Base station providing handover among small cells

Abstract

A source base station method, a source base station, a target base station method, a target base station and computer program products are disclosed. The source base station method comprises: in response to receiving an identification message from a user equipment being served by the serving base station identifying a target base station detected by the user equipment, transmitting a prepare message to the target base station requesting the target base station allocate but not utilise resources to support communication with the user equipment; and transmitting an active set update message to the user equipment instructing the user equipment to add the target base station to its active set. In this way it can been seen that functionality employed during hard handover is used in order to provision the target base station, but that soft handover procedures are used towards the user equipment. This means that the target base station is able to be rapidly handed over to when required, since it has already been provisioned and configures the user equipment to be expecting transmissions from the target base station when required. This enables a more simplified base station to be provided which need not provide all the functionality for soft handover. Also, because no soft handover is required, limited additional resources are required over the backhaul, and the processor and memory requirements are less intensive.