Patent ID: 7983687

Claim:
A method for use in a cell in a cellular communications system where the cell supports multiple mobile radio terminal connections with mobile radio terminals, comprising: selecting at a serving cell a number of active uplink mobile radio terminal connections; estimating uplink signal-to-interference ratios for the number of mobile radio terminal connections; determining signal-to-interference ratio errors for the estimated uplink signal-to-interference ratios; identifying one or more signal-to-interference ratio errors that exceed a signal-to-interference ratio error threshold; determining an instability indicator associated with the cell based on the one or more identified signal-to-interference ratio errors using statistical variance, where the instability indicator indicates a risk of a potential uplink transmission power rush in the cell; and scheduling one or more uplink mobile radio transmissions by dynamically adjusting a headroom of available power in the cell based on the instability indicator to avoid an uplink transmission power rush.