Telecommunications apparatus and methods

1. A method of communicating an indication of an allocation of radio resources on a radio channel for communicating data between a network infrastructure equipment and a terminal device in a wireless telecommunications system, wherein the radio channel spans a channel frequency bandwidth divided into frequency resource units which may be selectively allocated for communicating data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, and wherein the method comprises, at the network infrastructure equipment,

selecting a combination of resource units for communicating the data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device from among a predefined set of allowable combinations of the resource units, wherein the set of the allowable combinations of the resource units is restricted to a number of allowable combinations of the resource units that is smaller than a total number of possible combinations of the resource units and which includes non-contiguous combinations of the resource units,

establishing an indication of the selected combination of the resource units; and

transmitting the indication of the selected combination of the resource units to the terminal device, wherein

the radio channel is notionally divided into a plurality of sub-channels, and

the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes an indication of which one or more of the sub-channels contains resource units in the selected combination of the resource units.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the radio channel is one of a plurality of narrowband channels supported within a wider system bandwidth of the wireless telecommunications system, and wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes an indication of which one of the plurality of narrowband channels contains the selected combination of the resource units.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of allowable combinations of resource units is restricted to combinations in which all or none of the resource units in each of the sub-channels are in the selected combination of the resource units.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of allowable combinations of resource units is restricted to combinations in which all, none or half of the resource units in each of the sub-channels are in the selected combination of the resource units.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of allowable combinations of the resource units is restricted to combinations for which the resource units in the selected combination of resource units are contiguous within each sub-channel.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units comprises an indication of which resource units in each of the sub-channels are in the selected combination of the resource units.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the indication of which one or more of the sub-channels contains resource units in the selected combination of the resource units comprises an indication that more than one of the sub-channels contains resource units in the selected combination of the resource units, and wherein the arrangement of the resource units in the selected combination of the resource units in a first one of the sub-channels is related to the arrangement of the resource units in the selected combination of the resource units in a second one of the sub-channels in accordance with a predefined relationship, such that the indication of which resource units in the first one of the sub-channels are in the selected combination of the resource units also indicates which resource units in the second one of the sub-channels are in the selected combination of the resource units.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the predefined relationship comprises an identical arrangement relationship, a mirrored arrangement relationship, an inverse arrangement relationship, or an offset arrangement relationship.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the allowable combinations of resource units is restricted to combinations containing predefined numbers of resource units.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the predefined numbers of the resource units for the allowable combinations consist of numbers which are powers of two.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units comprises an indication of a number of the resource units in the selected combination of the resource units and a starting point in frequency for the number of the resource units in the selected combination of resource units.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units further includes an indication of how the number of the resource units in the selected combination of the resource units are separated in frequency.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein establishing an indication of the selected combination of the resource units is performed with reference to a lookup table mapping different combination of the resource units that may be selected to different indications.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein each resource unit corresponds with a physical resource block, PRB, for the wireless telecommunications system.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein the channel frequency bandwidth is less than or equal to 5 MHz and each resource unit corresponds with a resource block group, RBG, comprising three or more physical resource blocks, PRBs, for the wireless telecommunications system.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the indication of the selected combination of the resource units for the terminal device is also associated with one or more other allowable combinations of the resource units, and wherein the terminal device is associated with a predefined configuration setting to indicate which of the combinations of the resource units associated with the indication is the selected combination of the resource units for the terminal device.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the number of allowable combinations of the resource units divided by the total number of combinations of resource units is less than or equal to a ratio selected from the group comprising: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32.

18. Network infrastructure equipment for use in a wireless telecommunications system for communicating an indication of an allocation of radio resources on a radio channel for communicating data between the network infrastructure equipment and a terminal device, wherein the radio channel spans a channel frequency bandwidth divided into frequency resource units which may be selectively allocated for communicating data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, wherein the network infrastructure equipment comprises controller circuitry and transceiver circuitry configured to operate together such that the network infrastructure equipment is operable to:

select a combination of resource units for communicating the data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device from among a predefined set of allowable combinations of the resource units, wherein the set of the allowable combinations of the resource units is restricted to a number of allowable combinations of resource units that is smaller than a total number of possible combinations of the resource units and which includes non-contiguous combinations of the resource units,

establish an indication of the selected combination of the resource units; and

transmit the indication of the selected combination of the resource units to the terminal device, wherein

the radio channel is notionally divided into a plurality of sub-channels, and

the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes an indication of which one or more of the sub-channels contains resource units in the selected combination of the resource units.

19. A terminal device for use in a wireless telecommunications system for communicating an indication of an allocation of radio resources on a radio channel for communicating data between a network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, wherein the radio channel spans a channel frequency bandwidth divided into frequency resource units which may be selectively allocated for communicating data between the network infrastructure equipment and the terminal device, wherein the terminal device comprises controller circuitry and transceiver circuitry configured to operate together such that the terminal device is operable to:

receive an indication of a selected combination of resource units from the network infrastructure equipment; and

establish from the indication of the selected combination of the resource units which one of a set of allowable combinations of the resource units is the selected combination of the resource units, wherein the set of the allowable combinations of the resource units is restricted to a number of allowable combinations of the resource units that is smaller than a total number of possible combinations of the resource units and which includes non-contiguous combinations of the resource units, wherein

the radio channel is notionally divided into a plurality of sub-channels, and

the indication of the selected combination of the resource units includes an indication of which one or more of the sub-channels contains resource units in the selected combination of the resource units.