FRAME SYNCHRONISATION IN A RADIO ACCESS NETWORK

摘要

A method of optimizing the timing offsets with which data frames are transmitted over the lur/lub interfaces of a UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network, UTRAN. The method comprises, for a given lur/lub interface or set of lur/lub interfaces over which identical user plane data is to be sent, defining a duration of a data frame receiving window for use by the receiving node(s), transmitting data frames from a sending node with an initial timing offset sufficient to ensure a likelihood that the frames will be received at the or each receiving node within the defined receiving window, reducing the timing offset at the sending node in a stepwise manner, and adjusting the timing offset at the sending node in response to the receipt of late Time of Arrival error reports at the sending node. In a second embodiment, the frame synchronisation of frames corresponding to speech services and data services is carried out by delaying the frames corresponding to speech sservices a fixed delay and the frames corresponding to data services a variable delay based on a received time of arrival feedback.