Patent ID: 8682326

Claim:
A base station, comprising: a scheduler; an antenna system that vertically sweeps an antenna beam within a cell coverage area to vary a signal quality at scheduled times for a user terminal located within the cell coverage area; said scheduler estimating a signal strength within the cell coverage area based on variations in the vertical sweep of the antenna beam, and performing a scheduling function based on the estimated signal strength; where the scheduler performs at least two of following scheduling functions: a link adaptation function, a resource allocation function, a user admittance/dropping function, a handover function, and a hybrid automatic repeat request function; where the scheduler performs the link adaptation function while taking into account the variations in the vertical sweep of the antenna beam when selecting a modulation and coding scheme to utilize for the user terminal; where the scheduler performs the resource allocation function while taking into account the variations in the vertical sweep of the antenna beam when allocating resources used for transmitting signals to or receiving signals from the user terminal; where the scheduler performs the user admittance/dropping function while taking into account the variations in the vertical sweep of the antenna beam when admitting or dropping one or more user terminals which are located in the coverage area; where the scheduler performs the handover function while taking into account the variations in the vertical sweep of the antenna beam when assign handover resources to one or more user terminals and designating one or more user terminals to make handover measurements; and where the scheduler performs the hybrid automatic repeat request function while taking into account the variations in the vertical sweep of the antenna beam when rescheduling retransmissions to the user terminal.