Opportunistic carrier aggregation using short range extension carriers

摘要

Systems and methods for providing opportunistic carrier aggregation to short range or low power extension carriers are generally disclosed herein. One embodiment includes data traffic offload techniques to offload data communicated in a Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) from a primary cell to a secondary cell. For example, the primary cell may be provided by a LTE/LTE-A base station operating in licensed spectrum, and the secondary cell may be provided by a low-power extension carrier operating in unlicensed spectrum using a LTE/LTE-A standard. The low-power extension carrier may be activated as needed to offload data transfers from the primary cell, in download-only, upload-only, and time-division LTE (TD-LTE) modes. Configurations involving multimode base stations, multimode user equipment (UE), relay extension carriers, and remote radio equipment are also described herein, in conjunction with deployment of opportunistic carrier aggregation using extension carriers.

主权项

1. A dual-mode base station, comprising:
an enhanced NodeB (eNodeB), the eNodeB arranged to provide a primary cell (PCell) network; and a short range extension carrier operably coupled to the eNodeB, the short range extension carrier arranged to provide a secondary cell (SCell) network; wherein at least one of:
the eNodeB is a low power eNodeB and the short range extension carrier is co-located with the eNodeB,the eNodeB is a macrocell eNodeB and the SCell is provided by a low power extension carrier radio node co-located with a relay node in communication with, and remote from, the eNodeB, orthe SCell is provided by a low power extension carrier remote radio element radio node in communication with, and remote from, the eNodeB; wherein a same network protocol is used for wireless network transmissions in each of the PCell and the SCell; and wherein data communications are opportunistically offloaded from the PCell to the SCell.