EXCHANGE OF LOAD NOTIFICATIONS BETWEEN NEIGHBOURING NODES OF NETWORKS USING DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR BALANCING THEIR LOADS BY TRANSFERRING USER DEVICES

摘要

Embodiments of the invention described herein provide methods and apparatuses for exchanging load indications between neighbouring network nodes using different communication technologies, thereby enabling the transfer of traffic load from a communication network, such as a LTE network, to a lower power per user node, such as a wireless local area network (WLAN) node, based on the availability of capacity at the lower power per user node. In embodiments of the invention handover or cell re-selection algorithms are able preemptively to trigger a handover or a cell re-selection based on the availability of capacity at the lower power node so as to reduce overall power consumption for the operators' network.