Patent ID: 8290501

Claim:
A method by a user equipment, the method comprising: receiving an uplink schedule for transmitting on an uplink to a network node; determining whether there is data to be transmitted on the uplink to the network node; selecting a time within a time window of the uplink schedule to either: 1) transmit on the uplink at the selected time within the time window when it is determined that there is data to be transmitted, or 2) receive on a downlink from the network node at the selected time within the time window of the uplink schedule when it is determined that there is no data to be transmitted; wherein the selecting occurs while the device is incapable of simultaneously receiving on the downlink and transmitting on the uplink, and the selecting comprises identifying timeslots associated with an uplink timeslot assignment using the uplink schedule and selecting one of the timeslots to begin transmitting of the data on the uplink so that a remaining time within the uplink schedule is available for receiving data on the downlink; and transmitting the data on the uplink based on the selected time, wherein the data to be transmitted is of an amount that is smaller than an available bandwidth associated with the uplink schedule.