Patent ID: 8804668

Claim:
A method comprising: a) transmitting, by a base station, at least one Radio Resource Control (RRC) message configured to cause assignment of each of at least one secondary cell to one of a primary cell group and at least one secondary cell group, said at least one RRC message comprising: i) a plurality of dedicated parameters for each of said at least one secondary cell, wherein: (1) if said plurality of dedicated parameters comprise a cell group index for a secondary cell, said secondary cell is assigned to one of said at least one secondary cell group identified by said cell group index; and (2) otherwise, said secondary cell is assigned to said primary cell group; and ii) MAC dedicated parameters comprising a sequence of at least one information element, each information element comprising: a first cell group index of a first secondary cell group and a timer value for a corresponding time alignment timer, said corresponding time alignment timer indicating how long said first secondary cell group is considered to be uplink time aligned; and b) transmitting a MAC timing advance command comprising said first cell group index causing restart of said corresponding time alignment timer.