Alcatel Lucent

Tony Putman

Graham Brend

Philip Charles Sapiano

Nigel Bradley

Nigel L Bradley

Mark T Skeates

Graham R Brend

Philip C Sapiano

Philip Sapiano

A method is provided of authenticating a message from a femtocell base station in a wireless telecommunications network comprising a security gateway and a femto-gateway. The method comprising the steps of: checking by the security gateway that a source IP address in the message from the femtocell base station accords with that expected from that femtocell base station, and checking by the femto-gateway that the source IP address in the message accords with that expected from that femtocell base station by inspecting a database relating a femtocell base station identifier to source IP address data.

Wireless telecommunications network, and a method of authenticating a message

A method is provided of deactivating PDP Context upon transfer of a connection with a user terminal between a femtocell base station and a macrocell base station, the method comprising: the femto base station receiving a message including a first identifier of a PDP Context, altering the identifier of a PDP Context to a second identifier, and forwarding the altered message to the core network, the core network receiving a message including an identifier determines that the received identifier does not match the identifier that it expects and so deactivates the PDP Context.

Deactivating packet data protocol context

A femtocell arrangement comprises a plurality of femtocells Femto 1 to Femto 13 having coverage distributed over a region, such as, for example, an office. A border femtocell, Femto 3 or Femto 10, of said plurality has coverage at an entrance to the region and is arranged to operate at a higher transmit power level to provide a larger coverage area than that provided by neighboring femtocells. In addition, the border femtocell may be allocated a specific Primary Scrambling Code (PSC) to show its designation as a border femtocell. An approaching user equipment UE 1 or UE 2 tends to attach to the higher transmit power border femtocells. The Femto Gateway managing the connection is aware of the likelihood that an approaching UE will tend to attach to a border femtocell, and this is further confirmed by the use of a specific PSC. Hence, handover is expedited as the most suitable femtocells may be chosen as targets for handover.

Femtocell arrangements

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Chippenham, United Kingdom

Tony Putman