Patent ID: 8457678

Claim:
A base station for use in a wireless communication system, the system comprising radio cells, wherein each radio cell comprises a plurality of subcarrier blocks, each subcarrier block comprising a plurality of subcarriers, the base station comprising: a processing unit that groups the subcarrier blocks of a radio cell controlled by the base station into a plurality of subcarrier block sets, wherein the radio cell and its adjacent radio cells in the wireless communication system build a cell cluster, and each cell in the cell cluster comprises corresponding subcarrier block sets having the same subcarrier blocks, and an assigning unit that assigns transmission power ranges to the plurality of subcarrier block sets, respectively, wherein a transmission power range defines a range of transmission power levels used for transmission power control, wherein at least one of the subcarrier block sets in the radio cell controlled by the base station is assigned a different transmission power range than other subcarrier block sets in the radio cell controlled by the base station.