Method of handling a cell outage in a radiocommunication network

Abstract

In a cellular telecommunications system, outage management is managed in respect of each cell B by a nominated neighbor cell A, the identity of which is recorded in a neighbor list for cell B. If a cell C, D, other than the nominated neighbor, detects a suspected outage in a cell B, the cell detecting the outage identifies the nominated neighbor A from the neighbor list of cell B, and transmits an outage report to the nominated neighbor cell A, which coordinates a handover and outage management process. This avoids multiple detections of the same outage resulting in conflicting attempts to manage the recovery process. Selection of the nominated neighbor of a cell B may be made autonomously by the cell itself or by a centralized processor, and may be done in such a way as to support network resilience by avoiding reciprocity between cells, selecting, for a cell B connected to a first backhaul system, a nominated neighbor A using a second backhaul system, and avoiding the use of cells E having intermittent or transient connections to the network.