Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed towards devices and methods for discovering and waking up dormant access nodes in cellular networks. In one embodiment, the dormant access nodes passively participate in a device-to-device discovery process to identify potential user equipment nearby. Upon identifying a potential user equipment, the dormant access node may wake itself up and inform a serving access node that that is able to service the user equipment. In another embodiment, dormant access nodes may transmit a discovery message periodically. Upon receiving the discovery message a user equipment may report the availability of the dormant access node to its serving access node.