Patent ID: 7477920

Claim:
A communications system comprising: a radio base station for a wireless communication network, configured for connection to a central base station controller device, configured for collection of information about other surrounding base stations through its radio receiver and, based on the collected information and other carrier-specific requirements, configured to automatically integrate into the network with the aid of a central configuration device; a mobile switching center (MSC); a configuration device; and a base station controller device communicatively coupled with the configuration device, the base station controller to handle communication between the base station and MSC, the base station controller device to use the public Internet for communication with the surrounding base stations, the base station controller device to maintain a base station list to indicate neighboring macrocells to which a handover may occur, wherein the list includes one or more wireless channel condition measurements used to select a target macrocell for the handover, the base station controller device further to maintain a list of interference neighbors, wherein the base station scans the downlink frequency band for BCCH (Broadcast Control Channel) signals from other base stations, measures the received signal strength, decodes broadcast parameters of these base stations including one or more of: the CGI (Cell Global Identifier, which contains the Location Area Code (LAC) and the Cell Identifier (CI)), the BSIC (Base Station Identity Code) and the neighbor cell list and reports the measurements to the configuration device further wherein location area codes (LACs) and cell identifiers (CIs) are pre-defined for each MSC or for each BSC in the network, that are separate from LACs and CIs used by conventional base stations in the network, so that a plurality of base stations share a common cell global identifier (CGI) and a common LAC and CI; wherein the configuration device has information stored about location area codes (LACs) used by different MSCs or BSCs of the network and, based on this information and on the measurements of the base station assigns a LAC to the base station out of the pre-defined set of LACs that belongs to the same MSC or BSC controlling the location area that the base station's strongest neighbor cell belongs to, as well as linking that base station via the Internet to the base station controller connected to the same MSC.