Patent ID: 9538387
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: H04B,H04W

Claim:
1. A method implemented by a network controller for coordinating assignment of radio resources to radio access points in a superdense, SDN, network comprising wireless terminals being served by the radio access points, the method comprising: identifying a set of radio access points in the SDN network whose respective radio resource assignment is to be independently coordinated from radio resource assignment to radio access points in another set of radio access points in the SDN network, wherein the sets of radio access points are isolated from one another such that no coordination is needed across the different sets with regard to radio resource assignment; obtaining interference information indicative of the extent to which radio transmissions to or from different radio access points in the identified set would interfere with one another without radio resource assignment coordination; forming subsets of the radio access points in the identified set, based on the obtained interference information, wherein the forming comprises forming one or more of the subsets to include multiple radio access points, wherein the forming comprises including in a respective subset radio access points whose radio transmissions would interfere with one another to an extent below a threshold, and excluding in the respective subset radio access points whose radio transmissions would interfere with one another to an extent above the threshold, as indicated by the obtained interference information, and wherein radio transmissions to or from radio access points in the same subset would interfere with one another to a lesser extent and radio transmissions to or from radio access points in different subsets would interfere with one another to a larger extent without radio resource assignment coordination, as indicated by the obtained interference information; assigning different subsets of radio resources to the different subsets of the radio access points, wherein the same subset of radio resources is assigned to the radio access points within each of the one or more subsets that include multiple radio access points; sending assignment information towards the radio access points in the identified set indicating the assignment of radio resources; and repeating the obtaining, forming, assigning, and sending for the another set of radio access points, independently of the obtaining, forming, assigning, and sending for the identified set; wherein the identifying a set of radio access points comprises obtaining interference information indicative of the extent to which radio transmissions to or from radio access points in multiple sets of radio access points would interfere with one another without radio resource assignment coordination, wherein the multiple sets include the another set of radio access points and the identified set; and determining, based on the obtained interference information indicative of the extent to which radio transmissions to or from radio access points in multiple sets of radio access points would interfere with one another without radio resource assignment coordination, that the extent of interference between radio transmissions to or from any given radio access point in the identified set and radio transmissions to or from any given radio access point in the another set would be below a defined threshold.