Patent ID: 9660706
Date: 2017-05-23
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04L

Claim:
1. A method of controlling communication over an air interface between a base station and a wireless communication device (WCD), the method comprising: configuring service of the WCD by the base station to be concurrently on a quantity N of carriers on the air interface, wherein N>1, and serving by the base station the WCD with the configured service on the quantity N of carriers using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission defining M layers of communication on each of the N carriers, wherein M≧1; detecting by the base station a trigger; and responsive to detecting the trigger, (i) re-configuring by the base station the service of the WCD to be on a reduced quantity N′ of carriers, wherein N′<N and wherein N′≧1, and (ii) at least partially offsetting the reduction in quantity of carriers of the service by modifying the MIMO communication to define an increased quantity M′ of layers of communication on each carrier of the reduced quantity N′ of carriers, wherein M′>M and wherein M′≧2.