Patent ID: 9001703
Filing Date: 2015-04-07
Classification: H04W

Abstract:
1. A method for dynamically consolidating unicast downlinks in a broadband radio access network (RAN) for a requested group call, the method comprising: receiving, at a call controller, a group call request for a group call from a requesting device; identifying, by the call controller, a plurality of target subscriber devices indicated by the group call request for participation in the group call; identifying, by the call controller, at least a first subset of target subscriber devices out of the plurality of target subscriber devices that are determined to be within an air-interface downlink wireless communication range of at least one other target subscriber device in the first subset and identifying, by the call controller, each target subscriber device not in a subset; selecting, by the call controller, one of the plurality of target subscriber devices in the first subset as a subscriber device to subscriber device broadcast downlink repeater (SD-BDR) for all of the other target subscriber devices in the first subset, informing the selected one of the plurality of target subscriber devices in the first subset that it is the selected SD-BDR for the first subset and instructing the SD-BDR on at least one of a frequency and timeslot on which to locally broadcast provided group call data; informing, by the call controller, the other target subscriber devices in the first subset that they are to receive the group call via the selected SD-BDR; receiving, by the call controller from the requesting device, group call data associated with the requested group call; and providing, by the call controller, the group call data received from the requesting device to each target subscriber device in each identified subset via a corresponding single unicast downlink in the RAN to the subset's corresponding selected SD-BDR and to each target subscriber device not in a subset via corresponding separate single unicast downlinks in the RAN.