Patent ID: 9585023
Date: 2017-02-28
CPC Classifications: H04W

Claim:
1. A method of allocating system resources in a communication system, comprising: ranking a plurality of terminals in communication with a first sector of a current base station based, at least in part, on signal quality metrics achieved by the plurality of terminals for the current base station, wherein the first sector of the current base station is adjacent to at least one neighboring sector of at least one neighboring base station; identifying, from the ranking, a set of low-ranked terminals; allocating available system resources to the plurality of terminals based on the ranking of the plurality of terminals, wherein the available system resources comprise a first set of system resources that is orthogonal to at least a second set of system resources and orthogonal to a third set of system resources, the first set of system resources comprising a set of system resources assigned to the first sector of the current base station, the second set of system resources comprising a set of system resources assigned to the at least one neighboring sector of the at least one neighboring base station, and the third set of system resources comprising additional system resources not in the first set of system resources, wherein the third set of system resources overlap with a fourth set of system resources and overlap with the second set of system resources, the fourth set of system resources comprising at least one set of system resources assigned to a second sector of the current base station, wherein at least a portion of the third set of system resources is allocated to at least one of the plurality of terminals in communication with the first sector of the current base station, and wherein the allocating allocates some or all of the first set of system resources to the set of low-ranked terminals based on the identifying to reduce inter-sector interference at the set of low-ranked terminals.