Method, base station, and communication network supporting high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA) with soft handover mechanisms

摘要

A method of supporting soft / softer handover mechanisms for High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) in a cellular communication network (1) with a plurality of base stations (2.1, 2.2), wherein said handover mechanisms include establishing an additional link to at least one additional network cell from a User Equipment (UE) (3) capable of using HSUPA and linked to a serving network cell (2.1 a) via a first link. The proposed method comprises the steps of:
- upon detection of a soft / softer handover request from the user equipment (3), checking by a serving base station (2.1) of the plurality of base stations if at least a first predefined processing capacity is available at the additional network cell for allowing the requested handover;
- if said first processing capacity is available, controlling of said handover by means of the serving base station (2.1), else
- if only a second predefined processing capacity lower than the first predefined processing capacity is available, sending an information message to the User Equipment (3) from the base station (2.1, 2.2) controlling the additional network cell upon reception of data from the User Equipment (3). In this way, soft / softer handover and Relative Grant mechanisms are supported in the context of HSUPA.