BR112017006227B1 - DATA STRUCTURE, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MANAGING COMMUNICATIONS FROM USER EQUIPMENT IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM - Google Patents

Abstract

DOWNLOAD LINK CHANNEL DESIGN FOR LTE WITH LOW LATENCY. This is an exemplary data structure for managing user equipment communications in a wireless communications system, as well as methods and apparatus configured to implement the data structure. For example, the data structure can include a downlink subframe that comprises two slots and includes one or more fast downlink channels that have a single-slot transmission time interval. Furthermore, the exemplary data structure may include one or more resource element blocks, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both of the slots, wherein each of the one or more resource element blocks comprises a control channel region or a data channel region. Furthermore, the exemplary data structure may include one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, to one or more user equipment served by the one or more fast downlink channels.

Description

PRIORITY CLAIM

[0001] This Patent Application claims the priority of Non-Provisional Application No. 14/836,183 entitled "DOWNLINK CHANNEL DESIGN FOR LTE WITH LOW LATENCY" filed on August 26, 2015 and Provisional Application No. 62/056,347 entitled "DOWNLINK CHANNEL DESIGN FOR LTE WITH LOW LATENCY" deposited on September 26, 2014, which are assigned to the assignee and expressly incorporated into this document by way of reference.

BACKGROUND

[0002] The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems, and more particularly to a downlink frame structure and downlink transmission method for managing communications with one or more user equipment (UE) in a wireless communications system.

[0003] Wireless communications systems are widely used to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, message transmission and broadcasting. Typical wireless communications systems may employ multi-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (eg, bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple access technologies include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and synchronous time division code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems.

[0004]These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a city, national, regional and even global level. An example of an emerging telecommunication standard is Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standard enacted by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). It is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access through improved spectrum efficiency, lower costs, improved services, new spectrum usage and better integration with other open standards using OFDMA downlink (DL ), SC-FDMA on the uplink (UL) and multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, there is a need for further improvements in LTE technology. Preferably, these enhancements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.

[0005] In wireless communication systems employing legacy LTE, a plurality of UEs served by a particular eNodeB can receive data from the eNodeB over a shared downlink channel called the Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH). Furthermore, the control information is associated with the PDSCH or can be transmitted to the UEs by the eNodeB via a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) and/or an Advanced PDCCH (ePDCCH). The control information included in the PDCCH or ePDCCH may include one or more uplink or downlink Resource Element (RE) grants for an LTE subframe. In legacy LTE, each LTE subframe has a transmission time interval (TTI) of 1ms and is divided into two 0.5ms partitions. Any RE grants transmitted on the PDCCH, however, are for the remaining duration of the entire subframe (that is, the remaining 1ms total). As such, legacy LTE does not allow resource scheduling at a level of granularity smaller than a full 1ms LTE subframe, even if faster downlink communication rates are desired for a particular communication stream.

[0006]As such, improvements are needed in the downlink frame structure and downlink transmission methods.

SUMMARY

[0007]The following presents a simplified summary of one or more Aspects in order to provide a basic understanding of those Aspects. This summary is not an extensive overview of all Aspects covered and is not intended to identify key or critical elements of all Aspects or to delineate the scope of any or all Aspects. The sole purpose is to present some concepts of one or more aspects in a simplified form as a preface to the more detailed description that is presented later.

[0008] In accordance with one or more aspects and the corresponding disclosure thereof, various techniques are described in connection with exemplary data structures, methods and apparatus for improving wireless communication speed and reliability between one or more UEs and entities network in wireless communication networks.

[0009] For example, in one aspect of the present disclosure, an exemplary data structure for managing user equipment communications in a wireless communications system is described. The data structure may include a downlink subframe comprising two partitions and include one or more fast downlink channels having a single partition TTI. Additionally, the exemplary data structure may include one or more blocks of resource elements, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both of the partitions, where each one of the one or more resource element blocks comprises a control channel region or a data channel region. Furthermore, the exemplary data structure may include one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, to one or more user equipment served by the one or more fast downlink channels.

[0010] In a further aspect, the present disclosure presents an exemplary method of managing UE communications in a wireless communications system, and may include obtaining, from a network entity, user data for transmission to one or more user equipment UEs on a downlink channel. The exemplary method may further include determining one or more delivery restrictions associated with the at least one of the user data and the one or more UEs. Further, the exemplary method may include generating, based on the user data for transmission and the one or more delivery constraints, a downlink subframe data structure for allocating downlink channel resources for transmission of the user data. for transmission. In the exemplary method, the downlink subframe data structure may include a downlink subframe that comprises two partitions and includes one or more fast downlink channels that have a single-partition TTI. Furthermore, the exemplary downlink subframe data structure may further include one or more resource element blocks, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both of the partitions, wherein each of the one or more resource element blocks comprises a control channel region or a data channel region and one or more resource grants located within one or more control channel regions , for the one or more UEs served by the one or more fast downlink channels.

[0011] In addition, the present disclosure describes an exemplary apparatus for managing UE communications in a wireless communications system, and may include means for obtaining, in a network entity, user data for transmission to one or more equipment of user UEs on a downlink channel. The exemplary apparatus may further include means for determining one or more delivery restrictions associated with the at least one of the user data and the one or more UEs. Furthermore, the exemplary apparatus may include means for generating, based on the user data for transmission and the one or more delivery constraints, a downlink subframe data structure for allocating downlink channel resources for transmission of the data. user for transmission. In the exemplary apparatus, the downlink subframe data structure may include a downlink subframe that comprises two partitions and includes one or more fast downlink channels that have a single partition TTI. Furthermore, the exemplary downlink subframe data structure may further include one or more resource element blocks, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both of the partitions, wherein each of the one or more resource element blocks comprises a control channel region or a data channel region and one or more resource grants located within one or more control channel regions , for the one or more UEs served by the one or more fast downlink channels.

[0012] In a further aspect, an exemplary apparatus for managing UE communications in a wireless communications system is presented, which may include a processor and memory coupled to the processor. In some examples, the memory may store processor-executable instructions, which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to obtain user data from a network entity for transmission to one or more UEs on a downlink channel. Additionally, the memory may store processor-executable instructions, which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to determine one or more delivery constraints associated with at least one of the user data and the one or more UEs. In addition, the memory may store processor-executable instructions, which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to generate, based on user data for transmission and one or more delivery constraints, a subframe data structure of downlink to allocate downlink channel resources for transmission of user data for transmission. According to the exemplary apparatus, the downlink subframe data structure may include a downlink subframe comprising two partitions and including one or more fast downlink channels having a single partition TTI. Furthermore, the downlink subframe data structure may include one or more resource element blocks, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both of the partitions, each of the one or more resource element blocks comprising a control channel region or a data channel region. Furthermore, the downlink subframe data structure may include one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, to the one or more UEs served by the one or more fast downlink channels.

[0013] Furthermore, the disclosure presents an exemplary computer-readable medium that stores computer-executable code for managing UE communications in a wireless communications system. In one aspect, the computer-executable code may include code for obtaining, at a network entity, user data for transmission to one or more user equipment UEs on a downlink channel. Furthermore, the computer executable code may include code for determining one or more delivery restrictions associated with the at least one of the user data and the one or more UEs. Furthermore, the computer-executable code may include code for generating, based on the user data for transmission and the one or more delivery constraints, a downlink subframe data structure for allocating downlink channel resources to the transmission of user data for transmission. According to the exemplary computer-readable medium, the downlink subframe data structure may include a downlink subframe that comprises two partitions and includes one or more fast downlink channels that have a single-partition TTI. The exemplary data structure may also include one or more blocks of resource elements, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both partitions, each of which one of the one or more resource element blocks comprises a control channel region or a data channel region. Additionally, the downlink subframe data structure may include one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, to the one or more UEs served by the one or more fast downlink channels.

[0014] To achieve the aforementioned and related purposes, the one or more aspects comprise the resources fully described from this point on in the present document and pointed out particularly in the claims. The following description and accompanying drawings set out in detail certain illustrative features of the one or more aspects. These resources indicate, however, only some of the different ways in which the principles of different aspects can be employed, and this description is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0015] Figure 1 shows a block diagram conceptually illustrating an example of a telecommunications system, in accordance with an aspect of the present disclosure;

[0016] Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of an access network;

[0017] Figure 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a DL frame structure in LTE;

[0018] Figure 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a UL frame structure in LTE;

[0019] Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a radio protocol architecture for the user and control planes;

[0020] Figure 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an evolved Node B and user equipment in an access network;

[0021] Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating an exemplary data structure for block allocation of downlink resource elements in accordance with the present disclosure;

[0022] Figure 8 is a diagram illustrating a downlink programming component configured to implement aspects of the present disclosure;

[0023] Figure 9 is a flowchart of a wireless communication method;

[0024] Figure 10 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flow between different modules/media/components in an exemplary device;

[0025] Figure 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware deployment for an apparatus that employs a processing system;

[0026] Figure 12 is a flowchart of a wireless communication method;

[0027] Figure 13 is a conceptual data flow diagram illustrating the data flow between different modules/media/components in an exemplary device; It is

[0028] Figure 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of a hardware deployment for a device that employs a processing system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0029] The detailed description set forth below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings is intended as a description of various configurations and is not intended to represent the only configurations in which the concepts described in this document can be practiced. The detailed description includes specific details intended to provide a thorough understanding of various concepts. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that these concepts can be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well known structures and components are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring such concepts.

