SWITCHING FROM DEDICATED TO COMMON CHANNELS WHEN RADIO RESOURCES ARE CONTROLLED BY DRIFT RADIO NETWORK CONTROLLER

摘要

A serving radio network controller (SRNC) of a radio access network assigns one or both of an appropriate temporary identifier (C-RNTI) and radio resources to a connection which is switched from a dedicated channel to a common channel in a cell handled by a drift radio network controller (DRNC). In one embodiment, the appropriate temporary identifier (C-RNTI) and the radio resources are obtained by the serving radio network controller (SRNC) upon execution of a channel switching process (e.g., when it has been determined that a connection should be switched from a dedicated channel to a common channel). In another embodiment of the invention, the serving radio network controller (SRNC) can obtain the appropriate temporary identifier (C-RNTI) and the radio resources prior to an actual channel switch operation. In both embodiments, the obtaining of the temporary identifier and/or radio resources can be part of a Common Transport Channel Resources Initialization procedure.