Patent ID: 9749917
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. A method for a cellular telecommunications network, the method comprising: selecting a plurality of cells served by a plurality of base stations; retrieving neighbor lists for the plurality of cells; determining neighbor collisions for the plurality of cells from the neighbor lists; sorting the plurality of cells by the neighbor collisions; and changing an identifier for a first cell of the plurality of cells based on a portion of the neighbor collisions that are associated with the first cell, wherein, changing the identifier for the cell includes: selecting a plurality of candidate identifiers that are not present on neighbor lists linking two cells in a second tier neighbor collision; determining respective distance values for the plurality of candidate identifiers; testing the plurality of candidate identifiers by counting the number of collisions that would result from using candidate identifiers with the highest distance values in order to determine an optimum identifier, wherein determining neighbor collisions includes: determining a first plurality of neighbors from a neighbor list of the first cell; determining a second plurality of neighbors from neighbor lists of the first plurality of neighbors; and determining a same identifier that is shared by the first cell and a second cell of the second plurality of neighbors, and wherein recurrence of the same identifier at the first cell and the second cell is a second tier collision.