[0030]Various aspects of telecommunication systems will now be presented with reference to various devices and methods. These devices and methods will be described in the detailed description below and illustrated in the attached drawings by various blocks, modules, components, circuits, steps, processes, algorithms, etc. (collectively referred to as "elements"). These elements can be implanted using electronic hardware, computer software, or any combination thereof. Whether such elements can be deployed as hardware or software depends on the design and particular application constraints imposed on the overall system.

[0031] By way of example, an element or any portion of an element or any combination of elements may be implemented with a "processing system" that includes one or more processors. Examples of processors include microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic devices (PLDs), state machines, gated logic, discrete hardware circuitry, and other hardware. suitably configured to perform the various functionalities described throughout the present disclosure. One or more processors in the processing system can run software. Software shall be broadly interpreted to mean instructions, instruction sets, code, code segments, program code, programs, subprograms, software modules, applications, software applications, software packages, routines, subroutines, objects , executables, threads of execution, procedures, functions, etc., whether termed software description language, firmware, middleware, microcode, hardware, or otherwise.

[0032] Consequently, in one or more aspects, the functions described may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware or any combination thereof. If implemented in software, functions may be stored or encoded as one or more instructions or code on a computer-readable medium. Computer readable media include computer storage media. The storage media can be any available media that can be accessed by a computer. By way of example, and not limitation, such computer-readable media may comprise RAM, ROM, EEPROM, CD-ROM or other optical disk storage, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium that may be used to load or store the desired program code in the form of instructions or data structures and which can be accessed by a computer. Magnetic disk and optical disk, as used herein, include compact disk (CD), laser disk, optical disk, digital versatile disk (DVD), and floppy disk, where magnetic disks generally reproduce data magnetically, while optical discs reproduce the data optically with lasers. Combinations of the foregoing should also fall within the scope of computer-readable media.

[0033] The present disclosure presents exemplary data structures and transmission methods for managing downlink communications to one or more UEs, and in particular for reducing latency compared to legacy downlink data structures and transmission methods downlink. Those data structures of the present disclosure may include one or more blocks of resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth of one or more downlink channels is divided within a partition of an LTE subframe. Likewise, any REs in the subframe can have an assignment that lasts for a single partition in the subframe or for the entire subframe.

[0034] In addition, any of the resource element blocks of a particular partition may comprise a control channel region or a data channel region. A control channel region may include one or more resource grants associated with one or more UEs served by a network entity (eg an eNodeB). Such resource grants may include one or more downlink resource grants and/or one or more uplink resource grants. For example, in one aspect of the present disclosure, a control channel region located in the first symbol (or the first few symbols) of a subframe can be used to schedule downlink frequency grants in the data channel region comprising the remainder of the first partition of the subframe or by the remainder of the entire subframe. For purposes of the present disclosure, the control channel corresponding to such a control channel region may be termed a Fast Physical Downlink Control Channel (QPDCCH).

[0035] In another aspect of the present disclosure, a control channel region can include a block of resource elements that spans the entirety of a single partition (or a portion thereof) and can be used to schedule downlink frequency grants for one or more other resource element blocks in the same partition. For purposes of the present disclosure, the control channel corresponding to such a control channel region may be termed an Advanced Physical Fast Downlink Control Channel (QEPDCCH).

[0036]Furthermore, a data channel region of the present disclosure may include a block of resource elements spanning the entirety of a single partition (or a portion thereof) during which user data is transmitted to a UE receiving a downlink grant in a control channel region (for example, corresponding to a QPDCCH or a QEPDCCH). For purposes of the present disclosure, the data channel corresponding to such data channel region may be termed a Fast Physical Downlink Shared Channel (QPDSCH).

[0037]Furthermore, for purposes of the present disclosure, any channel that may have a temporal length (e.g., TTI) of a single partition (or a portion of a single partition) or include resource grants for a data channel that has a time length of a single partition (or a portion of a single partition) may be referred to herein as a "Fast LTE Channel". Such Fast LTE Channels may include, in a non-limiting aspect, a QPDCCH, a QEPDCCH and a QPDSCH. Furthermore, any reference to "Fast LTE" in the present disclosure may refer to a data structure for resource element programming (or a method or apparatus that implements the data structure) that has one or more channels or blocks of elements resources that are or can be allocated, assigned, or divided on a per-partition basis and/or have a TTI of 0.5ms. Such references to Fast LTE may include "Fast LTE schedule", "Fast LTE scheme" or the like.

[0038] Furthermore, the exemplary data structures of the present disclosure are configured to further implement legacy LTE channel frame scheduling (e.g., PDCCH, EPDCCH, PDSCH) along with the partition-specific RE allocation aspects introduced by present disclosure for corresponding fast LTE channels (e.g. QPDCCH, QEPDCCH, QPDSCH). Thus, the data structure described in this document can be implemented for specific UEs or UE applications that are configured to use Fast LTE scheduling (partition scheduling) and/or legacy LTE scheduling (subframe scheduling). Since the Fast LTE scheduling methods described in this document can use a 0.5 ms TTI instead of the 1 ms TTI of legacy LTE, these methods can increase communication rates by two times and can cut a round trip (RTT) associated with legacy LTE hybrid auto-repeat request (HARQ) procedures in half (for example, from 8ms to 4ms or less).

[0039] In a further aspect of the present disclosure, a network entity (for example, an eNodeB) is presented, which can be configured to manage downlink scheduling by generating one or more of the data structures disclosed in the present document. Furthermore, the network entity can be configured to obtain data for transmission to one or more UEs and can schedule the transmission of the data using the data structure based on the data and/or delivery restrictions associated with the one or more UEs. .

[0040] Referring first to Figure 1, a diagram illustrates an example of a wireless communication system 100, in accordance with an aspect of the present disclosure. The wireless communication system 100 includes a plurality of access points (e.g., base stations, eNBs, or WLAN access points) 105, numerous user equipment (UEs) 115, and a core network 130. The access points 105 may include a downlink scheduling component 602 configured to expedite communication of control information and user data with the number of UEs 115 using a Fast LTE data frame, for example, but not limited to, the data structure 700 of Figure 7, below, which may include a TTI of a partition for some RE blocks. For example, the Fast LTE data structure may include one or more blocks of resource elements for allocating a PDCCH, an EPDCCH, a PDSCH, a QPDCCH, a QEPDCCH and/or a QPDSCH. Similarly, one or more of the UEs 115 may include a downlink management component 661 configured to receive, decode and operate using the data frame. Some of the access points 105 can communicate with the UEs 115 under the control of a base station controller (not shown), which can be part of the core network 130 or certain access points 105 (e.g. base stations or eNBs) in several examples. The access points 105 can communicate control information and/or user data with the main network 130 via return traffic links 132. In the examples, the access points 105 can communicate, directly or indirectly, with each other via return links 134, which may be wired or wireless communication links. Wireless communication system 100 can support operation on multiple carriers (waveform signals of different frequencies). Multi-carrier transmitters can transmit modulated signals simultaneously on multiple carriers. For example, each communication link 125 may be a multi-carrier modulated signal in accordance with the various radio technologies described above. Each modulated signal can be sent on a different carrier and can carry control information (e.g., reference signals, control channels, etc.), overhead information, data, etc.

[0041] In some examples, at least a portion of the wireless communication system 100 can be configured to operate in multiple hierarchical layers in which one or more of the UEs 115 and one or more of the access points 105 can be configured to support transmissions in a hierarchical layer that has a reduced latency relative to the other hierarchical layer. In some examples, a hybrid UE 115-a may communicate with the access point 105-a in both a first hierarchical layer that supports first layer transmissions with a type of first subframe and a second hierarchical layer that supports second transmissions. layer with a second subframe type. For example, access point 105-a may transmit second subframe type subframes that are time division duplexed with first subframe type subframes.

[0042] In some examples, the hybrid UE 115-a can acknowledge receipt of a transmission by providing ACK/NACK for the transmission, for example, through a HARQ scheme. Acknowledgments from hybrid UE 115-a for transmissions in the first hierarchical layer may be provided, in some examples, after a predefined amount of subframes that follow the subframe in which the transmission was received. The hybrid UE 115-a, when operating at the second hierarchical layer, in examples, may acknowledge receipt in the same subframe as a subframe in which the transmission was received. The time required to transmit an ACK/NACK and receive a retransmission can be called a round trip time (RTT), and thus subframes of the second subframe type can have a second RTT that is shorter than a second subframe. RTT for subframes of the first subframe type.

[0043] In other examples, a second layer UE 115-b can communicate with the access point 105-b only in the second hierarchical layer. In this way, the hybrid UE 115-a and the second layer UE 115-b can belong to a second class of UEs 115 that can communicate in the second hierarchical layer, while the legacy UEs 115 can belong to a first class of UEs 115 that can communicate only in the first hierarchical layer. Access point 105-b and UE 115-b can communicate in the second hierarchical layer via second subframe type subframe transmissions. The access point 105-b may transmit subframes of the second subframe type exclusively, or it may transmit one or more subframes of the first subframe type in the first hierarchical layer that are time division multiplexed with subframes of the second subframe type. The second layer UE 115-b, in case the access point 105-b transmits subframes of the type of first subframe, can ignore such subframes of the type of first subframe. In this way, the second layer UE 115-b can acknowledge receipt of transmissions in the same subframe as the subframe in which the transmissions are received. In this way, the second layer UE 115-b can operate with reduced latency compared to the UEs 115 operating in the first hierarchical layer.

