HANDOVER BETWEEN A CELLULAR NETWORK AND AN UNLICENSED-RADIO ACCESS NETWORK USING A SINGLE IDENTIFIER FOR ALL THE ACCESS POINTS

摘要

In cellular mobile networks handover between base stations of adjacent cells requires the identity, address and frequency of all adjacent cells to be known to other elements of the network. Conventional networks (e.g.cellular networks) can be extended by the addition of unlicensed-radio access networks. Said unlicensed networks can include an access network controller (303) preferably connected via a broadband network (302) to a plurality of low-power local base stations (301), which communicate with mobile stations (1) over an unlicensed radio interface. The number and changing location of the local base station renders the operation and maintenance required to enable handover from the conventional network to these access networks prohibitively complex. This difficulty is alleviated by assigning to all the mini-cells of the unlicensed network a single identifier being said single identifier associated to the access network controller. With this arrangement regardless of which base station mini-cell (304) an active call is being handed-over to, the conventional network will be able to route the request to the access network controller.