NEIGHBOURG CELL MEASUREMENT AND REPORTING IN A MULTIPLE RADIO ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES (RAT) ENVIRONMENT

According to embodiments of the invention, user equipment (UE) performs inter-radio access technology (RAT) neighbour cell measurements during an idle mode of the UE. The inter-RAT measurement results may be stored in an internal memory of the UE during the Idle mode. When the UE initiates a connection setup, an inter-RAT measurement report containing inter-RAT measurement results obtained during the idle mode is sent to the network at the connection setup. Consequently, the inter-RAT measurement information is immediately available for a network decision at the beginning of the connected mode. For example, an inter-RAT handover can be decided and performed without a delay, based on the inter-RAT measurements made in advance during the idle mode and reported at the connection setup.