Patent ID: 8792328

Claim:
A method for multicarrier switching to be performed by a user equipment (UE), comprising: associating the UE with a base station (BS), wherein the UE is configured for contemporaneous communication with the BS over a plurality of carriers, the plurality of carriers including a single primary carrier on which the UE is to receive security information via Media Access Control (MAC) signaling and one or more secondary carriers on which the UE does not receive security information via MAC signaling; establishing MAC layer security and mobility contexts using the security information received on the primary carrier; monitoring a link quality on the primary carrier; detecting degradation of the link quality on the primary carrier; determining, upon detecting the degradation, that recovery on the primary carrier is not possible; declaring, based on the determination that recovery on the primary carrier is not possible, a radio link failure (RLF) on the primary carrier, wherein the RLF is declared by the UE; selecting a target secondary carrier from the one or more secondary carriers; and establishing a new primary carrier on the target secondary carrier; and communicating with the new primary carrier using the MAC layer security and mobility contexts.