Patent ID: 9084166
Filing Date: 2015-07-14
Classification: H04W

Abstract:
1. In a radio access network (RAN) device of a wireless communication system, a method comprising: receiving a request to set up a new communication session between an access terminal and a client communication device over a communicative connection including a particular air interface having a particular forward link for communications to the access terminal in a particular wireless coverage zone of the wireless communication system, and a particular reverse link for communications from the access terminal in the particular wireless coverage zone; predicting during set-up of the newly-requested communication session that there is greater than a threshold likelihood that the communicative connection will also include a respective additional air interface in each of at least one additional wireless coverage zone of a wireless communication network during the course of the newly-requested communication session; during set-up of the newly-requested communication session, determining a respective transmission rate supported by the respective additional air interface in each of the at least one additional wireless coverage zones based on capacity load conditions in each of the at least one additional wireless coverage zones; during set-up of the newly-requested communication session, determining an air-interface transmission rate supported by the particular air interface in the particular wireless coverage zone based on capacity load conditions in the particular wireless coverage zone; selecting a coding rate for the particular air interface based on a comparison of the determined respective transmission rates and the air-interface transmission rate supported by the particular air interface; and transmitting an instruction to the access terminal to use the selected coding rate for air-interface communications for a duration of the newly-requested communication session, wherein selecting the coding rate for the particular air interface based on the comparison of the determined respective transmission rates and the air-interface transmission rate supported by the particular air interface comprises: determining a minimum rate value from among the determined air-interface transmission rate and the determined respective transmission rates; from among the determined air-interface transmission rate and the determined respective transmission rates, determining a particular rate value that is a maximum of a set of all rate values that are each no greater than a given threshold above the determined minimum rate value; and selecting the coding rate to correspond to the determined particular rate value.