Patent ID: 7142580

Claim:
A cellular communication system, comprising: a plurality of base station transceivers; at least one base station controller that is configured to control the plurality of base station transceivers; and a cell group that comprises a plurality of cells that are respectively associated with the plurality of base station transceivers and with a plurality of primary frequencies, such that in each of the plurality of cells the respectively associated base station transceiver uses the respectively associated primary frequency to communicate control information, communication of the control information being constrained to the respectively associated primary frequency, and uses coordinated frequency hopping based on a hopping sequence over the plurality of primary frequencies to communicate traffic information; wherein each of the plurality of cells has predefined control time slots associated therewith that are used to communicate the control information and has predefined traffic time slots associated therewith that are used to communicate the traffic information and at least one defined idle time slot separates at least one of the predefined control time slots from at least one of the predefined traffic time slots, which are associated with different primary frequencies.