Signalling enabling timing advance exchange between user equipment and radio access network

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to devices, methods, apparatuses and computer readable storage media of signalling enabling Timing Advance (TA) exchange between User Equipment (UE) and Radio Access Network (RAN). The method comprises receiving, at a first device, a TA margin from a second device; transmitting, to the second device, information associated with a reference location of the first device at a first time point; determining a reference TA of the first device at least based on the reference location of the first device; determining an actual TA of the first device at least based on an actual location of the first device at a second time point; and determining, based on a comparison of a TA margin with a difference between the reference TA and the actual TA, whether to transmit an updated reference location of the first device to the second device. In this way, the control for uplink overhead from TA/location updates and probability of impacting downlink scheduling become flexible. Furthermore, the downlink delay can be optimised and meanwhile overhead in case of very few small packets transmitted can be minimized. As a result, the network can optimize its own performance and the battery savings of the users.