METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR OPERATING MOBILE NODES IN MULTIPLE STATES

摘要

The use of multiple states of mobile communication device (14) operation to allow a single base station (12) to support a relatively large number of mobile nodes (14, 16) is described. The various states require different amounts of communications resources, e.g., bandwidth. Four supported states of operation are a on-state (404), a hold-state (410), a sleep-state (408), and an access-state (402). Each mobile node in the on-state (404) is allocated communication resources to perform transmission power control signaling, transmission timing control signaling and to transmit data as part of a data uplink communications operation. Each mobile node in the hold-state (410) is allocated communication resources to perform transmission timing control signaling and is provided a dedicated uplink for requesting a state transition and a shared resource for transmitting acknowledgements. In the sleep state (408) a mobile node is allocated minimal resources and does not conduct power control signaling or timing control signaling.