Patent ID: 8521172

Claim:
A capacity management system for allocating RF radio channel resources within a local cellular wireless communications network that is comprised of a plurality of macro and DAS sites, a base station controller, and respective backhaul transmission means that communicatively connect said base station controller to each of said macro and DAS sites, each of said macro and DAS sites having a respective base transceiver station, each of said base transceiver stations containing a plurality of RF radio channel resources that are available for reallocation to neighboring macro and DAS sites within said local network and to cellular wireless communications networks outside said local cellular wireless communications network, each of said radio channel resources connected to said base station controller through said backhaul transmission means and each of said respective backhaul transmission means having a pair of ends, each of said backhaul transmission means ends including an identical backhaul transport interface, said capacity management system comprising: a radio resource capacity management system in communication with said base station controller through a bi-directional data link that continuously provides radio channel resource capacity data to said radio resource capacity management system, said radio resource capacity management system adapted to simultaneously reallocate the RF radio channel resources of the entire network to one or more macro and DAS sites within said network based on one of an external directive and an internal optimization analysis of said radio resource capacity data that is communicated from the base station controller via the bi-directional data link, wherein radio resource capacity requirements and radio resource capacity reserves of each site are determined as a part of said optimization analysis and wherein said external directive is based on predetermined radio resource capacity requirements of each site and wherein all reallocated radio channel resources will physically pass through said radio capacity management system; a respective RF transmission means dedicated to each of said macro and DAS sites for connecting said radio resource capacity management system to each of said macro and DAS sites, said RF transmissions means facilitating the physical transfer of radio capacity resources into and out of said radio resource capacity management system as said radio resources are reallocated within said local cellular wireless communications network.