Patent ID: 7751808
Filing Date: 2010-07-06
Classification: G06F,H04M,H04W,Y02D

Abstract:
1. A base station apparatus having a plurality of sectors, each of sectors have their own areas in which radio waves can reach and a part of which are overlapped with each other and communicating with a wireless terminal in the sectors and a wired communication network, the base station apparatus comprises: an apparatus management portion that manages the entire base station apparatus based on control signals from a network management device in the wired communication network; antennas for each of the plurality of sectors; and sector control portions for each of the plurality of sectors, wherein each of, the sector control portions comprises: a wireless interface that transmits and receives wireless signals through corresponding antenna; a communication processing portion that processes signals which is transmitted and received by the wireless interface; a memory that stores a software for controlling the wireless interface and the communication processing portion; and a CPU that controls the wireless interface and the communication processing portion in response to an instruction from the apparatus management portion by using the software stored in the memory, wherein when the apparatus management portion receives an upgrading request to upgrade software from the network management device, at a state in which a new software for upgrading has been transferred from the network management device to the base station apparatus, wherein the apparatus management portion does not perform a software upgrading processing for each of the sector control portions at the same time, controls the each of the sector control portions to change their own cover areas which radio waves can reach such that one of the sectors no longer provides the communication services to perform the software upgrading processing by reducing a transmission power to a predetermined lowest value and other sectors provide the communication services to continue the communication services which have been performed at the upgrading sector and, performs the software upgrading processing for each of the sector control portions sequentially, wherein the CPU of the sector control portion is adapted to perform the software upgrading processing in accordance with a control by the apparatus management portion, wherein the CPU requests the wireless interface to reduce the transmission power of the sector control portion by a predetermined rate of the power reduction, wherein the wireless interface reduces the transmission power in response to the request and, notifies the CPU of the transmission power value after the transmission power reduction, wherein the CPU, in accordance with the notification, determines if the notified transmission power value reaches the predetermined lowest value of the transmission power or not, wherein the CPU, in a case that the transmission power value does not reaches the lowest value, further requests to reduce the transmission power by the predetermined rate of the power reduction, and wherein the CPU, in a case that the transmission power value reaches the lowest value, finishes the reduction of the transmission power, performs a reset processing and a load processing of the new software for upgrading and, performs a processing of gradually increasing the transmission power, thereby performs the software upgrade processing.