The invention addresses the above and other needs by providing a method for a device to communicate with one or more transmission points (TP's). In one embodiment, the method includes: receiving one or more synchronization signals; deriving a synchronization reference from the one or more synchronization signals; receiving a plurality of reference signals; based on the derived synchronization reference, performing a plurality of measurements on the plurality of reference signals; based on the plurality of measurements, selecting a plurality of random access resources; and selecting a random access resource from the plurality of random access resources for transmitting a random access signal to at least one of the one or more TP's.
In accordance with various embodiment, the invention provides another method for a device to communicate with a transmission point (TP). The method includes: receiving one or more synchronization signals from the TP; deriving a synchronization reference from the one or more synchronization signals; receiving a plurality of reference signals from the TP; based on the derived synchronization reference, performing a plurality of measurements on the plurality of reference signals; based on the plurality of measurements, selecting a plurality of random access resources; and selecting a random access resource from the plurality of random access resources for transmitting a random access signal to the TP.