Patent ID: 8879536

Claim:
An apparatus for time synchronization of a femtocell base station in a wireless communication system comprising a plurality of macrocell base stations and at least one femtocell base station located within the cell coverage of each macrocell base station, the apparatus comprising: a neighbor list generation unit that generates a neighboring macrocell base station list containing information regarding neighboring macrocell base stations adjacent to the femtocell base station; a reception unit that receives, via the neighboring macrocell base stations, timing packets generated by timing servers directly connected to the neighboring macrocell base stations; a master base station setting unit that sets one of the neighboring macrocell base stations as a master base station and another one of the neighboring macrocell base stations as a candidate master base station; and a synchronization unit that obtains, if time synchronization using a GPS satellite is impossible, system time information from a timing packet received via one corresponding to the master base station, among the neighboring macrocell base stations, and performs time synchronization.