[0044] Access points 105 can wirelessly communicate with UEs 115 via one or more access point antennas. Each of the access point locations 105 may provide communication coverage for a respective coverage area 110. In some examples, the access points 105 may be called a transceiver base station, a radio base station, a transceiver service set (BSS), an extended service set (ESS), a NodeB, eNodeB, Home NodeB, a Home eNodeB, or other appropriate terminology. The coverage area 110 for a base station can be divided into sectors that make up only a portion of the coverage area (not shown). The wireless communication system 100 may include access points 105 of different types (e.g. macro, micro and/or pico base stations). Access points 105 may also utilize different radio technologies, such as cellular and/or WLAN radio access technologies. The access points 105 can be associated with the same or different access networks or operator facilities. The coverage areas of different access points 105, including the coverage areas of the same or different types of access points 105, which use the same or different radio technologies and/or which belong to the same or different access networks, can be overlap.

[0045] In LTE/LTE-A network communication systems, the term Evolved Node B (eNodeB or eNB) can be used in general to describe the access points 105. The wireless communication system 100 can be a network of LTE/LTE-A/LTE of ULL Heterogeneous in which different types of access points provide coverage for different geographic regions. For example, each access point 105 can provide communication coverage for a macrocell, a picocell, a femtocell, and/or other cell types. Small cells such as pico cells, femtocells and/or other cell types may include low power nodes or LPNs. A macrocell generally covers a relatively large geographic area (eg several kilometers in radius) and may allow unrestricted access 115 by UEs with service subscriptions with the network provider. A small cell would generally cover a relatively small geographical area and may allow unrestricted access by UEs 115 with service subscriptions with the network provider, for example, and in addition to unrestricted access, it may also provide restricted access by UEs 115 that have a small cell association (for example, UEs in a closed subscriber group (CSG), UEs for user in the home, and the like). An eNB for a macrocell can be called a macro-eNB. An eNB for a microcell can be called a micro-eNB. An eNB can support one or multiple (eg two, three, four, and the like) cells.

[0046] The main network 130 can communicate with the eNBs or other access points 105 via return traffic 132 (eg, SI interface, etc.). The eNBs 105 may also communicate with each other, for example, directly or indirectly through back links 134 (e.g. X2, etc.) and/or through back links 132 (e.g. through core network 130) . Wireless communications system 100 can support synchronous or asynchronous operation. For synchronous operation, access points 105 can have similar frame timing, and transmissions from different access points 105 can be approximately time-aligned. For asynchronous operation, access points 105 may have different frame timing, and transmissions from different access points 105 may not be time-aligned. Furthermore, transmissions in the first hierarchical layer and the second hierarchical layer may or may not be synchronized between the access points 105. The techniques herein can be used for both synchronous and asynchronous operations.

[0047] The UEs 115 are dispersed throughout the wireless communication system 100 and each UE 115 can be stationary or mobile. A UE 115 may also be referred to by persons skilled in the art as a mobile station, a subscriber station, a mobile unit, a subscriber unit, a wireless unit, a remote unit, a mobile device, a wireless device, a wireless communications device, a remote device, a mobile subscriber station, an access terminal, a mobile terminal, a wireless terminal, a remote terminal, a handset, a user agent, a mobile client, a client, or some other suitable terminology. A UE 115 can be a cell phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wireless modem, a wireless communication device, a handheld device, a tablet computer, a laptop computer, a cordless phone , a wearable item such as a watch or eyeglasses, a wireless local circuit (WLL) station, or the like. A UE 115 may be capable of communicating with macro-eNodeBs, small cell eNodeBs, relays, and the like. A UE 115 may also be capable of communicating over different access networks, such as cellular or other WWAN access networks, or WLAN access networks.

[0048] The communication links 125 shown in the wireless communication system 100 may include uplink (UL) transmissions from a UE 115 to an access point 105 and/or downlink (DL) transmissions from an access point 105 to a UE 115. Downlink transmissions can also be referred to as forward link transmissions while uplink transmissions can also be referred to as reverse link transmissions. The communication links 125 can carry transmissions from each hierarchical layer that, in some examples, can be multiplexed on the communication links 125. The UEs 115 can be configured to communicate collaboratively with multiple access points 105, for example, via Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), carrier aggregation (CA), Multiple Coordinate Points (CoMP) or other schemes. MIMO techniques use multiple antennas at access points 105 and/or multiple antennas at UEs 115 to transmit multiple streams of data. Carrier aggregation can utilize two or more component carriers in the same or different service cell for data transmission. CoMPs may include techniques for coordinating transmission and reception by numerous access points 105 to improve overall transmission quality for UEs 115 as well as increase network and spectrum utilization.

[0049] As mentioned, in some examples, access points 105 and UEs 115 can use carrier aggregation to transmit on multiple carriers. In some examples, access points 105 and UEs 115 can concurrently transmit in a first hierarchical layer, within a frame, one or more subframes, each having a type of first subframe with the use of two or more separate carriers. Each carrier can have a bandwidth of, for example, 20 MHz, although other bandwidths can be used. The Hybrid UE 115-a and/or the second layer UE 115-b, in certain examples, may receive and/or transmit one or more subframes in a hierarchical second layer using a single carrier having a higher bandwidth than a bandwidth of one or more of the separate carriers. For example, if four separate 20 MHz carriers are used in a carrier aggregation scheme in the first hierarchical layer, a single 80 MHz carrier can be used in the second hierarchical layer. The 80 MHz carrier can occupy a portion of the radio frequency spectrum that overlaps at least partially with the radio frequency spectrum used by one or more of the four 20 MHz carriers. In some examples, the scalable bandwidth for hierarchical second layer type can be combined with techniques to provide shorter RTTs like those described above to provide even higher data rates.

[0050] Each of the different modes of operation that can be employed by the wireless communication system 100 can operate in accordance with frequency division duplexing (FDD) or time division duplexing (TDD). In some examples, different hierarchical layers may operate according to different TDD or FDD modes. For example, a first hierarchical layer can operate according to FDD while a second hierarchical layer can operate according to TDD. In some examples, OFDMA communications signals may be used on communication links 125 for LTE downlink transmissions for each hierarchical layer, while single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) communications signals may be used on communication links 125 for LTE uplink transmissions in each hierarchical layer. Additional details regarding the deployment of hierarchical layers in a system such as wireless communications system 100, as well as other features and functions related to communications in such systems, are provided below with reference to the Figures below.

[0051] Figure 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of an access network 200 in an LTE network architecture. In this example, the access network 200 is divided into a number of cellular regions (cells) 202. One or more lower power class eNBs 208 may have cellular regions 210 that overlap with one or more of the cells 202. lower power 208 can be a femtocell (eg home eNB (HeNB)), picocell, microcell, or remote radio head (RRH). The macro-eNBs 204 are each assigned to a respective cell 202 and are configured to provide an Evolved Packet Core access point for all UEs 115 (see Figure 1) in the cells 202. In one aspect, the eNBs 204 may constitute an access point 105 of Figure 1 and may include a downlink scheduling component 602 configured to expedite communication of control information and user data with the number of UEs 115 using a data structure of Fast LTE, for example, but not limited to, data structure 700 of Figure 7 , which may include a TTI of a partition for a few RE blocks. Similarly, one or more of the UEs 115 may include a downlink management component 661 configured to receive, decode and operate using the data frame. In this example, there is no centralized controller of an access network 200, however, a centralized controller can be used in alternative configurations. The eNBs 204 are responsible for all radio related functions including radio bearer control, admission control, mobility control, scheduling, security and connectivity to listening gateway 116.

[0052] The modulation and multiple access scheme employed by the access network 200 may vary depending on the particular telecommunications standard that is deployed. In LTE applications, OFDM is used in DL, and SC-FDMA is used in UL to support both frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD). As persons skilled in the art will readily observe from the detailed description that follows, the various concepts presented in the present document are well suited for LTE applications. However, these concepts can readily be extended to other telecommunication standards that employ other modulation and multiple access techniques. For example, these concepts can be extended to Optimized Data Evolution (EV-DO) or Ultra-Mobile Broadband (UMB). EV-DO and UMB are air interface standards promulgated by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) as part of the CDMA2000 family of standards and employ CDMA to provide broadband Internet access to mobile stations. These concepts can also be extended to Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) which employs broadband CDMA (W-CDMA) and other CDMA variants such as TD-SCDMA; a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) employing TDMA; and Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA), IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi), IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), IEEE 802.20, and OFDM Flash employing OFDMA. UTRA, E-UTRA, UMTS, LTE and GSM are described in documents available from the 3GPP organization. CDMA2000 and UMB are described in the 3GPP2 organization documents. The actual wireless communication standard and multiple access technology employed will depend on the specific application and the general design constraints imposed on the system.

