Patent ID: 8731598

Claim:
A method of controlling a first basestation in a cellular wireless communications network, the method comprising: receiving first and second signal strength measurements made and reported by user equipment devices connected to said first basestation, the first signal strength measurements measuring signals from a neighbour macrocell basestation, the second signal strength measurements measuring signals from said first basestation; calculating, at said first basestation, based on the first signal strength measurements, first pathlosses between the neighbour macrocell basestation and the user equipment devices connected to said first basestation, the first pathlosses indicating an amount of attenuation of signals between the neighbour macrocell basestation and the user equipment devices connected to said first basestation; calculating, at said first basestation, based on the second signal strength measurements, second pathlosses between the user equipment devices connected to said first basestation and said first basestation, the second pathlosses indicating an amount of attenuation of signals between said first basestation and the user equipment devices connected to said first basestation; forming, at said first basestation, a first histogram of the first pathlosses at different times; forming, at said first basestation, a second histogram of the second pathlosses at different times; and adapting a maximum value for a total transmit power of the first basestation, based on said first and second histograms, such that a predetermined proportion of the second pathlosses are lower than an average of a subset of the first pathlosses.