Patent ID: 7536205

Claim:
For use in wireless network, a base station capable of communicating with a plurality of mobile stations in a coverage area of said wireless network, said base station comprising: a transceiver capable of transmitting downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) signals to each of said plurality of mobile stations; an antenna array comprising a plurality of antenna elements capable of transmitting said downlink OFDMA signals to said each of said plurality of mobile stations using spatially directed beams; and a spatial division multiple access (SDMA) scheduling controller capable of scheduling downlink transmissions to said plurality of mobile stations for a first time-frequency slot by: (a) including in an available set of mobile stations all of said plurality of mobile stations; (b) scheduling a mobile station having a highest priority in said available set of mobile stations for downlink transmission in said first time-frequency slot; and (c) removing from said available set of mobile stations all mobile stations that are spatially correlated with said scheduled mobile station.