Patent ID: 8229444

Claim:
A method of allocating carriers of a cellular system including a wireless network and a plurality of mobile stations, the wireless network including at least a plurality of base stations, a plurality of carriers being available for communication between the base stations and the mobile stations, the method comprising: a step in which the wireless network divides the plurality of carriers into first carriers and second carriers, and allocates the same for each of a plurality of cells formed by the plurality of base stations; a step in which the wireless network classifies each of the plurality of mobile stations as an intracell-inner-area mobile station that is in an intracell inner area of a cell formed by one of the base stations or an intracell-outer-area mobile station that is in an intracell outer area of the cell, the intracell inner area being closer to the base station than the intracell outer area, the classification of the mobile stations being carried out based on the propagation losses of signals transmitted from one or more of the base stations to the mobile station in question; a step in which the wireless network performs communication with the intracell-inner-area mobile station by using the first carriers, and performs communication with the intracell-outer-area mobile station by using the second carriers; a step in which the wireless network measures a status of use of the first carriers in a first cell out of the plurality of cells based on communicated data; a step in which the wireless network measures a status of use of the second carriers in a second cell out of the plurality of cells based on communicated data; and a step in which the wireless network changes the number of the second carriers used for the intracell-outer-area mobile stations in the second cell based on at least the status of use of the first carriers used for the intracell-inner-area mobile stations in the first cell and the status of use of the second carriers in the second cell measured.