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US-20260129663-A1 - COMMUNICATION IN A WIRELESS NETWORK USING RESTRICTED BANDWIDTHS

US20260129663A1US 20260129663 A1US20260129663 A1US 20260129663A1US-20260129663-A1

Abstract

A user equipment (UE) is configured to receive a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) in a first bandwidth portion of a cell having a cell bandwidth. The PBCH has a master information block (MIB), which includes a carrier flag and an indication of the second bandwidth portion of the cell, and the time resources to receive information in the second bandwidth portion are known to the UE. The UE is further configured to receive, in the indicated time, resources, a signal in the second bandwidth portion of the cell based on a first value on the carrier flag, and recover control information from the signal in the second bandwidth portion, including time and frequency resources to acquire additional system information.

Inventors

  • Philip Young

Assignees

  • INTELLECTUAL VENTURES HOLDING 81 LLC

Dates

Publication Date
20260507
Application Date
20260105
Priority Date
20120120

Claims (18)

  1. 1 . A user equipment (UE) comprising: a transceiver; and a processor, operatively coupled to the transceiver, wherein: the transceiver and the processor are configured to: receive a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) in a first bandwidth portion of a cell having a cell bandwidth, the PBCH having a master information block (MIB), the MIB having a carrier flag and an indication to use a second bandwidth portion, wherein time resources to receive information in the second bandwidth portion are known to the UE; and receive, in the time resources, a signal in the second bandwidth portion based on a first value on the carrier flag, and recover control information from the signal in the second bandwidth portion, including time and frequency resources to acquire additional system information.
  2. 2 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the first bandwidth portion and the second bandwidth portion are different.
  3. 3 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the transceiver and the processor are further configured, based on the carrier flag having a first value, to not camp on the cell.
  4. 4 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the transceiver and the processor are further configured to receive a plurality of PBCHs of the cell.
  5. 5 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the carrier flag includes a single bit indicating whether to camp on the cell.
  6. 6 . The UE of claim 1 , wherein the MIB includes a system frame number (SFN).
  7. 7 . A method performed by a user equipment (UE), the method comprising: receiving a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) in a first bandwidth portion of a cell having a cell bandwidth, the PBCH having a master information block (MIB), the MIB having a carrier flag and an indication to use a second bandwidth portion, wherein time resources to receive information in the second bandwidth portion are known to the UE; and receiving, in the time resources, a signal in the second bandwidth portion based on a first value on the carrier flag, and recovering control information from the signal in the second bandwidth portion, including time and frequency resources to acquire additional system information.
  8. 8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the first bandwidth portion and the second bandwidth portion are different.
  9. 9 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising not camping on the cell based on the carrier flag having the first value.
  10. 10 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising receiving a plurality of PBCHs of the cell.
  11. 11 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the carrier flag includes a single bit indicating whether to camp on the cell.
  12. 12 . The method of claim 7 , wherein the MIB includes a system frame number (SFN).
  13. 13 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor of a user equipment (UE), cause the processor to execute a method comprising: receiving a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) in a first bandwidth portion of a cell having a cell bandwidth, the PBCH having a master information block (MIB), the MIB having a carrier flag and an indication to use a second bandwidth portion, wherein time resources to receive information in the second bandwidth portion are known to the UE; and receiving, in the time resources, a signal in the second bandwidth portion based on a first value on the carrier flag, and recovering control information from the signal in the second bandwidth portion, including time and frequency resources to acquire additional system information.
  14. 14 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the first bandwidth portion and the second bandwidth portion are different.
  15. 15 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the carrier flag having the first value causes the UE to not camp on the cell.
  16. 16 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the method further comprises receiving a plurality of PBCHs of the cell.
  17. 17 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the carrier flag includes a single bit indicating whether to camp on the cell.
  18. 18 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the MIB includes a system frame number (SFN).

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/784,302, filed Jul. 25, 2024, which will issue as U.S. Pat. No. 12,520,334 on Jan. 6, 2026, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/394,172, filed Dec. 22, 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 18/136,140, filed Apr. 18, 2023, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 11,856,593 on Dec. 26, 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/566,059, filed Dec. 30, 2021, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 11,638,295 on Apr. 25, 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/185,533, filed Feb. 25, 2021, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 11,252,732 on Feb. 15, 2022, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/190,420, filed Nov. 14, 2018, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 10,939,446 on Mar. 2, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/372,363, filed Jul. 15, 2014, now abandoned, which is a § 371 application of International Application No. PCT/GB2013/050126, filed Jan. 21, 2013, claiming priority to Great Britain Application No. 1201000.5, filed Jan. 20, 2012, which are incorporated by reference as if fully set forth. FIELD OF INVENTION The present invention relates to wireless communications systems and methods, and in particular to a system, method, base station and terminal device for communicating using a subordinate carrier of a host carrier. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Mobile communication systems have evolved over the past ten years or so from the GSM System (Global System for Mobile communications) to the 3G system and now include packet data communications as well as circuit switched communications. The third generation partnership project (3GPP) is developing a fourth generation mobile communication system referred to as Long Term Evolution (LTE) in which a core network part has been evolved to form a more simplified architecture based on a merging of components of earlier mobile radio network architectures and a radio access interface which is based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) on the downlink and Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) on the uplink. Third and fourth generation mobile telecommunication systems, such as those based on the 3GPP defined UMTS and Long Term Evolution (LTE) architectures, are able to support a more sophisticated range of services than simple voice and messaging services offered by previous generations of mobile telecommunication systems. For example, with the improved radio interface and enhanced data rates provided by LTE systems, a user is able to enjoy high data rate applications such as mobile video streaming and mobile video conferencing that would previously only have been available via a fixed line data connection. The demand to deploy third and fourth generation networks is therefore strong and the coverage area of these networks, i.e. geographic locations where access to the networks is possible, is expected to increase rapidly. The anticipated widespread deployment of third and fourth generation networks has led to the parallel development of a class of devices and applications which, rather than taking advantage of the high data rates available, instead take advantage of the robust radio interface and increasing ubiquity of the coverage area. Examples include so-called machine type communication (MTC) applications, also known as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, some of which are in some respects typified by semi-autonomous or autonomous wireless communication devices (i.e. MTC devices) communicating small amounts of data on a relatively infrequent basis. Examples include so-called smart meters which, for example, are located in a customer's home and periodically transmit data back to a central MTC server relating to the customer's consumption of a utility such as gas, water, electricity and so on. Whilst it can be convenient for a terminal such as an MTC-type terminal to take advantage of the wide coverage area provided by a third or fourth generation mobile telecommunication network there are at present disadvantages. Unlike a conventional third or fourth generation mobile terminal such as a smartphone, a primary driver for MTC-type terminals will be a desire for such terminals to be relatively simple and inexpensive. The type of functions typically performed by a MTC-type terminal (e.g. simple collection and reporting of relatively small amounts of data) do not require particularly complex processing to perform, for example, compared to a smartphone supporting video streaming. However, third and fourth generation mobile telecommunication networks typically employ advanced data modulation techniques and support wide bandwidth usage on the radio interface which can require more complex and expensive radio transceivers to implement. It is usually justified to include such complex transcei