METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING AVAILABLE RADIO ACCESS POSSIBILITIES IN A COMMUNICATIONS AREA

摘要

A local radio access information transmitter (24) for use in a communications area (10) serviced by multiple different radio access technologies (RATs) allocated to different radio resources in different locations in the communications area. Each RAT is associated with one or more RAT radio transceivers (14, 18, 22) for serving user equipments (UEs) (12) at least in some portion of the communications area using one of the multiple RATs. The local radio access information transmitter is in addition to the RAT radio transceivers and located near an associated hotspot service area (20) at least partly inside the communications area. The local radio access information transmitter determines local radio access information including one or more different RATs available for UE service in the hotspot service area and a frequency of frequencies of operation allocated to each RAT in the hotspot service area, sends a registration message to a wide area radio access information controller (40), and based on a response from the wide area radio access information controller, determines what radio resources to use to transmit the local radio access information signals. Radio transmission circuitry (32) transmits the local radio access information signals for receipt by UEs (12) in the hotspot service areausing the determined radio resources.