Patent ID: 6999760

Claim:
Frequency hopping scheme used by a base station located in a cell of a wireless radio communication network, said cell being divided in N substantially identical sectors S 1 , S 2 , . . . , SN looking out from said base station, sector Si being contiguous to sectors Si−1 and Si+1 for 2≦i≦N−1 and sector S 1 being contiguous to sector SN, N frequencies f 1 <f 2 < . . . <fN being available for transmitting signals from said base station to radio terminals located in said cell, the frequency used for transmitting signal in one sector of said cell being different from the N−1 other frequencies used in the subsequent N−1 sectors, said frequency used in one sector changing every time slot according to a frequency hopping scheme, wherein, at a predefined time slot, the frequency used in said sectors S 1 , . . . , SN respectively are the following: f 1 ; f 3 ; f 5 ; . . . ; f 2 n− 1 ; f 2 ; f 4 ; f 6 ; . . . ; f 2 n ; if N =2 n or f 1 ; f 3 ; f 5 ; . . . ; f 2 n− 1 ; f 2 ; f 4 ; f 6 ; . . . ; f 2 n −2; if N =2 n− 1; the frequency used in said sectors at any subsequent time slot being a cyclic permutation of the previous sequence, wherein the frequencies used in each sector are in an ordered sequence, and wherein for each sector, the frequency used in each time slot is based on said ordered sequence.