CHANNEL QUALITY SIGNALING FOR SEMI-PERSISTENT RADIO RESOURCE ALLOCATIONS

1 . A wireless communication network, comprising:

a gateway (GW);

a first base station (BS) operable to communicate with the GW over a data link; and

a second BS operable to communicate with the GW during handover of a user equipment (UE) from the first BS to the second BS;

the first BS comprising a BS transceiver operable to transmit, on a downlink wireless link, a semi-persistent uplink resource allocation including an indication to send an aperiodic format channel quality indicator; and

the BS transceiver further operable to receive, on an uplink wireless link associated with the semi-persistent uplink resource allocation, a first transmission including both user data and an aperiodic format channel quality indicator.

2 . The wireless communication network of claim 1 , wherein the UE comprises a UE wireless transceiver operable to receive, on the downlink wireless link, the semi-persistent uplink resource allocation including the indication to send an aperiodic format channel quality indicator.

3 . The wireless communication network of claim 2 , wherein the UE transceiver is further operable to transmit, on the uplink wireless link, the first transmission including both user data and the aperiodic format channel quality indicator according to the semi-persistently allocated uplink resource.

4 . The wireless communication network of claim 1 , wherein the downlink wireless link includes a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), and the semi-persistent uplink resource allocation is communicated via the PDCCH.

5 . The wireless communication network of claim 1 , wherein the uplink wireless link includes a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH), and the first transmission including both user data and the aperiodic format channel quality indicator is communicated via the PUSCH.

6 . The wireless communication network of claim 1 , wherein the GW is a mobility management entity (MME).

7 . The wireless communication network of claim 1 , wherein the aperiodic format channel quality indicator is a format for transmission via a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

8 . A method of operating a wireless communication network, the method comprising:

signaling between a gateway (GW) and a first base station (BS);

transmitting, from the first BS, a semi-persistent uplink resource allocation including an indication to send an aperiodic format channel quality indicator;

receiving, at the BS, a first transmission including both user data and an aperiodic format channel quality indicator; and

coordinating between the first BS, a second BS, and the GW during handover of a user equipment (UE) from the first BS to the second BS.

9 . The method of operating a wireless communication network of claim 8 , further comprising:

receiving, at the UE, the semi-persistent uplink resource allocation including the indication to send an aperiodic format channel quality indicator.

10 . The method of operating a wireless communication network of claim 9 , further comprising:

transmitting, from the UE, the first transmission including both user data and the aperiodic format channel quality indicator according to the semi-persistently allocated uplink resource.

11 . The method of operating a wireless communication network of claim 8 , wherein the semi-persistent uplink resource allocation including an indication to send an aperiodic format channel quality indicator is transmitted on a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH).

12 . The method of operating a wireless communication network of claim 8 , wherein the first transmission including both user data and the aperiodic format channel quality indicator is received on a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).

13 . The method of operating a wireless communication network of claim 8 , wherein the GW is a mobility management entity (MME).

14 . The method of operating a wireless communication network of claim 8 , wherein the aperiodic format channel quality indicator is a format for transmission via a physical uplink shared channel (PUSCH).