Patent ID: 9544857
Date: 2017-01-10
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04W

Claim:
1. A method of controlling respective transmit powers allocated by a base station of a cellular communications network to each of a plurality of sub-bands, the method comprising: receiving information from at least one other base station of said network, said information comprising information about a sensitivity of a utility function in a cell served by said other base station to changes in downlink transmission powers allocated to respective sub-bands by said base station, identifying a sub-band in which it would be relatively advantageous to increase a downlink transmit power; determining whether a factor relating to a service expectation of users in the cell exceeds a threshold value, wherein the factor is defined by each of a respective user's average bit rate divided by the respective user's required bit rate; and increasing the downlink transmit power in the identified sub-band only if the factor is less than the threshold value.