Providing improved scheduling request signaling with ACK/NACK or CQI

1. A method comprising:

determining that an acknowledgment is to be sent on a physical uplink control channel, where transmission of the acknowledgement on the physical uplink control channel comprises an unmodulated sequence in addition to the acknowledgement data; and

for a case where there is also a scheduling request to be sent, combining the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on a scheduling resource,

else placing the acknowledgment in another resource.

2. The method of claim 1 , comprising:

for the case where there is also the scheduling request to be sent, transmitting the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on the scheduling resource.

3. The method of claim 1 , comprising:

for a case where a channel quality indicator is also to be sent, the channel quality indicator is not sent and the another resource is unused.

4. The method of claim 1 , where the another resource is a data-non-associated resource.

5. The method of claim 2 , where the transmitting is on a physical uplink control channel.

6. The method of claim 2 , where the transmitting is on an uplink.

7. The method of claim 1 , where the unmodulated sequence comprises reference signals and the acknowledgement data comprises a BPSK/QPSK modulated sequence.

8. The method of claim 1 implemented in a wireless communications network.

9. The method of claim 1 implemented in an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program executable by a processor to perform actions comprising:

determining that an acknowledgment is to be sent on a physical uplink control channel, where transmission of the acknowledgement on the physical uplink control channel comprises an unmodulated sequence in addition to the acknowledgement data; and

for a case where there is also a scheduling request to be sent, combining the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on a scheduling resource,

else placing the acknowledgment in another resource.

11. The non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program of claim 10 , comprising:

for the case where there is also the scheduling request to be sent, transmitting the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on the scheduling resource.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program of claim 10 , comprising:

for a case where a channel quality indicator is also to be sent, the channel quality indicator is not sent and the another resource is unused.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program of claim 10 , where the another resource is a data-non-associated resource.

14. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code, where the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to at least:

determine that an acknowledgment is to be sent on a physical link control channel where transmission of the acknowledgement on the physical uplink control channel comprises an unmodulated sequence in addition to the acknowledgement data; and

for a case where there is also a scheduling request to be sent, combine the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on a scheduling resource,

else placing the acknowledgment in another resource.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 ,

where the at least one memory including the computer program code is configured with the at least one processor to cause the apparatus, for the case where there is also the scheduling request to be sent, to transmit the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on the scheduling resource.

16. The apparatus of claim 14 ,

where the at least one memory including the computer program code is configured with the at least one processor to cause the apparatus, for a case where a channel quality indicator is also to be sent, to drop the channel quality indicator such that it is not sent and the another resource is unused.

17. The apparatus of claim 14 , where the another resource is a data-non-associated resource.

18. The apparatus of claim 15 , where the acknowledgment with the scheduling request is transmitted on a physical uplink control channel.

19. The apparatus of claim 15 , where the transmitter is configured to transmit the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on an uplink.

20. The apparatus of claim 14 , where the unmodulated sequence comprises reference signals and the acknowledgement data comprises a BPSK/QPSK modulated sequence.

21. The apparatus of claim 14 , embodied in a user equipment.

22. The apparatus of claim 14 , configured to operate in a wireless communications network.

23. The apparatus of claim 14 configured to operate in an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.

24. A method comprising:

receiving information on a scheduling resource on a physical uplink control channel; and

determining that the information received on the scheduling resource comprises an acknowledgment transmission, where the acknowledgement transmission comprises an unmodulated sequence in addition to acknowledgement data, and where the acknowledgment transmission is communicated on the scheduling resource if there is also a scheduling request combined with the acknowledgment transmission on the scheduling resource, else the acknowledgment transmission is communicated on another resource.

25. The method of claim 24 , comprising

responding accordingly to the determining that the information received on the scheduling resource comprises the acknowledgment.

26. The method of claim 24 where the information is received from a wireless communications network.

27. The method of claim 24 where the information is received from an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.

28. A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program executable by a processor to perform actions comprising:

receiving information on a scheduling resource on a physical uplink control channel; and

determining that the information received on the scheduling resource comprises an acknowledgment transmission, where the transmission comprises an unmodulated sequence in addition to acknowledgement data, and where the acknowledgment transmission is communicated on the scheduling resource if there is also a scheduling request combined with the acknowledgment transmission on the scheduling resource, else the acknowledgment transmission is communicated on another resource.

