Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 13
Claim 1
Independent Claim
124 words
In a communication network, in which service regions are partitioned into a plurality of substantially contiguous cells containing a base station, a method of dynamically allocating channels between the cells, said method comprising the steps of: assigning channels to each base station, for use by callers within a corresponding cell, in accordance with an initial channel assignment scheme satisfying anticipated channel availability, blocking, and interference constraints; establishing for each base station an initial order in which channels allocated during said assigning step will be accessed; and reassigning calls to channels such that all channels in actual use and any channels held in a reserved state by a given base station comprise an initial segment of the channel access order established for that base station.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
64 words
The method according to claim 1, further comprising determining for each base station a set of neighboring base stations, wherein the initial list of channels for each base station further includes those channels assigned to a corresponding set of neighboring base stations, thereby defining a predetermined order in which an entire set of channels may be accessed by calls originating in a given cell.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
45 words
The method according to claim 2, wherein the initial list of channels for each base station defines an order by which a predetermined set of channels is borrowed from each neighboring base station before additional channels are borrowed from any of said neighboring base stations.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
43 words
The method according to claim 2, wherein in accordance with the initial list for a given base station, channels are borrowed from a neighboring base station in a substantially reverse order than that specified by the initial list of said neighboring base station.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
30 words
The method according to claim 2, wherein each set of neighboring cells comprises base stations in which shared use of channels will result in interference greater than a predetermined threshold.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
14 words
The method according to claim 5, wherein said predetermined threshold is a signal-to-noise ratio.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
15 words
The method according to claim 5, wherein said predetermined threshold is a bit/frame error rate.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
14 words
The method according to claim 1, wherein the base stations are fixed base stations.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
13 words
The method according to claim 1, wherein the base stations are mobile stations.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
29 words
The method according to claim 1, further including transferring a call in a cell from one channel in use in that cell to another channel assigned to that cell.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
16 words
The method according to claim 10, wherein said transferring step is performed by remote radio retuning.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
99 words
The method according to claim 2, wherein calls in progress are allocated to available channels via a stack discipline, wherein channels in use and reserved are precisely (α(1), α(2), ..., α( k + n )) and additional calls are assigned to channels (α( k + n + 1) , α( n + 2), ..., α( C )), in that order, where C is a total number of channels, n is a number of channels in use, and k channels are reserved, in a given cell whose channel access order is α = (α(1) , α(2), ..., α( C ).
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
23 words
The method according to claim 1, further including detecting channel assignment conflicts utilizing an algebraic structure on the set of channel access lists.