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Apple patents method for phones to wake up cell towers to save energy

Patent drawing
Patent drawing from the official filing.

Apple describes a way for a phone to send a specific signal to a cell tower to turn on its basic information broadcast only when needed. The phone receives instructions from a main tower, sends a wake-up call to a secondary tower, and then reads the information once the secondary tower responds.

Why it mattersThis technique could help reduce the power consumption of cell towers by keeping them in a low-power state until a phone specifically asks for data.

In the filing’s own words

An apparatus of a user equipment (UE) comprising one or more processors coupled to a memory and configured to decode, at the UE, a wakeup signal (WUS) configuration message received from an anchor cell attached to the UE. A WUS message can be encoded, at the UE, for transmission to a network energy saving (NES) cell to wake up an on-demand system information block 1(SIB1) at the NES cell. A WUS response (WUR) message from the NES cell can be decoded at the UE. The on-demand SIB1 from the NES cell can be decoded, at the UE based on information received in the WUR message.

What exactly they claim (claim 1)

1. An apparatus of a user equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: one or more processors, coupled to a memory, configured to: decode, at the UE, a wakeup signal (WUS) configuration message received from an anchor cell attached to the UE; encode, at the UE a WUS message for transmission to a network energy saving (NES) cell to wake up an on-demand system information block 1 (SIB1) at the NES cell; decode, at the UE, a WUS response (WUR) message from the NES cell; and decode, at the UE, the on-demand SIB1 from the NES cell, based on information received in the WUR message.

Facts

Company
Apple (Apple Inc.)
Official title
Configuration for UE Wake Up Signal Triggering SIB1 Transmission and Monitoring
Publication number
US20260323518A1
Application number
18869236
Filed
Nov 30, 2023
Published
Oct 15, 2026
Inventors
8
Claims
26

Classified under

H04W 52/0235 Electricity & electronicsH04W 72/23 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.