[0053]The eNBs 204 can have multiple antennas that support MIMO technology. The use of MIMO technology enables the eNBs 204 to exploit the spatial domain to support spatial multiplexing, beamforming, and diversity transmission. Spatial multiplexing can be used to transmit different streams of data simultaneously on the same frequency. Data streams can be transmitted to a single UE 115 to increase data rates or to multiple UEs 115 to increase overall system capacity. This is achieved by spatially precoding each data stream (that is, applying a scale of one amplitude and one phase) and then transmitting each spatially precoded stream through multiple signal antennas. broadcast on the DL. The spatially precoded data streams arrive at the UE (or UEs) 115 with different spatial signatures, which enables each of the UE(s) 115 to retrieve the one or more data streams destined for that UE 115. At the UL, each UE 115 transmits a spatially precoded data stream, which enables the eNB 204 to identify the source of each spatially precoded data stream.

[0054] Spatial multiplexing is generally used when channel conditions are satisfactory. When channel conditions are less favorable, beamforming can be used to focus transmission energy in one or more directions. This can be achieved by spatially pre-coding the data for transmission across multiple antennas. In order to achieve satisfactory coverage at the cell edges, a single stream beamforming transmission can be used in combination with transmission diversity.

[0055] In the following detailed description, various aspects of an access network will be described with reference to a MIMO system that supports OFDM in DL. OFDM is a distributed spectrum technique that modulates data across multiple subcarriers within an OFDM symbol. The subcarriers are separated into precise frequencies. Spacing provides "orthogonality" that enables a receiver to retrieve data from subcarriers. In the time domain, a guard interval (eg, cyclic prefix) can be added to each OFDM symbol to combat interference between OFDM symbols. UL can use SC-FDMA in the form of a DFT-spread OFDM signal to compensate for the high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR).

[0056] Figure 3 is a diagram 300 illustrating an example of a DL frame structure in LTE, which, in some examples, may be used in conjunction with the downlink frame structure provided by the present disclosure. A frame (10msec) can be divided into 10 equally sized subframes. Each subframe can include two consecutive time slots. A feature grid can be used to represent two time slots, with each time slice including a block of feature elements. The resource grid is divided into multiple resource elements. In LTE, a resource block can contain 12 consecutive subcarriers in the frequency domain and, for a normal cyclic prefix in each OFDM symbol, 7 consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain, or 84 resource elements. For an extended cyclic prefix, a feature element block can contain 6 consecutive OFDM symbols in the time domain and has 72 feature elements. Some of the resource elements as indicated by R 302, 304 include DL reference signals (DL-RS). DL-RS include Cell-Specific RS (CRS) (also occasionally referred to as Common RS) 302 and UE-Specific RS (UE-RS) 304. UE-RS 304 are transmitted only in resource element blocks upon which the corresponding PDSCH is mapped. The number of bits carried by each resource element depends on the modulation scheme. Thus, the more blocks of resource elements a UE receives and the higher the modulation scheme, the higher the data rate for the UE.

[0057] Figure 4 is a diagram 400 illustrating an example of a UL frame structure in LTE. The feature element blocks available to the UL can be partitioned into a data section and a control section. The control section can be formed on both edges of the system bandwidth and can have a configurable size. Resource element blocks in the control section can be assigned to UEs for transmitting control information. The data section can include all feature element blocks not included in the control section. The UL frame structure results in the data section including contiguous subcarriers, which can allow a single UE to be assigned to all contiguous subcarriers in the data section.

[0058] A UE can be assigned resource element blocks 410a, 410b in the control section to transmit control information to an eNB. The UE may also be assigned resource element blocks 420a, 420b in the data section for transmitting data to the eNB. The UE may transmit control information on a physical UL control channel (PUCCH) in resource element blocks assigned in the control section. The UE can transmit data only or both data and control information on a physical UL shared channel (PUSCH) in the resource element blocks assigned in the data section. A UL transmission can span both intervals of a subframe and can hop across the frequency.

[0059] A set of resource element blocks can be used to perform initial system access and achieve UL synchronization on a physical random access channel (PRACH) 430. The PRACH 430 carries a random sequence and cannot carry any data / UL signage. Each random access preamble occupies a bandwidth corresponding to six consecutive resource element blocks. The starting frequency is specified by the network. That is, the transmission of the random access preamble is restricted to certain time and frequency resources. There is no frequency hopping for the PRACH. The PRACH attempt is carried over a single subframe (1ms) or a sequence of contiguous subframes, and a UE can make only a single PRACH attempt per frame (10ms).

[0060] Figure 5 is a diagram 500 illustrating an example of a radio protocol architecture for the user and control planes in LTE. The radio protocol architecture for UE and eNB is shown with three layers: Layer 1, Layer 2 and Layer 3. Layer 1 (Layer L1) is the lowest layer and implements various physical layer signal processing functions . L1 layer will be referred to herein as physical layer 506. Layer 2 (L2 layer) 508 is above physical layer 506 and is responsible for the connection between UE and eNB over physical layer 506.

[0061] In the user plane, the L2 layer 508 includes a media access control (MAC) sublayer 510, a radio link control (RLC) sublayer 512, and a packet data convergence protocol sublayer ( PDCP) 514, which terminate in the eNB on the network side. Although not shown, the UE may have several upper layers above the L2 layer 508, including a network layer (e.g., IP layer) terminating at PDN gateway 118 on the network side, and an application layer terminating at other end of the connection (for example, far-end UE, server, etc.).

[0062] The PDCP 514 sublayer provides multiplexing between different radio bearers and logical channels. The PDCP sublayer 514 also provides header compression for upper layer data packets to reduce radio transmission overhead, security through encryption of the data packets, and support for automatic switching of UEs between eNBs. RLC sublayer 512 provides segmentation and reassembly of upper layer data packets, retransmission of lost data packets, and reordering of data packets to compensate for stale reception due to hybrid autorepeat request (HARQ). MAC sublayer 510 provides multiplexing between logical and transport channels. MAC sublayer 510 is also responsible for allocating the various radio resources (e.g. blocks of resource elements) in a cell among the UEs. MAC sublayer 510 is also responsible for HARQ operations.

[0063] In the control plane, the radio protocol architecture for the UE and eNB is substantially the same for the physical layer 506 and the L2 layer 508 with the exception that there is no header compression function for the control plane . The control plane also includes a radio resource control (RRC) sublayer 516 at layer 3 (layer L3). The RRC sublayer 516 is responsible for obtaining radio resources (i.e. radio bearers) and for configuring the lower layers using RRC signaling between the eNB and the UE.

[0064] Figure 6 is a block diagram of an eNB 610 in communication with a UE 650 in an access network. In DL, upper layer packets from the mainnet are provided to a controller/processor 675. Controller/processor 675 implements L2 layer functionality. In DL, controller/processor 675 provides header compression, encryption, packet segmentation and reordering, multiplexing between logical and transport channels, and radio resource allocation to UE 650 based on various priority metrics. Controller/processor 675 is also responsible for HARQ operations, retransmission of lost packets, and signaling to UE 650.

[0065] The transmission (TX) processor 616 implements several signal processing functions for the LI layer (i.e., physical layer). Signal processing functions include encoding and interleaving to facilitate forward error correction (FEC) in UE 650 and mapping signal constellations based on various modulation schemes (e.g., binary phase shift keying (BPSK), quadrature phase shift (QPSK), M phase shift keying (M-PSK), M quadrature amplitude modulation (M-QAM)). The encoded and modulated symbols are then divided into parallel streams. Each stream is then mapped to an OFDM subcarrier, multiplexed with a reference signal (e.g. pilot) in the time and/or frequency domain, and then combined together using an OD transform. Inverse Fast Fourier (IFFT) in order to produce a physical channel carrying a time domain OFDM symbol stream. The OFDM stream is spatially pre-coded to produce multiple spatial streams. Channel estimates from a channel estimator 674 can be used to determine the modulation scheme and encoding, as well as for spatial processing. The channel estimate may be derived from a channel condition reference and/or feedback signal transmitted by UE 650. Each spatial stream is then provided to a different antenna 620 via a separate transmitter 618TX. Each 618TX transmitter modulates an RF carrier with a respective spatial stream for transmission. Furthermore, the eNB 610 may include a downlink scheduling component 602 configured to expedite the communication of control information and user data with the number of UEs 115 using a data structure, for example, but not limited to a, the data structure 700 of Figure 7, which may include a TTI of a partition for some RE groups.

[0066] At UE 650, each receiver 654RX receives a signal through its respective antenna 652. Each receiver 554RX retrieves modulated information on an RF carrier and provides the information to the receiving (RX) processor 656. The RX processor 656 deploys various signal processing functions of L1 layer. RX processor 656 performs spatial processing on the information to retrieve any spatial streams destined for UE 650. If multiple spatial streams are destined for UE 650, they may be combined by RX processor 656 into a single OFDM symbol stream. The RX processor 656 then converts the OFDM symbol stream from the time domain to the frequency domain using a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The frequency domain signal comprises a separate OFDM symbol stream for each subcarrier of the OFDM signal. The symbols on each subcarrier, and the reference signal, are recovered and demodulated, determining the signal constellation points most likely to be transmitted by the eNB 610. These soft decisions can be based on channel estimates computed by the channel estimator 658. The soft decisions are then decoded and not interleaved to recover the data and control signals that were originally transmitted by the eNB 610 on the physical channel. Data and control signals are then provided to controller/processor 659.

