AD-HOC COMMUNICATION NETWORK AND METHOD

A method of controlling location information of subscribers 210, 212, 222 in a wireless, ad-hoc communications network 200. The network 200 comprises a plurality of nodes (base stations) 204, 216, 226 wherein each of the nodes has a Visitor Location Register (VLR) 208, 220, 230 and at least a portion of the nodes are provided with Home Location Registers (HLRs) 206, 218 228. When an operation of a first node 216 is to be reconfigured, for example, due to the addition of a new node or disconnection or movement of the first node 216, at least a part of the records from a first HLR 218 assigned to the first node 216 is transferred to at least one of the other nodes 226 of the network 200. The transfer is preferably controlled by a control unit which selects the target node(s) 226 and creates a back-up copy of the first HLR 218 which can be used if an error occurs during the transfer. Depending on circumstances, all or only part of the HLR records can be transferred and the transferred records can be assigned to a new HLR at the target node(s), which may or may not already have a HLR, or merged with records in a HLR already at the target node(s).