Patent ID: 11895635
Assignee: CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS OPERATING, LLC
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 0:
1. A communications method comprising:
dividing, by a first wireless base station, spectrum identified as available for use by the first wireless base station into a plurality of bandwidth parts, said plurality of bandwidth parts including at least one bandwidth part of licensed spectrum and at least one bandwidth part of unlicensed spectrum;
receiving user equipment capability information at the first wireless base station from a first user equipment device;
determining, by the first wireless base station, whether to allocate licensed or unlicensed spectrum to the first user equipment device based on the received user equipment capability information;
communicating a first spectrum allocation grant to the first user equipment device identifying the allocated spectrum for use by the first user equipment device;
wherein the first wireless base station and first user equipment device are part of a wireless network which supports bandwidth parts; and
wherein said determining, by the first wireless base station, whether to allocate licensed or unlicensed spectrum to the first user equipment device based on the received user equipment capability information further includes: determining which licensed or unlicensed bandwidth part spectrum is available for use by the first wireless base station to allocate to the first user equipment device based on a first user equipment capability score and quality scores for the licensed and unlicensed spectrum bandwidth parts.