US Patent 9794033 Systems, methods and devices for opportunistic networking

Opportunistic networking systems can utilize one or multiple bands/channels that are shared with other radio access technologies (RATs) (such as wireless local area networks (WLAN, such as Wi-Fi) and mmWave). An unconventional carrier type (UCT) can be defined to support opportunistic networking in licensed and/or unlicensed spectrum. For example, a primary base station can determine a secondary base station activated for use with user equipment (UE). The primary base station can schedule data to be sent to the UE via the secondary base station. The secondary base station can provide discovery information, reserve a wireless channel, transmit the data and/or release the channel (implicitly, explicitly, or by reservation).