[0067]The 659 controller/processor deploys the L2 layer. The controller/processor may be associated with a memory 660 which stores program codes and data. Memory 660 may be referred to as computer readable media. In the UL, the 659 controller/processor provides demultiplexing between transport and logical channels, packet reassembly, decryption, header decompression, control signal processing to recover upper layer packets from the core network. The upper layer packets are then provided to a data collector 662, which represents all protocol layers above the L2 layer. Various control signals may also be provided to data collector 662 for L3 processing. Controller/processor 659 is also responsible for error detection using an acknowledgment (ACK) and/or negative acknowledgment (NACK) protocol to support HARQ operations. Furthermore, UE 650 may include a downlink management component 661 configured to receive, decode and operate using the data structure of the present disclosure.

[0068] In the UL, a data source 667 is used to deliver upper layer packets to the controller/processor 659. Data source 667 represents all protocol layers above the L2 layer. Similar to the functionality described in combination with the transmission of DL by the eNB 610, the controller/processor 659 deploys the L2 layer for the user plane and the control plane providing header compression, encryption, packet reordering segmentation and multiplexing between logical and transport channels based on allocation of radio resource by eNB 610. Controller/processor 659 is also responsible for HARQ operations, retransmission of lost packets, and signaling to eNB 610.

[0069] The channel estimates derived by a channel estimator 658 from a reference or feedback signal transmitted by the eNB 610 can be used by the TX processor 668 to select the appropriate modulation and encoding schemes, and facilitate spatial processing. The spatial streams generated by the TX processor 668 are provided to the different antenna 652 via separate transmitters 654TX. Each 654TX transmitter modulates an RF carrier with a respective spatial stream for transmission.

[0070] The UL transmission is processed in the eNB 610 in a similar way to that described in connection with the receiver function in the UE 650. Each 618RX receiver receives a signal through its respective antenna 620. Each 518RX receiver retrieves information modulated on a carrier of RF and provides the information to an RX 670 processor. The RX 670 processor can implement the L1 layer.

[0071]The 675 controller/processor implements the L2 layer. Controller/processor 675 may be associated with a memory 676 that stores program code and data. Memory 676 may be referred to as computer readable media. In the UL, controller/processor 675 provides demultiplexing between transport and logical channels, packet reassembly, decryption, header decompression, control signal processing to recover higher layer packets from UE 650. from the 675 controller/processor can be provided to the core network. Controller/processor 675 is also responsible for error detection using an ACK and/or NACK protocol to support HARQ operations. Furthermore, the controller/processor may be in communication with a UE 650.

[0072] Figure 7 is a diagram illustrating a non-limiting example of a data structure 700 for managing forwarded UE communications in a wireless communications system. In one aspect, data structure 700 includes frame scheduling for an exemplary LTE subframe, which is divided in the time domain (horizontally) into two partitions (partition 0 702 and partition 1 704) and 14 symbols (symbols 0 to 13). Furthermore, the temporal duration (horizontal axis) of some resource element blocks of data structure 700 may be one partition (TTI of 0.5ms), while other resource element blocks may have a temporal duration of both partitions (1ms TTI). As such, by incorporating blocks of control and data channel resource elements that have a TTI of one partition (0.5ms), data structure 700 enables lower latency for downlink data transmissions relative to, for example, legacy LTE downlink data frame resource element blocks, which have a downlink data resource element block TTI sent of one subframe (1ms). Furthermore, data structure 700 enables interoperability with these existing legacy LTE data structures by allowing PDCCH, EPDCCH, and PDSCH resource element blocks to be programmed along with the single partition resource element blocks introduced by the present revelation.

[0073] In one aspect of the present disclosure, the data structure 700 may include one or more resource element blocks, each comprising one or more resource elements in which a downlink frequency bandwidth 703 is divided. For example, in exemplary data structure 700, partition 0 702 contains seven separate resource element blocks: resource element blocks 705, 706, 707, 712, 714, 716, and 726. resource elements of data structure 700 may span a single partition or both partitions. For example, again referring to partition 0 feature elements 702, feature element blocks 706, 707, 712, and 714 span one partition (partition 0 702), while feature element blocks 705, 716, and 726 span both partitions of the subframe (the 0 702 partition and the 1 704 partition). In one aspect, blocks of resource elements of the exemplary data structure 700 spanning a partition may correspond to a Fast LTE Channel of the present disclosure having a TTI of a partition, which may include a QEPDCCH (control channel) or a QPDSCH (data channel). Alternatively, the resource element blocks spanning both subframes may correspond to a PDSCH (Legacy LTE Data Channel), which may be granted to a particular UE by a PDCCH (e.g. in a legacy control region 721) , a QPDCCH (shown in data structure 700 as comprising one or more resource elements of symbol number 0 of partition 0 702), or an EPDCCH (e.g., in resource element block 705). Also, a Feature Element Block spanning both subframes may correspond to an EPDCCH (Legacy LTE Control Channel) such as Feature Element Block 705.

[0074] In a further aspect, each of the one or more resource element blocks may comprise a control channel region or a data channel region. For example, resource element blocks associated with a QPDCCH (e.g., located at symbol 0 of partition 0 702), a QEPDCCH (e.g., resource element blocks 706 and 718), an EPDCCH (e.g., feature element block 705) or a PDCCH (e.g., located within inherited control region 721) may each correspond to control channel regions. Alternatively, resource element blocks associated with a PDSCH (e.g., resource element block 716) or a QPDSCH (e.g., resource element blocks 712, 714, and 724) may correspond to channel regions of data.

[0075] Furthermore, the one or more control channel regions of the data structure 700 may include one or more resource grants to one or more UEs served by a shared or unshared downlink data channel. Such downlink data channels may include a QPDSCH spanning a single subframe partition and/or a PDSCH spanning both subframe partitions.

[0076] In one aspect, one or more of the control channel regions of data structure 700 may correspond to a control channel spanning a single partition of the subframe (for example, one between partition 0 702 or partition 1 704 ). Such a single partition control channel of the present disclosure may be referred to herein as QEPDCCH, which may have aspects similar to those of the inherited EPDCCH. However, unlike the EPDCCH, which spans both partitions of a subframe (see resource element block 705), the QEPDCCH spans a single partition of the subframe (see resource element blocks 706 and 718). In one aspect, the QEPDCCH may utilize the same or similar Enhanced Control Channel Element (ECCE) feature elements as the legacy EPDCCH, although feature elements may be added over the legacy EPDCCH to compensate for the longer QEPDCCH time frame. short. In other words, the QEPDCCH aggregation level can be increased relative to the inherited EPDCCH (eg, by a factor of two) to maintain similar coverage.

[0077] In addition, the control channel regions of the data frame 700 allocated to the QEPDCCH may include one or more uplink or downlink grants. For example, the resource element block 718 that is allocated to the QEPDCCH includes both a downlink resource grant 720 for a UE 3 (for single partition resource element block 724) and a link resource grant upstream 722 for a UE 4 (for a subsequent subframe). The QEPDCCH resource element block 706, on the other hand, does not contain an uplink resource grant, but it does contain two downlink resource grants: the downlink resource grant 708 for UE 1 (for block of single partition resource elements 712) and the downlink resource grant 710 to UE 2 (for the block of single partition resource elements 714).

[0078] In a further aspect of the present disclosure, a data structure control channel region 700 may include a downlink grant channel for a data channel region resource element block spanning both partition 0 702 and partition 1 704 of the subframe. For example, resource element block 705 carries EPDCCH control data that may include a downlink grant to a legacy PDSCH channel data channel region spanning both partitions, as resource element block 716 Alternatively, the data resource grant for resource element block 716 may be carried by a legacy control region PDCCH 721, which may contain resource elements for a legacy LTE control channel (e.g., PDCCH). . In one aspect, although shown to span a single subframe start symbol 0, the inherited control region 721 may alternatively span a plurality of subframe start symbols.

[0079] Furthermore, although the initial symbol (or symbols) of the subframe may contain the inherited control region 721, the symbol may also contain resource elements for a QPDCCH channel of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the QPDCCH may utilize the control channel element (CCE) structure of the inherited PDCCH and may be completely multiplexed with other inherited control channels from the inherited control region 721. Furthermore, the QPDCCH may include one or more resource grants downlink for resource element blocks spanning both one and both subframe partitions. In other words, the QPDCCH can include downlink resource grants for blocks of QPDSCH resource elements (which span a single subframe partition, 0.5ms TTI) or blocks of PDSCH resource elements (which span both subframe partitions, 1ms TTI). For example, the QPDCCH may include a downlink resource grant for resource element block 707, which includes a QPDSCH downlink transmission allocation for a UE 5. Likewise, the QPDCCH may include a QPDCCH grant. downlink resource for resource element block 726, which includes a PDSCH downlink transmission allocation for a UE 7. In a further aspect, since the QPDCCH may include downlink grants for resource element blocks for single partition QPDSCH or full subframe PDCCH, the QPDCCH may include a downlink control indicator (DCI) that specifies whether a downlink grant channel is for a single partition or for a full subframe. Furthermore, although not explicitly shown in the data structure 700, like the legacy LTE PDCCH, the QPDCCH may include uplink grants in addition to downlink grants.

