DERIVING AN INDICATION OF A COMMUNICATIONS PARAMETER USING REFERENCE SYMBOLS

摘要

A perturbation is made to contents and/or locations in time and frequency of Reference Signals transmitted by a cell, such that the perturbation implies information regarding a capability or configuration of the cell as regards availability or configuration of a network functionality, in particular a facility to offer a narrowband virtual carrier operation. The contents and/or locations in time and frequency of the reference signals used are typically based on physical cell identity. In certain embodiments the PCI carried by some identifiable RS resources is changed, in others, the RS is transmitted in unexpected resources. The network functionality configuration information is inferred from various relationships between these transmissions and the cell's actual PCI and/or expected RS transmission resources.

主权项

1. A wireless communications system for providing an indication of a communications parameter, the wireless communications system comprising:
one or more base stations, each of which includes a transmitter configured to provide a wireless access interface for communicating data to terminals, the wireless access interface providing a plurality of communications resource elements, the communications resource elements being assembled in a plurality of time divided radio frames, a first subset of the resource elements in each radio frame carrying at least one synchronisation signal, the synchronisation signals for a base station being associated with a first identity number, and a second subset of the resource elements in each radio frame carrying reference signals comprising reference symbols, the second subset being divided into a plurality of discrete configurations, including a first configuration and a second configuration, the reference symbols in the first configuration having at least one property that varies according to the first identity number, the system further comprising: at least one terminal having a receiver for receiving at least some of the communications resource elements of the wireless access interface and a processor for processing at least some of the received communications resource elements; wherein, in operation, the processor determines the values of at least one property of the reference symbols present in the received communications resource elements; the value of the communications parameter being inferred from at least one property of the reference symbols in the second configuration.