METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTENTION-BASED GRANTING IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

摘要

In one aspect of the disclosed teachings, associating a plurality of contention-based uplink grants with a range of uplink resource blocks allows one contention-based uplink grant message to signal the entire plurality of grants. As an example in the LTE context, the signaling load on the PDCCH is reduced by using a single contention-based uplink grant message to signal a plurality of contention-based uplink grants. The message indicates an allocated set of uplink resource blocks and the number of separate uplink resource grants represented by the set is known or signaled, such that user terminals recognize that separate subsets of uplink resource blocks within the set each correspond to a separate contention-based uplink grant. Information included in the contention-based uplink grant message, or otherwise signaled can be used to control the probability at which the user terminals attempt contention-based uplink transmissions and/or to control the MCS used for such transmissions.

主权项

1. A method in a wireless communication network node for signaling contention-based uplink grants to user equipments, said method comprising:
allocating a range of uplink resource blocks for use in making a plurality of contention-based uplink grants within a given scheduling interval, wherein the range of uplink resource blocks comprises different subsets of uplink resource blocks and wherein each contention-based uplink grant in the plurality of contention-based uplink grants maps to a subset of uplink resource blocks out of the different subsets within the allocated range of uplink resource blocks; and transmitting a single contention-based uplink grant message that indicates the allocated range of uplink resource blocks.