system frame timing and sfn information of the other enb for example the menb 104 can transmit a novel downlink dl mac control element ce to a dual connectivity ue 108 for requesting the system frame timing and sfn information of its counterpart senb 106 the ue 108 may reply by returning a novel uplink ul mac ce containing the requested system frame timing and sfn information novel ce data structures for exchanging system frame timing and sfn information of counterpart enbs via ul and dl are detailed below in various embodiments novel radio resource control rrc messages or a novel information element ie included in the existing rrc message structure are defined to enable the ue 108 assisted embodiments to acquire system frame timing and sfn information of a counterpart enb in dual connectivity network architectures in one embodiment a novel dl mac ce is used by an enb to request a dual connectivity enabled ue 108 to transmit system frame timing and sfn information of its counterpart enb the dl mac ce comprises a dl mac ce sub header 402 having a logical channel identifier lcid 408 selected from the reserved lcid pool for downlink shared channel dl sch used to identify the dl mac ce for requesting counterpart system frame information the dl mac ce header 102 has no or zero byte data field likewise a novel ul mac ce is used by a dual connectivity enabled ue 108 to respond to the request for counterpart enb system frame timing and sfn information the ul mac ce comprises a ul mac ce sub header 404 having a logical channel identifier lcid 410 selected from the reserved lcid.