[0080] Furthermore, resource element blocks comprising data channel regions may correspond to resource element allocations for the downlink transmission of user data to one or more UEs. In one aspect, these data channel regions may include resource element blocks allocated to downlink channels that transmit user data over a single partition (e.g., QPDSCH resource element blocks 707, 712, 714, and 724) or downlink channels that transmit user data over both subframe partitions (e.g., PDSCH resource element blocks 716 and 726.

[0081] Therefore, as illustrated in Figure 7, the data structure 700 includes a Fast LTE downlink resource element allocation structure for some blocks of resource elements that can implement a partition-based allocation scheme, which thereby shortens (eg halves) the TTI relative to legacy LTE downlink resource element allocation schemes on a full subframe basis. Using this Fast LTE downlink resource element allocation structure, the air latency can be reduced significantly (eg by a factor of two). Consequently, a round-trip time (RTT) of a HARQ process using the Fast LTE framework can be reduced to 4 ms from the 8 ms RTT of legacy LTE RTT.

[0082] In an additional feature, the data structure 700 can allocate resource elements in a downlink subframe for UEs using one or both of (a) the Fast LTE Channels of the present disclosure that span a single partition and can have a TTI of 0.5 ms (eg QPDCCH, QEPDCCH, QPDSCH) and (b) legacy LTE channels that span the entire subframe and can therefore have a TTI of 1 ms. Furthermore, due to the fact that the data structure 700 mirrors the general 1ms subframe structure of legacy LTE, introducing the Fast LTE structure does not change basic communication operations such as, but not limited to, cell search procedures, system information block reading, random access channel (RACH) procedures (with media access channel (MAC) improvements for RACH based on contention, paging and idle moo procedures. Furthermore, UEs can easily indicate whether they support Fast LTE communication during connection setup (e.g. via a dedicated information element or message), and in response a network entity (e.g. an eNB) can provide the parameters configuration settings for Fast LTE downlink and uplink channels.

[0083] In addition, in some examples, signal-based demodulation of specific cell reference (CRS) can be used for partition-based resource element allocation of the Fast LTE structure to minimize its specification and deployment impact , as CRS-based demodulation is widely used in legacy LTE systems. Alternatively, demodulation based on demodulation reference signal (DMRS) can be used. DMRS-based demodulation can enable sufficient resources to be used for channel estimation for each partition of a subframe. For example, DMRS enables increased density, as a specific UE reference signal (UERS) standard defined for Time Division Duplex (TDD) Downlink Pilot Time Partition (DwPTS) can be reused for both the partitions of a subframe. Furthermore, DMRS-based demodulation makes it possible for the UE to combine over consecutive assignments. As both CRS and DMRS based demodulation are used by legacy LTE systems, using these demodulation schemes for Fast LTE communication enables even more increased capacity.

[0084]Furthermore, by reducing the transmission from a legacy LTE subframe to a partition of the Fast LTE structure of the present disclosure, the amount of resources for data transmission is effectively reduced by half. As such, to facilitate transmission of the same amount of data using the reduced resources available on a single partition, an increase in code rate (eg, a doubled code rate) may be required. Alternatively or additionally, a quantity of resource blocks (RBs) (or resource elements) for a resource element block assignment can be increased (eg doubled). Therefore, when a resource element block assignment is time-compressed (for example, changing from a subframe-based TTI to a single-partition TTI), the amount of resource RBs of the resource element block assignment can be expanded. Furthermore, a minimum allocation of two resource blocks may be mandatory so that a similar code rate and transport block size can be maintained regardless of the TTI size. However, when a minimum allocation of an RB is occurring, a transport block size can be scaled by a factor of two. Alternatively, separate mapping rules can be provided for subframe level assignments (i.e. legacy LTE) versus partition level assignments (i.e. Fast LTE) with respect to transport block size, modulation and encoding scheme (MCS) and resource block size. Also, partition 0 and partition 1 can have different mapping or scaling.

[0085] In addition, no Channel State Information (CSI) feedback changes are required over legacy LTE for CRS-based demodulation when LTE partition-based resource element block allocation structures Fast are used because the same feedback is provided regardless of the size of the stream or the TTI. However, when generating the data structure 700, an eNB may consider the total amount of available resource elements to perform a mapping operation including selecting resource block assignments, selecting MCS and the like.

[0086] In addition, in some examples, the same subframe level channel status information (CSI-RS) reference signal and the same interference measurement feature (IMR) can be used regardless of the TTI of a block of feature elements (ie, same for both Fast LTE and Legacy LTE assignments). Alternatively, an eNB can generate a configuration whereby a CSI-RS and/or IMR is provided on a per-partition basis to provide greater granularity for Fast LTE partition level assignments.

[0087] Therefore, the data structure 700 of the present disclosure reduces overhead LTE latency by reducing the TTI gap of downlink channels while maintaining backwards compatibility and coexistence with channels using legacy LTE scheduling structures .

[0088] Figure 8 is a block diagram containing a plurality of subcomponents of a downlink programming component 602 (see Figure 6), which can be deployed by a network entity (for example, an eNodeB) to program forwarded downlink transmissions (eg, on a per-partition basis) of control information and/or user data to one or more UEs, for example, to reduce latency in an LTE system. The downlink scheduling component 602 may include a data structure generation component 802, which may be configured to generate a data structure that manages downlink resource allocation for the transmission of control information 810 and/or user data 806 for one or more UEs. In one aspect, the generated data structure can include any data structure described in the present disclosure, such as data structure 700 of Figure 7.

[0089] In one aspect, the data structure generation component 802 can be configured to use a downlink scheduling algorithm 804, which can be configured to perform user data scheduling for transmission 806 in the data structure of according to the methodologies and structures defined in this document. For example, in some instances, the downlink scheduling algorithm may maintain one or more tables or query maps that define transport block size, MCS, number of resource blocks, and so on. for block of resource element allocations that have a single partition TTI and for block of resource element allocations that have full subframe TTIs. Furthermore, the data structure generation component 802 may include or otherwise obtain or identify one or more delivery constraints 808 associated with the user data for transmission 806 and/or one or more UEs to which the user data for transmission the 806 transmission must be transmitted. In one aspect, such delivery constraints 808 may include downlink frequency bandwidth channel constraints (e.g., available resource blocks), QoS constraints, latency requirements, radio conditions, as may be reported by means of a CSI message, an amount of data in a transmission queue for a UE, an amount of data for retransmission, for example due to the operation of one or more HARQ processes, or any restriction imposed by a UE, application , associated data, or particular network operation.

[0090] The data structure generation component 802 can use the downlink scheduling algorithm 804, which can take at least the delivery constraints 808 and the user data for transmission 806 as input parameters, to generate the data structure to optimize the scheduling of user data for transmission 806 to one or more UEs, for example, so that data is transmitted with a TTI of a partition or a TTI of a subframe, depending on the block of resource elements particular to be assigned.

[0091] Figure 9 illustrates an exemplary method 900 of the present disclosure, which can be performed by a network entity (e.g., an eNodeB) that supports Fast LTE and/or legacy LTE or a component of the network entity, such as, 6 and Figure 8 . For example, in one aspect, at block 902, method 900 can include obtaining, from a network entity, user data for transmission to one or more UEs on a downlink channel. In some examples, the downlink channel may comprise one or both of a QPDSCH and a PDSCH. For example, in one aspect, an eNodeB may receive one or more streams of data, for example, from one or more network entities (e.g., another eNodeB, an MME, a main network entity, or any other network entity). network) and may maintain or establish one or more radio bearers to one or more UEs to transmit user data from the data streams to the one or more UEs.

[0092]Further, in block 904, method 900 may include determining one or more delivery restrictions associated with at least one of the data and the one or more UEs. In one aspect, such delivery constraints may include downlink frequency bandwidth channel constraints (e.g., available resource blocks), Quality of Service (QoS) constraints, latency requirements, radio conditions such as may be reported via a channel state information (CSI) message, an amount of data in a transmission queue for a UE, an amount of data for retransmission, for example due to the operation of one or more processing processes HARQ, or any restriction imposed by a particular UE, application, associated data, or network operation.

[0093] Further, in block 906, method 900 may include generating, based on the user data for transmission and the one or more delivery constraints, a downlink subframe data structure for allocating link channel resources downstream for data transmission. In one aspect, the data structure may include any data structure described in the present disclosure, such as data structure 700 of Figure 7. As such, the downlink subframe data structure in block 906 may include a link subframe downlink comprising two partitions and including one or more fast downlink channels having a single-partition transmission timeslot. In one aspect, the fast downlink channels can correspond to the fast LTE Channels described in the present disclosure. Furthermore, the data structure may include one or more blocks of resource elements, each comprising one or more resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth is divided within one or both of the partitions. Additionally, each of the one or more resource element blocks may include a control channel region or a data channel region. Furthermore, the data structure may include one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, to one or more user equipment served by the one or more fast downlink channels. Optionally (as indicated by the dashed lines), at block 908, method 900 may include transmitting the generated data structure, for example, to one or more UEs.

[0094] In addition, although not explicitly shown in Figure 9, method 900 may include one or more alternative or additional features. For example, method 900 may include increasing an aggregation level associated with one or more fast downlink channels, for example, relative to channels having a full subframe TTI. Furthermore, method 900 may include doubling a transport block size associated with the user data wherein the one or more blocks of fast forward link channel resource elements corresponding to the user data comprise a single resource block.

