Patent ID: 8638738

Claim:
A method performed by user equipment (UE) for random access transmission of uplink user data, the method comprising: transmitting a contention sequence on a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) to an enhanced-Node B (eNB); transmitting user data on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) to the eNB without a prior grant of resources for uplink data transmission on the PUSCH, the user data and the contention sequence being concurrently transmitted in a same subframe; performing a procedure for grant of uplink resources when the contention sequence is successfully received by the eNB and when the user data is not successfully received by the eNB, the procedure for grant of uplink resources comprising either a random-access channel (RACH) procedure or a scheduling request (SR) procedure; and when the user data is successfully received by the eNB, refraining from performing the procedure for grant of uplink resources, wherein the contention sequence is transmitted on the PUCCH in accordance with a format that is assigned by the eNB, the contention sequence being either randomly selected by the UE or assigned by the eNB, wherein the user data does not include a request for uplink resources, and wherein when the eNB is unable to detect the user data transmitted on the PUSCH but is able to detect the contention sequence, the UE is arranged to perform either the RACH procedure or the SR procedure.