Patent ID: 7145880

Claim:
A method for allocating communications channels selected from a plurality of available communications channels and for selecting an associated modulation method from a plurality of candidate modulation methods for establishing wireless communications with a receiver, comprising: selecting a plurality of candidate communications channels from the available communications channels; measuring noise on each candidate communications channel in the plurality of candidate communications channels to provide a channel noise level for each candidate communications channel; comparing the channel noise level associated with of each candidate communications channel with a noise threshold associated with each candidate signal modulation method of the plurality of available signal modulation methods to eliminate any unacceptable candidate signal modulation methods; assigning a packing factor associated with each combination of each candidate channel with a candidate signal modulation method, the packing factor having a value influenced by conditions in at least one other channel; assigning a modulation efficiency factor based at least in part on the amount of information that can be transmitted by a candidate modulation method; deriving a cost factor at least in part by combining the packing factor and the modulation efficiency factor; and selecting a least-cost channel from the plurality of candidate communications channels and selecting an associated least-cost modulation method from the plurality of candidate modulation methods based on the best cost factor from the plurality of candidate communications channels and the plurality of candidate signal modulation methods.