[0095] In addition, the additional features of method 900 can be related to a HARQ process that can be associated with Fast LTE communications and can have a HARQ response time of about 4 ms or any other time less than that of a legacy LTE HARQ response. For example, method 900 may further comprise maintaining a HARQ process with an expedited retransmission time, wherein the expedited retransmission time is about 4ms.

[0096] Figure 10 is a conceptual data flow diagram 1000 illustrating the data flow between different modules/media/components in an exemplary apparatus 1002. The apparatus 1002 can be an access point (such as an eNodeB (eNB) ), which may include the access point 105 of Figure 1, the macro-eNB 204 or the low-power class eNB 208 of Figure 2, or the eNB 610 of Figure 6. The apparatus includes a receiver module 1004, the downlink scheduling component 602 (and its related data structure generation component 802 (see, for example, Figure 8 )), and a transmission module 1006 that is configured to transmit at least one data structure (for example, data structure 700 of Figure 7) and/or user data for transmission 806 to one or more UEs 115.

[0097] The receiving module 1004, the downlink scheduling component 602 (and their subcomponents in Figure 6) or the transmitting module 1006 can perform one or more aspects of the aforementioned method 900 of Figure 9. For example , receiver module 1004 may be configured to receive user data 1010 from one or more other network entities 1008 in one or more data streams. The receiving module 1004 can forward the user data 1010 to the downlink scheduling component 602, and as such, the downlink scheduling component 602 can obtain the forwarded user data 1012. The downlink scheduling component 602 can determine one or more delivery restrictions associated with at least one of the user data 1012 and the one or more UEs 115 and can generate downlink subframe data structure to allocate downlink channel resources for transmission of the data 1012. The downlink scheduling component 602 may send the downlink subframe data structure and the user data (together 1014) to the transmit module 1006. The transmit module 1006 may be configured to transmit at least the downlink subframe data structure and the user data (together 1016) for the one or more UEs 115.

[0098] In addition, apparatus 1002 may include additional modules that perform each of the method steps 900 of Figure 9. As such, each method step 900 may be additionally or alternatively performed by an additional module and apparatus 1002 may include one or more of these additional modules. Modules may be one or more hardware components specifically configured to conduct the recited processes/algorithm, deployed by a processor configured to perform the recited processes/algorithm, stored within a computer-readable medium for deployment by a processor, or some combination of the same.

[0099] Figure 11 is a diagram 1100 illustrating an example of a hardware deployment for an apparatus 1002 that employs a processing system 1114. Like the apparatus 1002 of Figure 10, the apparatus 1002' and/or the processing system 1114 may be an access point (such as an eNodeB (eNB)), which may include access point 105 of Figure 1, macro-eNB 204 or low power class eNB 208 of Figure 2, or eNB 610 of Figure 6. Processing system 1114 can be implemented with a bus architecture, generally represented by bus 1124. Bus 1124 can include multiple interconnecting buses and bridges depending on the specific application of processing system 1114 and general design constraints. Bus 1124 connects various circuitry including one or more processors and/or hardware modules, represented by processor 1104, downlink programming component 602, and its related data structure generation component 802 (see, for example, Figure 8), and computer-readable medium 1106. Bus 1124 may also connect various other circuits such as timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators, and power management circuits, which are well known in the art and therefore will not be described. further.

[00100] The processing system 1114 can be coupled to a transceiver 1110, which, in some examples, may include the receiving module 1004 and the transmitting module 1006 of Figure 10. The transceiver 1110 is coupled to one or more antennas 1120 The transceiver 1110 provides a means to communicate with various other apparatus over a transmission medium. Furthermore, transceiver 1110 can be configured to transmit a data frame and/or user data for transmission to one or more UEs. Processing system 1114 includes a processor 1104 coupled to computer readable medium 1106. Processor 1104 is responsible for general processing, including execution of software stored on computer readable medium 1106. The software, when executed by processor 1104, does cause processing system 1114 to perform the various functions described above for any particular apparatus. Computer-readable medium 1106 may also be used to store data that is manipulated by processor 1104 when executing the software. The processing system further includes at least one of the downlink scheduling component 602 and its related data structure generation component 802 (see, for example, Figure 8 ). Modules/components can be software modules running on processor 1104, residing/stored on computer-readable medium 1106, one or more hardware modules coupled to processor 1104, or some combination thereof. Processing system 1114 may be a component of eNB 610 and may include memory 676 and/or at least one of TX processor 616, RX processor 670, and controller/processor 675.

[00101] In one embodiment, the apparatus 1002' for wireless communication includes means for obtaining user data for transmission 806 to one or more UEs on a downlink channel; means for determining one or more delivery restrictions 808 associated with at least one of the data and the one or more UEs; and means for generating, based on the user data for transmission 806 and the one or more delivery constraints 808, a downlink subframe data structure for allocating downlink channel resources for transmission of the user data for transmission 806. The aforementioned means may be one or more of the aforementioned modules of the apparatus 1002 and/or the processing system 1114 of the apparatus 1002' configured to perform the functions cited by the aforementioned means. As described above, the processing system 1114 may include the TX processor 616, the RX processor 670, and the controller/processor 675. Thus, in one embodiment, the aforementioned means may be the TX processor 616, the RX 670, and controller/processor 675 configured to perform the aforementioned functions by the aforementioned means.

[00102] In addition, like method 900, which can be performed by an exemplary eNB of the present disclosure, one or more UEs (for example, UE 115 of Figure 1 or UE 115 of Figure 2) can perform structure-related methods of LTE data presented in this document. For example, Figure 12 illustrates an exemplary method 1200 of the present disclosure, which may be performed by a UE (e.g., UE 115 of Figures 1, 2 and 10) that supports Fast LTE and/or legacy LTE. In one aspect, aspects of method 1200 may be performed by downlink management component 661 (see Figures 1, 2, 6) and/or any other component (e.g., controller/processor 659 of Figure 6) of an EU.

[00103] In one aspect, method 1200 may include receiving, at a UE, control information located at one or more resource element positions in a control channel region of a downlink subframe or partition in block 1202. Such a control channel region may include at least a portion of a downlink data structure (see data structure 700 of Figure 7 ) defined by one or more feature elements or blocks of feature elements. In one aspect, block 1202 may be performed by receive module 1304 of Figure 13 or by transceiver 1410 of Figure 14.

[00104] Furthermore, method 1200 may include, in block 1204, performing a check on the received control channel region at each of the one or more resource element positions to determine whether the control information is for the UE . In one aspect, this check may include a cyclic redundancy check (CRC). Furthermore, in some examples, block 1204 may be performed by control channel region check component 1306 of Figure 13.

[00105] Further, in block 1206, method 1200 may include determining, when the verification passes, a position of a data channel region and a TTI length of the data channel region based on the control information. Such a data channel region may include at least a portion of a downlink data structure (see data structure 700 of Figure 7) defined by one or more feature elements or blocks of feature elements. In some examples, block 1206 may be performed by data channel region determination component 1308

[00106] Furthermore, in block 1208, method 1200 may include receiving, at the determined position, downlink data in the data channel region. In some examples, block 1208 can be performed by the receiver module 1304 of Figure 13 or by the transceiver 1410 of Figure 14.

[00107] Furthermore, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the methods disclosed in Figures 9 and 13 is an illustration of exemplary approaches. Based on project preferences, it is understood that the order and specific hierarchy of steps in processes can be rearranged. Additionally, some steps can be combined or omitted. The appended method claims the present elements of the various steps in a sample order, and is not intended to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented.

[00108] Figure 13 is a conceptual data flow diagram 1300 illustrating the flow of data between different modules/media/components in an exemplary apparatus 1302, which may be a UE (for example, the UE 115 of Figures 1, 2 and 10). In one aspect, apparatus 1302 includes a receiver module 1304 that is configured to receive data 1316, which may include a data structure 700 of Figure 7 and associated control data received via a control channel and/or data link. downstream through a data channel. Such data 1316 may be transmitted to apparatus 1302, for example, by a network entity 1303, which may include, but is not limited to, the access point 105 of Figure 1, the macro-eNB 204, or the class eNB. 2, or the eNB 610 of Figure 6, either of which may include the downlink scheduling component 602 and its related data structure generation component 802 (see, for example, Figure 8 ). For example, receiver module 1304 may be configured to receive control information located at one or more resource element positions in a control channel region of a subframe or downlink partition as defined by a received data structure ( data structure 700 of Figure 7). Furthermore, receiver module 1304 can be configured to receive user data in a data channel region of the received data frame, wherein the user data is received at a particular position in the received data frame that corresponds to a particular frequency band. Receiver module 1304 may send received data 1318 to downlink management component 661.

[00109] In addition, apparatus 1302 may contain a downlink management component 661 (see Figures 1 and 2) and a plurality of subcomponents thereof, which may be deployed by apparatus 1302 to decode and process data (for example , received data 1318) and operate using data structure 700 of Figure 7, for example, to reduce latency in an LTE system. The downlink management component 611 may include a control region check component 1306, which may be configured to perform a check on the received control channel region at each of one or more feature element positions in the link structure. received data to determine if control information is for apparatus 1302. In one aspect, this verification may include a CRC.

