METHODS, APPARATUSES AND SYSTEM FOR IDENTIFYING A TARGET FEMTOCELL FOR HAND-IN OF A USER EQUIPMENT

摘要

Systems, methods, and devices are described for supporting macrocell-to-femtocell hand-ins of active macro communications for mobile devices. An out-of-band (OOB) link is used to detect that a mobile device is in proximity of a femtocell. Having detected the mobile device in proximity to the femtocell, an OOB proximity detection is communicated to a femtocell gateway disposed in a core network in communication with the macro network to effectively pre-register the mobile device with the femto-convergence system. When the femtocell gateway receives a handover request from the macro network implicating the pre-registered mobile device, it is able to reliably determine the appropriate target femtocell to use for the hand-in according to the pre-registration, even where identification of the appropriate target femtocell would otherwise be unreliable. Some embodiments may also handling registering the mobile device after a handover request has occurred, including tiered approaches.