Resources of a downlink control channel for transmitting ACK/NACK feedback are used for control information for a different communication function

摘要

Free resources of a downlink control channel, such as a physical hybrid ARQ indicator channel (PHICH), which are linked to an uplink transmission but are not occupied by acknowledgement / non-acknowledgement (ACK/NACK) feedback information are determined S10 and selected for transmitting S12 dedicated control information related to a communication function different from the ACK/NACK feedback indication. Preferably, the different communication function is a device-to-device (D2D) communication function and the dedicated control information is a D2D specific control signal sent from a network control element, e.g. an enhanced Node B (eNB), to a communication device to enable D2D communication.