Patent ID: 8681708

Claim:
A method for allocating control channels for multi-carrier high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), comprising: step A, when a user equipment (UE) accesses a network, the network allocating to the UE with K pairs of uplink and downlink control channels to be monitored by the UE; step B, during a HSDPA service transmission process, the network selecting N pairs from the K pairs of uplink and downlink control channels to transmit control messages, wherein the selected downlink channels and the corresponding uplink channels are on a same carrier; and step C, the network allocating a pair of uplink and downlink associate channels to each carrier where the selected N pairs of uplink and downlink control channels locate, wherein M≧N≧1 and M is a number of carriers used by the network to transmit packet data, wherein: the uplink and downlink control channels are common channels, the uplink and downlink associate channels are dedicated channels, and the uplink and downlink associate channels are for transmitting high layer control signaling, high layer response messages of the UE and power control and synchronous control messages initiating the uplink and downlink control channels.