Patent ID: 8724570

Claim:
A method for performing carrier management in a mobile station of a communication system supporting multiple carriers, the method comprising: receiving, on a third carrier, a signal indicating allocation of a control channel for a first carrier from a base station; receiving, on the third carrier, a signal indicating deallocation of the control channel for a second carrier from the base station; activating the first carrier, in addition to at least one already-activated carrier, when the first carrier for which allocation of the control channel is indicated is in a deactivated state, wherein the activation of the first carrier is triggered by the allocation of the control channel for the first carrier instead of explicit signaling for activating the first carrier; and deactivating the second carrier when the second carrier for which deallocation of the control channel is indicated is in an activated state, wherein the deactivation of the second carrier is triggered by the deallocation of the control channel for the second carrier instead of explicit signaling for deactivating the second carrier, wherein the third carrier is included in the at least one already-activated carrier, and wherein a primary carrier is included in the at least one already-activated carrier, and the primary carrier is not switched to another carrier after the activation of the first carrier or after the deactivation of the second carrier.