Patent ID: 8588846

Claim:
A method performed by a base station, comprising: receiving capability information from a user equipment (UE), wherein said capability information comprises radio access technology (RAT) capability information identifying a set of RATs supported by the UE, wherein each RAT is associated with a predetermined maximum number of layers that the UE may be instructed to monitor, said predetermined maximum number of layers being a standardized value; and for at least one of said RATs included in the set of RATs: determining the number of layers associated with the RAT to instruct the UE to monitor, wherein the determined number of layers is less than said predetermined maximum number of layers associated with the RAT, wherein the determination is based, at least in part, on at least some of the received capability information; and after the determining step, transmitting to the UE RAT layer monitoring information, wherein the RAT layer monitoring information indicates the determined number of layers that the UE should monitor on the RAT, wherein the received capability information further comprises RAT layer capability information indicating that the UE is configured to monitor less than the predetermined maximum number of layers associated with at least one of the RATs included in the set of RATs, and the method further comprises storing configuration information that, for each of a plurality of sets of RATs, associates a number with at least one RAT included in the set, wherein said number represents a number of layers associated with the RAT.