Patent ID: 8908605

Claim:
In a radio access network (RAN) device of a wireless communication system, a method comprising: transmitting respective wireless signals on a respective air-interface forward link from a base station of the RAN device to each of a given number of access terminals operating in a wireless coverage zone of the base station, wherein communications on each respective air-interface forward link are encoded with a respective cover code that is one of a plurality of types of cover codes, each of the plurality of types of cover codes having a different cover-code bit length; in response to receiving a request to set up a new communication session with a particular access terminal, allocating a new cover code for encoding communications on a new air-interface forward link in the wireless coverage zone from the base station to the particular access terminal, wherein the allocated new cover code is of a type selected from the plurality, based on a distribution among the given number of access terminals of the types of cover codes; updating the distribution based on allocating the new cover code; and determining a coding rate for communications on the new air-interface forward link based on both the updated distribution and capacity loading in the wireless coverage zone when the request was received, wherein determining the coding rate for communications on the new air-interface forward link based on both the updated distribution and the capacity loading in the wireless coverage zone comprises: adjusting one or more capacity loading thresholds based on the updated distribution; and comparing the capacity loading in the wireless coverage zone with at least one of the one or more adjusted capacity loading thresholds.