured to: determine local radio access information including one or more different RATs available for UE service in the hotspot service area and a frequency or frequencies of operation allocated to each RAT in the hotspot service area, determine from the set of WARAIT radio resources at least one WARAIT radio resource that the WARAIT is not using, and radio transmission circuitry configured to transmit the local area radio access information signals for receipt by UEs in the hotspot service area using the determined at least one WARAIT radio resource.