Support of Legacy Network Elements in Small Cell System

摘要

The present invention addresses apparatuses, methods and computer program product for enabling support of legacy user equipment and legacy network elements in small cell system for LTE and beyond systems. Each small cell uses a unique pair of Physical Cell Identifier and E-UTRAN Cell Global Identifier {PCI, ECGI} in the small cell system. In a handover preparation phase, when an enhanced eNB initiates the handover request procedure, the source eNB includes the pair of {PCI, ECGI} in the handover request message. Upon the reception of the {PCI, ECGI} from the handover request message, the associated eNB determines the target small cell based on the received pair of {PCI, ECGI}.