Relocation method, system and network element

Abstract

The present invention relates to a relocation method, system and network element for changing a serving radio resource control entity After an initial operating state in which a user equipment () has radio links with a serving network element () and a drift network element () supporting said serving network element () with a wireless connection, the serving network element () transmits a relocation-specific information to a target network element (). Based on the relocation-specific information, the target network element () establishes a link to the drift network element (), such that the drift network element () can receive user traffic from both the serving network element () and the target network element (). Then, the radio resource control is relocated to the target network element (). The relocation-specific information may comprise an identifier or a list of identifiers of drift network elements. Thus, existing soft handover techniques can be enhanced by allowing a user plane connection to be maintained with drift network elements. Thereby, any amount of drift network elements can be kept, with improved radio performance as a consequence.