Patent ID: 8705484

Claim:
A method for use in a wireless communication system having a plurality of cells and transmitting wireless signals using MIMO transmission, the method comprising: varying transmit power coordination patterns for base stations in the wireless communication system to jointly vary base station transmit power over a set of virtual channels over base stations within a cluster and across clusters of base stations, wherein at least two virtual channels are employed by each cluster of base stations, wherein center base stations in each cluster transmit at a first power level for each of the at least two virtual channels, edge base stations in each cluster transmit at a second power level, different than the first power level, for one of the at least two virtual channels, and edge base stations in each cluster transmit at a third power level, different from the first and second power levels, for another of the at least two virtual channels, wherein edge base stations of adjacent clusters of base stations transmit at different power levels for corresponding virtual channels; and jointly transmitting by groups of the base stations to one or more user terminals in their respective clusters based on the transmit power coordination patterns.