Patent ID: 7764655
Filing Date: 2010-07-27
Classification: H04W

Abstract:
1. A communications network comprising: two or more points of presence for communication with wireless terminals, each point of presence represents a cell site, each point of presence having multiple receive antennas which provide diversity reception of wireless signals at the point of presence; a central site having one or more controllers, the one or more controllers comprise a selection system, the selection system carries out macro-diversity selection using a cell selector and micro-diversity selection using an antenna selector; and a switch system through which receive signals from each of the multiple receive antennas of each point of presence are connected to the selection system, wherein based on analysis, at the selection system at the central site, of the receive signals from each of the multiple receive antennas of each point of presence: (a) the cell selector performs the macro-diversity selection to counter macro spatial effects in the communications network, and selects one of the points of presence from the two or more points of presence for reception from a particular wireless terminal, and (b) the antenna selector performs the micro-diversity selection to counter micro spatial effects in the communications network, and selects one of the receive antennas of the multiple receive antennas of the selected point of presence, such that the antenna selector selects a micro-diversity channel from each point of presence from among at least two micro-diversity channels from each point of presence, and the cell selector selects a macro-diversity channel from among the selected micro-diversity channels.