Enhanced Scheduling Information Transmission

In a heterogeneous network environment where both high and low power nodes are sharing the same channel/frequency, explicit signaling in a downlink control message is used to select whether scheduling information SI is to be transmitted by a user equipment UE with a data payload or without a data payload. For the case where the selection is that SI is to be transmitted with a data payload, the downlink control message is used for the UE to select a transport format combination TFC for transmission of the SI with the data payload. Else for the case where the selection is that SI is to be transmitted without a data payload, the downlink control message is used for the UE to select transmit power for the transmission of the SI without the data payload.