US 12,335,202 B2
Methods and apparatus relating to communicating and/or using timing information to facilitate carrier aggregation and/or dual connectivity
Maulik Vaidya, Escondido, CA (US); Ahmad Reza Hedayat, Carlsbad, CA (US); Frank Azcuy, Miami, FL (US); Amitav Mukherjee, Elk Grove, CA (US); and Marcus Maranhao, Irvine, CA (US)
Assigned to Charter Communications Operating, LLC, St. Louis, MO (US)
Filed by Charter Communications Operating, LLC, St. Louis, MO (US)
Filed on Jul. 29, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/877,422.
Prior Publication US 2024/0039682 A1, Feb. 1, 2024
Int. Cl. H04L 5/14 (2006.01); H04W 72/0446 (2023.01)
CPC H04L 5/14 (2013.01) [H04W 72/0446 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A communications method, the method comprising:
operating a secondary node (SN) to receive SN addition request corresponding to a first UE, said SN addition request including timing information, said timing information including at least one of: i) start time (TSTART) information or ii) Grand Master Fully Qualified Domain Name (GMFQDN) information; and
operating the SN to perform timing alignment at the SN for transmissions to the first UE to align transmission timing at the SN for transmission to the first UE by using TSTART information, included in the received SN addition request, with information in a Time Division Duplexing Downlink-Uplink (TDD DL-UL) configuration NR information element, to adjust timing at the SN to align one or more of: i) a slot boundary at the SN with a slot boundary at a master node (MN) or ii) symbol level boundaries at the SN with symbol level boundaries at the MN.