Patent ID: 8116204

Claim:
A method in a cellular radio network telecommunication system for assigning resources to user devices, wherein said system includes a network node having resources to be allocated in a radio cell served by said network node, said method comprising the steps of: assigning a priority to each user device in said radio cell, wherein a user device consuming a larger portion of said resources is assigned a lower priority than a user device consuming a lower portion of said resources, and wherein a higher priority is assigned to a user device having requested a higher rate for a longer time; receiving a rate request for a larger transmission rate from a first user device having a first priority; and, if not sufficient free resources are available to fulfill said first user device rate request: selecting a second user device having lower priority than said first user device; sending messages to said first user device and second user device indicating a scheduled grant; and, transferring resources assigned to said second user device from said second user device to said first user device to thereby decrease the consumed resources for said second user device and increase the consumed resources for said first user device; and if said first user device has a scheduled rate which is lower than a target rate and, in said step of selecting, no second user device can be found which has a scheduled rate which is larger than said target rate, or if a maximum number of simultaneously active user devices has been reached, then: in said step of selecting, selecting a second user device having consumed resources at least for a defined time; and, in said step of transferring, transferring all, or a part, of said second user device resources to said first user device.