Patent ID: 8787286

Claim:
A method for admitting a request for allocating bandwidth for a public-safety user in a communication system where bandwidth is shared between commercial users and public-safety users, wherein the commercial users primarily utilize a commercial portion of the bandwidth and the public-safety users primarily utilize a public-safety portion of the bandwidth, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, via an interface, a request for a bearer reservation for bandwidth, wherein the request is associated with a priority; determining if the requested bandwidth exists within the public-safety portion of the bandwidth; admitting the bearer request using the public-safety portion of the bandwidth when sufficient bandwidth exists within the public-safety portion of the bandwidth; determining if the requested bandwidth exists within the commercial portion of the bandwidth when sufficient bandwidth does not exist within the public-safety portion of the bandwidth; admitting the bearer request using the commercial portion of the bandwidth when sufficient bandwidth exists within the commercial portion of the bandwidth and does not exist within the public-safety portion of the bandwidth; determining if there is a subset of existing public-safety reservations having a lower priority than the request (lower-priority public-safety reservations) when sufficient bandwidth does not exist within the commercial portion of the bandwidth and does not exist within the public-safety portion of the bandwidth; determining if there are any commercial users having a lower priority than the subset of lower-priority public-safety reservations when the subset of lower priority public-safety reservations exists and sufficient bandwidth does not exist within the commercial portion of the bandwidth and does not exist with the public-safety portion of the bandwidth, then preempting a subset of the commercial users with the lower priority than the subset lower-priority public-safety reservations, and admitting the request using the freed bandwidth from the commercial portion of the bandwidth; determining if there are any commercial reservations associated with a lower priority than the request when the subset of lower priority public-safety reservations does not exist and sufficient bandwidth does not exist within the commercial portion of the bandwidth and does not exits within the public-safety portion of the bandwidth, then preempting a subset of those commercial reservations with a lower priority than the request, and admitting the request using freed bandwidth from the commercial portion of the bandwidth.