[00110] In addition, the downlink management component 661 may include a data channel region determination component 1308, which may be configured for determination, in which the verification performed by the control region verification component 1306 pass, a position of a data channel region 1310 and a TTI length of the data channel region 1312 based on control information included in the received data frame. Such a data channel region may include at least a portion of a downlink data structure (see data structure 700 of Figure 7) defined by one or more feature elements or blocks of feature elements. In one aspect, downlink management components 661 may be configured to send the position of data channel region 1310 and a TTI length of data channel region 1312 to receiving module 1304, which may utilize this information. for receiving data 1316 transmitted by access point 105.

[00111] The device may include additional modules that perform each of the steps of the algorithm in the aforementioned flowchart in Figure 12. Therefore, each step in the aforementioned flowcharts in Figure 12 can be performed by a module and the device may include one or more of these modules. Modules may be one or more hardware components specifically configured to conduct the recited processes/algorithm, deployed by a processor configured to perform the recited processes/algorithm, stored within a computer-readable medium for deployment by a processor, or some combination of the same.

[00112] Figure 14 is a diagram 1400 illustrating an example of a hardware deployment for an apparatus 1302 that employs a processing system 1414. Like the apparatus 1302 of Figure 13, the apparatus 1302' and/or the processing system 1414 can be a UE (e.g. UE 115 of Figures 1 , 2 and 10 ). Processing system 1414 may be implemented with a bus architecture, generally represented by bus 1424. Bus 1424 may include multiple interconnecting buses and bridges depending on the specific application of processing system 1414 and general design constraints. Bus 1424 connects various circuitry including one or more processors and/or hardware modules, represented by processor 1404, downlink management component 611 (see, for example, Figure 8), and computer-readable medium 1406. Bus 1424 can also connect various other circuits such as timing sources, peripherals, voltage regulators and power management circuits, which are well known in the art and therefore will not be described further.

[00113] The processing system 1414 can be coupled to a transceiver 1410, which, in some examples, can include the receiving module 1304 of Figure 13. The transceiver 1410 is coupled to one or more antennas 1420. The transceiver 1410 provides means for communicating with various other apparatuses (eg access point 105 of Figures 1 and 13) over a transmission medium. Furthermore, transceiver 1410 can be configured to receive a data frame and/or user data. Processing system 1414 includes a processor 1404 coupled to computer-readable medium 1406. Processor 1404 is responsible for general processing, including execution of software stored on computer-readable medium 1406. The software, when executed by processor 1404, does cause processing system 1414 to perform the various functions described above for any particular apparatus. Computer-readable medium 1406 may also be used to store data that is manipulated by processor 1404 when executing software. The processing system further includes the downlink management component 611 and its related components (see, for example, Figure 13 ). Modules/components can be software modules running on processor 1404, residing/stored on computer-readable medium 1406, one or more hardware modules coupled to processor 1404, or some combination thereof. Processing system 1414 may be a component of UE 650 and may include memory 660 and/or at least one of TX processor 668, RX processor 656, and controller/processor 659 of Figure 6.

[00114] In one embodiment, the apparatus 1302' for wireless communication includes means for receiving, at a UE, control information located at one or more resource element positions in a downlink control channel region; means for performing a check on the received control channel region at each of the one or more resource element positions to determine whether the control information is for the UE; means for determining, where the check passes, a position of a data channel region and a TTI length of the data channel region based on the control information; and means for receiving, at the determined position, downlink data in the data channel region.

[00115] The aforementioned means may be one or more of the aforementioned modules of the apparatus 1302 and/or the processing system 1114 configured to perform the functions cited by the aforementioned means. As described above, the processing system 1114 may include the TX processor 616, the RX processor 670, and the controller/processor 675. of RX 670 and controller/processor 675, or any other component of the present disclosure configured to perform the functions recited by the aforementioned means.

[00116] The foregoing description is provided to allow anyone skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described in this document. Various modifications to these aspects will be readily appreciated by those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein can be applied to other aspects. As such, the claims are not intended to be limited by the aspects shown in this document, however, it should be understood that the full scope is the language claims, where reference to an element in the singular must not mean "one and only one " unless specifically stated so, but preferably "one or more". Unless otherwise stated, the term "some" refers to one or more. All functional and structural equivalents to elements of the various aspects described throughout this disclosure, which are known or hereafter become known to those of ordinary skill in the art, are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be covered by the claims. Furthermore, nothing disclosed herein is intended to be dedicated to the public, regardless of whether such disclosure is explicitly cited in the claims. No claiming element should be interpreted as a means plus function unless the element is expressly cited using the phrase "means for".

Claims (15)

1. Data structure (700) for managing user equipment (UE) communications (115) in a wireless communication system (100) characterized in that it comprises: a downlink subframe comprising two partitions (702, 704) and includes one or more fast downlink channels that have a single-partition transmission time interval (TTI); one or more blocks of resource elements into which a frequency bandwidth (703) is divided within one or both partitions (702, 704), each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprising a or more resource elements and wherein each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprises a control channel region or a data channel region corresponding to the one or more fast downlink channels, and wherein at least at least the control channel region is multiplexed, within at least one symbol, with an inherited control channel region; and one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, related to one or more data channel regions for one or more user equipment served by the one or more fast downlink channels. A data structure (700) according to claim 1, characterized in that the downlink subframe includes one or more legacy downlink channels having a subframe TTI. 3. Data structure (700) according to claim 2, characterized in that the inherited control channel region includes each resource element of the at least one symbol of at least one of the two partitions (702, 704) , where the inherited control channel region contains at least one of the one or more feature grants. 4. Data structure (700), according to claim 3, characterized in that each of the at least one of the one or more resource grants of the inherited control channel region corresponds to one or more of the regions of data channel, wherein each of the one or more of the data channel regions comprises one partition (702, 704) or both partitions (702, 704) of the downlink subframe. 5. Data structure (700) according to claim 1, characterized in that at least one of the one or more control channel regions comprises a partition (702, 704) of the downlink subframe and includes at least at least one of the one or more resource grants, wherein the at least one of the one or more resource grants includes one or more downlink resource grants for the one or more fast downlink channels, wherein the one or more or more downlink resource grants correspond to one or more partition data channel regions (702, 704). 6. Data structure (700), according to claim 1, characterized in that at least one of the one or more control channel regions comprises an uplink resource grant for a user equipment of the one or more user equipment. 7. Data structure (700), according to claim 1, characterized in that at least one of the one or more control channel regions comprises each of the two partitions (702, 704) of the downlink subframe and includes a downlink resource grant corresponding to at least one of the one or more data channel regions spanning each of the two partitions (702, 704). 8. Method of managing communications of user equipment (UE) (115) in a wireless communication system (100) characterized in that it comprises: obtaining (902), in a network entity (105), data from user for transmission to one or more user equipment (UEs) (115) on a downlink channel; determining (904) one or more delivery restrictions associated with at least one of the user data and the one or more UEs (115); and generating (906), based on the user data for transmission and the one or more delivery constraints, a downlink subframe data structure (700) for allocating downlink channel resources for transmission of the user data to transmission, wherein the downlink subframe data structure (700) comprises: a downlink subframe comprising two partitions (702, 704) and including one or more fast downlink channels having a transmission time slot (TTI) single partition; one or more blocks of resource elements, in which a frequency bandwidth (703) is divided into one or both partitions (702, 704), each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprising one or more resource elements, and wherein each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprises a control channel region or a data channel region that corresponds to the one or more fast downlink channels, and wherein at least the control channel region is multiplexed, within at least one symbol, with an inherited control channel region; and one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, related to one or more data channel regions for the one or more UEs (115) served by the one or more fast downlink channels. A method according to claim 8, further comprising: transmitting (908) the downlink subframe data structure (700) to the one or more UEs (115). 10. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that it further comprises: increasing an aggregation level associated with the one or more fast downlink channels. 11. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprises a minimum of two blocks of resource elements. 12. Method according to claim 8, further comprising: doubling a transport block size associated with the user data where the one or more resource element blocks of a fast downlink channel among the one or more fast downlink channels corresponding to user data comprise a single resource element block. 13. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that it further comprises: maintaining a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request process with an accelerated retransmission time, where the accelerated retransmission time is about 4 ms. 14. Method according to claim 8, characterized in that obtaining (902) user data for transmission comprises obtaining user data for transmission from a second network entity (115) via a stream data or from a transmission data queue associated with the network entity. 15. Apparatus for managing user equipment (UE) communications (115) in a wireless communications system (100) characterized in that it comprises: means for obtaining, in a network entity (115), user data for transmitting to one or more UEs (115) on a downlink channel; means for determining one or more delivery restrictions associated with at least one of the user data and the one or more UEs (115); and means for generating, based on the user data for transmission and the one or more delivery constraints, a downlink subframe data structure (700) for allocating downlink channel resources for transmission of the user data for transmission , wherein the downlink subframe data structure (700) comprises: a downlink subframe comprising two partitions (702, 704) and including one or more fast downlink channels having a transmission time slot ( TTI) single partition; one or more blocks of resource elements, in which a frequency bandwidth (703) is divided into one or both partitions (702, 704), each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprising one or more resource elements, and wherein each of the one or more blocks of resource elements comprises a control channel region or a data channel region that corresponds to the one or more fast downlink channels, and wherein at least the control channel region is multiplexed, within at least one symbol, with an inherited control channel region; and one or more resource grants, located within one or more control channel regions, related to one or more data channel regions for the one or more UEs (115) served by the one or more fast downlink channels.