29. The non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with a computer program of claim 28 , comprising

responding accordingly to the determining that the information received on the scheduling resource comprises the acknowledgment.

30. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code, where the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to at least:

receive information on a scheduling resource on a physical uplink control channel; and

determine that the information received on the scheduling resource comprises an acknowledgment data transmission, where the acknowledgement data transmission comprises an unmodulated sequence in addition to acknowledgment data, and where the acknowledgment data transmission is communicated on the scheduling resource if there is also a scheduling request combined with the acknowledgment data transmission on the scheduling resource, else the acknowledgment data transmission is communicated on another resource.

31. The apparatus of claim 30 , where the at least one memory including the computer program code is configured with the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to respond accordingly to the determining that the information received on the scheduling resource comprises the acknowledgment data transmission.

32. The apparatus of claim 30 where the at least one memory including the computer program code is configured with the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to receive the information from a wireless communications network.

33. The apparatus of claim 30 where the at least one memory including the computer program code is configured with the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to receive the information from an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network.

34. A method comprising:

determining that a scheduling request resource and at least one other resource are reserved for a user equipment in a same sub-frame; and

based on whether a scheduling request is desired to be transmitted by the user equipment, placing at least one of an acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement and a channel quality indicator that is desired to be transmitted by the user equipment in one of the resources and leaving at least one other resource unused, where the transmission is to comprise an unmodulated sequence in addition to the acknowledgement data.

35. The method of claim 34 , where the scheduling request resource and the at least one other resource are physical uplink control channel resources.

36. The method of claim 34 comprising:

for a case where the user equipment desires to transmit a scheduling request and transmit an acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement, transmitting the acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement with the scheduling request on the scheduling request resource and leaving the at least one other resource unused; or

for a case where the user equipment does not desire to transmit a scheduling request and does desire to transmit an acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement, transmitting the acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement on the at least one other resource and leaving the scheduling request resource unused.

37. The method of claim 34 comprising:

for a case where the user equipment desires to transmit a scheduling request and a channel quality indicator but no acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement, transmitting the scheduling request on the scheduling request resource and not transmitting the channel quality indicator leaving the at least one other resource unused.

38. The method of claim 34 comprising:

for a case where the user equipment desires to transmit a scheduling request, transmit a channel quality indicator, and transmit an acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement, transmitting the acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement with the scheduling request on the scheduling request resource and not transmitting the channel quality indicator leaving the at least one other resource unused; or

for a case where the user equipment does not desire to transmit a scheduling request and does desire to transmit a channel quality indicator and an acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement, transmitting the acknowledgment/negative acknowledgement and the channel quality indicator on the at least one other resource and leaving the scheduling request resource unused.

39. The method of claim 34 , where the scheduling request information is conveyed based on a selected physical uplink control channel selection.

40. A method comprising:

determining that an acknowledgment transmission is to be sent; and

for a case where there is also a scheduling request to be sent, transmitting the acknowledgment data with the scheduling request on a scheduling resource in an uplink, where there is no need to specify a separate modulation or multiplexing operation used for transmission of the acknowledgement data with the scheduling request, from a modulation or multiplexing operation used for transmission of the acknowledgement on another resource.

41. The method of claim 40 , comprising: transmitting the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on the scheduling resource.

42. The method of claim 41 , where the transmitting is on a physical uplink control channel.

43. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code, where the at least one memory and the computer program code are configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to at least:

determine that an acknowledgment transmission is to be sent; and

for a case where there is also a scheduling request to be sent, transmit the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on a scheduling resource in an uplink, where there is no need to specify a separate modulation or multiplexing operation used for transmission of the acknowledgement with the scheduling request, from a modulation or multiplexing operation used for transmission of the acknowledgement on another resource.

44. The apparatus of claim 43 , where the at least one memory including the computer program code is configured with the at least one processor to cause the apparatus to transmit the acknowledgment with the scheduling request on the scheduling resource.

45. The apparatus of claim 43 , where the transmitting is on a physical uplink control channel.