US Patent 8934459 Maintaining time alignment with multiple uplink carriers

Maintaining time alignment with multiple carriers is contemplated. A group of uplink carriers (UL CC sets) that operate with a single Timing Advance (TA) may be determined, and a TA value may be applied to a specific UL CC set. A wireless transmit/receive unit's (WTRU) capability of using multiple TAs may define a group index of a few bits for each UL CC set. A TA Command received in a Random Access Response message may be used to apply the TA value to each UL carrier of the UL CC set. The WTRU may determine which UL CC set the TA value applies to based on which DL carrier the command was transmitted from. The WTRU may determine which UL CC set the TA value applies to based on the Group Index being explicitly provided in the command. The WTRU may release multi-CC configurations upon Time Alignment Timer (TAT) expiry.