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Apple patents method for phones to sync on very narrow radio bands

Patent drawing
Patent drawing from the official filing.

Apple describes a way for a phone to find and connect to a cell tower using a very narrow slice of radio spectrum, less than 5 MHz wide. The phone detects specific synchronization signals and reads instructions from them to figure out where to look for network control data.

Why it mattersThis is a technical update to how devices handle small, dedicated radio channels, which is useful for specific industrial or private network setups rather than general consumer use.

In the filing’s own words

A user equipment (UE) configured for operations with a serving cell in spectrum allocations less than 5 MHz. The UE configured to detect a synchronization signal block (SSB) including a primary synchronization signal (PSS) spanning a number of subcarriers, a secondary synchronization signal (SSS) spanning the number of subcarriers, and a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) that is considered to comprise a same number of subcarriers as the PSS and SSS, decode the PBCH and determine, from the PBCH, a configuration, a location and a bandwidth in a frequency domain for a control resource set 0 (CORESET #0) defining resources associated with a common search space (CSS) for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring.

What exactly they claim (claim 1)

1. A processor of a user equipment (UE) configured for operations with a serving cell in spectrum allocations less than 5 MHz configured to perform operations comprising: detecting a synchronization signal block (SSB) including a primary synchronization signal (PSS) spanning a number of subcarriers, a secondary synchronization signal (SSS) spanning the number of subcarriers, and a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) that is considered to comprise a same number of subcarriers as the PSS and SSS; decoding the PBCH; and determining, from the PBCH, a configuration, a location and a bandwidth in a frequency domain for a control resource set 0 (CORESET #0) defining resources associated with a common search space (CSS) for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring.

Facts

Company
Apple (Apple Inc.)
Official title
Supporting Dedicated Spectrum Less Than 5mhz In Wireless Communication
Publication number
US20260313570A1
Application number
19482073
Filed
May 9, 2023
Published
Oct 8, 2026
Inventors
6
Claims
20

Classified under

H04W 56/0015 Electricity & electronicsH04L 1/0068 Electricity & electronicsH04L 27/26025 Electricity & electronicsH04W 48/08 Electricity & electronicsH04W 72/231 Electricity & electronics
Read the full filing (official PDF) ↗ Open in the Patent Tracker

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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.