Patent ID: 8861412

Claim:
A method for operating a low power network access node, comprising: starting by a low power network access node a discontinuous reception pattern assigned to the low power network access node, the discontinuous reception pattern having ON and OFF periods; sending from the low power network access node information about the discontinuous reception pattern to user equipments served by the low power network access node and to one or more network elements; and identifying, based on a predefined criterion, further user equipments that are served by one or more high power network access nodes; where the information is used for coordinating ON and OFF periods of the discontinuous reception pattern by the low power network access node according to the pattern with transmissions of the user equipments and with the further user equipments to avoid interference during the OFF periods of the discontinuous reception pattern in the low power network access node, and where during the OFF periods of the discontinuous reception pattern the user equipments are allowed to transmit uplink to their serving low power network access node and the further user equipments use the information to avoid transmitting uplink to their serving one or more high power network access nodes.