Patent ID: 8553648

Claim:
A method for a single-carrier supported mobile station to perform a primary carrier change with a multi-carrier supported base station, the method comprising: transmitting a message indicating a support of a basic multi-carrier (MC) mode to the base station, wherein the basic MC mode includes operating the mobile station only with a single carrier with the mobile station being aware of a multi-carrier operation of the base station and capable of supporting the primary carrier change; receiving a carrier management command message including an action code and an action time, on a serving carrier of the base station, wherein the action code indicates the primary carrier change, and the primary carrier change involves changing a primary carrier corresponding to the serving carrier for the mobile station to another carrier corresponding to a target carrier in the base station; transmitting, in response to the carrier management command message, a confirmation message indicating readiness of signal transmission/reception through the target carrier of the base station, on the target carrier of the base station; and receiving a control signal and data from the base station on the target carrier of the base station, wherein the serving carrier and the target carrier are controlled by a single common Medium Access Control (MAC) of the base station.