Patent ID: 7860074

Claim:
A method for allocating communication resources to support both a first communication service and a second communication service that is different from the first communication service, comprising: providing a pool of communication slots as supported by a plurality of physical carriers, wherein at least some of the communication slots share a common physical carrier; upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the first communication service, preferentially allocating, when available, one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers: does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service; and has a highest number of presently unallocated communication slots; and upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the second communication service, preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service when available, wherein preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service when available further includes preferentially avoiding, when all of the physical carriers that have an unallocated communication slot also already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service, a communication slot that, once allocated to support the second communication service, will tend to further contribute to an unequal potential allocation of communication slots as between the physical carriers that support the first communication service.