In a wireless cellular communication system, in order to provide a large range of wireless communication for a multi-mode terminal, there is a need for a wireless communication system to arrange a base station with a large coverage range. Generally, such a base station is called a Macro eNB or a Macro Base Station (BS), and a serving cell thereof is called a Macro Cell. In addition, in view of different demands of users and different use environments, the wireless communication system needs to provide a wireless communication service which makes up for a coverage hole or provide a wireless communication service with higher quality for the users under certain environments or scenes. Therefore, some small base stations or Transmission Points (TP) with small coverage range and lower transmitting power are adopted. The small base stations or transmission points can be either Pico eNB or Pico BS, or Femto eNB or Femto BS, wherein the Femto BS can be also called a Home Node B (HNB) or HeNB, a milli femto-base station or a femto-base station and thus cells that are provided by the pico-base stations and the HNBs are pico cells and femtocells. Nodes corresponding to the small base stations are also called Low Power Nodes (LPN), and cells corresponding to these nodes are also called small cells.
During evolution, the wireless cellular communication system is gradually developed with various radio access or interface technologies, for example, a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) in a second-generation mobile communication technology, a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, a Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA), CDMA-2000 and a Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wimax) in a third-generation mobile communication technology, and Long Term Evolution (LTE), Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) and Wimax2.0 in the evolved third or fourth-generation mobile communication technology. Some technologies have corresponding access network names. For example, the GSM corresponds to a GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN), the WCDMA and the TD-SCDMA correspond to a UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), and the LTE/LTE-A corresponds to an Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN). In addition to the wireless cellular communication system, the wireless communication system further includes a Wireless Local Access Network (WLAN). Since a Wireless Fidelity (WIFI) frequency spectrum is free and a WIFI chip has a low cost, the arrangement and the application of a wireless local Access Point (AP) can provide a cheap radio access and load shunting way for an operator and the users, wherein the AP can be also regarded as a low-power node.
At present, a wireless communication technology is developing towards the fifth generation (5G). The various wireless communication technologies above (including the 5G wireless communication technology and the existing wireless communication technologies) may co-exist for a long time. With the popularization of the multi-mode terminal (which supports a plurality of working carrier frequencies and/or various access radio access or interface technologies), the operator has an opportunity to select the most appropriate AP or serving base station for the multi-mode terminal, thus enhancing the user throughput and simultaneously realizing optimization on network load balance and resource utilization.
To this end, there is a need to provide a mechanism for effectively discovering a communication opportunity between the terminal and the access point or the base station. However, the conventional method for measuring (or scanning) respective carrier frequencies/radio access or interface technologies of the access point or the base station through the terminal will lead to that the multi-mode terminal needs to perform conversion and measurement on a plurality of carrier frequencies and various access radio access or interface technologies, thus causing high power consumption of the terminal, shortening the time of endurance of the terminal and deteriorating the user experience.
In addition, the characteristic that the WIFI communication (such as Internet downloading) is almost free (or the characteristic that the charge of a new-generation communication technology is lower than that of an old communication technology) will encourage the users to have more communication/downloading demands. For example, many users open a webpage or download data only in the places with WIFI access services. However, in the conventional art, real-time measurement executed by a WIFI communication module on whether there is an accessible AP also causes higher power consumption.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds