Patent ID: 8078170

Claim:
A method comprising: in response to determining that a user equipment has a need to establish uplink synchronization with a second base station, determining whether dedicated uplink resources are available in a random access channel for the user equipment, wherein the need comprises a handover process from a first base station to which the user equipment is assigned to the second base station to which the user equipment is to be assigned after completion of the handover process; and in response to determining that the dedicated uplink resources are available for the user equipment, assigning the dedicated uplink resources on a non-contention-based channel in the random access channel to the user equipment and communicating a radio resource control handover message, comprising an indication of the dedicated uplink resources, from the second base station to the user equipment via the first base station, wherein the second base station communicates directly with the first base station, wherein the steps of determining, dedicating and communicating are performed without first receiving a request from the user equipment for the uplink resources.