Patent ID: 6023621
Filing Date: 2000-02-08
Classification: H04W,Y02D

Abstract:
In a telephone system in which plural base stations communicate with plural remote units using RF links and in which said base stations provide telephone coverage over a predetermined geographic area, said base stations comprising RF communication means for communicating with said remote units over a predetermined set of RF frequencies, the communications between said base stations and said remote units on the set of predetermined RF frequencies utilizes a time series of repeating frames, each frame comprising plural slots and each slot at a particular base station may be communicated using a different frequency from the other slots within a frame, a method of communicating comprising the steps of:(a) monitoring at each base station within the telephone system each of the predetermined set of RF frequencies to determine which frequencies are in use by remote units of the same telephone system within the communications range of said base station, each of said base stations determining available slot/frequency combinations within the predetermined set of RF frequencies;(b) using one of the frequencies determined not to be in use when a need to establish a new communication with one of said remote units within the same telephone system is requested by said remote unit.