Patent ID: 8923190

Claim:
A method, comprising: mapping a first transmission channel to an existing channel of a network element in a first communication mode, where the first transmission channel is mapped in both frequency and time resources; signaling at least one neighbor network element in a secondary communication mode to associate the network element with the at least one neighbor network element; switching the network element to the secondary communication mode which is one of a secondary transmission mode and a secondary receiving mode; and receiving a first signal on the mapped first transmission channel from the at least one associated neighbor network element; wherein mapping the first transmission channel further comprises at least one of: a mapping between a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH) signal and a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) signal; a mapping between an uplink random access channel (RACH) preamble and a downlink RACH preamble; a mapping between one of physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) formats for acknowledgement (ACK) signal, negative acknowledgement (NAK) signal, scheduling request (SR) and channel quality indicator (CQI) and one of a downlink physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel (PHICH) signal and a downlink physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) signal; a mapping between an uplink demodulation reference signal and a downlink demodulation reference signal; and a mapping between an uplink sounding reference signal and a downlink channel state information (CSI) reference signal.