Additionally, the EUTRA base station may endeavor to provide random access responses as quickly as possible when detecting a random access preamble that is determined to be potentially affected by time division multiplexing in order to minimize turn-around time during random access procedures.

In some embodiments, a larger time gap is periodically inserted between two successive ATSC 3.0 frames in order to allow more time for UEs to connect to the EUTRA cell during that longer time period. This concept is illustrated in the example of FIG. 17. As can be seen, one of the regularly-spaced ATSC 3.0 frame intervals has been omitted, thereby allowing the preceding EUTRA transmission to extend over a time period equal in length to two DRX Active Time periods and one ATSC 3.0 frame. This provides a longer time opportunity for UEs to connect to the EUTRA base station during that interval. Such intervals may be inserted periodically or according to some other schedule.

In some embodiments, if a UE first connects to another EUTRA cell (the source cell), or even a non-EUTRA cell, and is then handed over to the EUTRA carrier that is time-division multiplexed with the ATSC 3.0 transmissions (referred to here as the TDM carrier), then this may reduce the time required for the UE to connect to the TDM carrier. The UE will already be in the RRC_CONNECTED state after connecting to the first EUTRA cell, which eliminates the need to request an RRC connection with the TDM carrier. Additionally, the system information of the TDM carrier can be supplied to the UE as part of the handover message, which eliminates the need to acquire system information from the TDM carrier before connecting to it (although the system information of the TDM carrier still needs to be verified by the UE after completing the handover).