Patent attributes
Systems and methods for facilitating the mitigation of interference in the uplink of a small cell caused by macrocell user equipment in the case where the macrocell cannot identify the interfering macrocell user equipment because the user equipment cannot detect and report the small cell's downlink due to the small cell's uplink/downlink coverage imbalance. In an embodiment, the small cell provides the macrocell with a notification of the interference, the configuration information about its Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH), and a plurality of unique preambles and transmission times for non-contention-based transmissions on the small cell's PRACH. The macrocell orders each of one or a plurality of macrocell user equipment to transmit one of the unique preambles on the small cell's PRACH. The small cell reports to the macrocell the detected preamble transmissions, which allows the macrocell to identify interfering user equipment and perform corrective actions.