DEVICE TO DEVICE AND CONNECTION MODE SWITCHING

摘要

The exemplary embodiments of this invention provide, in one aspect thereof, a method that includes sending a mode switch command from a network access node to a first node of a pair of nodes operating in a device-to-device (D2D) communication mode. The method further includes receiving at least one acknowledgment of the reception of the mode switch command at the network access node, where the at least one acknowledgment is received from a second node of the pair of nodes. In one embodiment the mode switch command is an explicit mode switch command sent using layer 1 (Ll) signaling to a master node of the pair of nodes. In another embodiment the mode switch command is an implicit mode switch command that includes a downlink grant to schedule the first node in the network, where the downlink grant contains a radio network identifier (RNTI) of the first node of the pair of nodes, and where the acknowledgment of the reception of the mode switch command is received from the second node of the pair of nodes and also from the first node of the pair of nodes. The exemplary embodiments also encompass user devices, such as mobile phones, that operate in the D2D mode in conjunction with the network access node.