Patent ID: 8547909

Claim:
A method of allocating channel elements for use as an overhead channel group in a base station serving a plurality of sectors, comprising the steps of: detecting a failure of a primary channel card on which channel elements are configured for an overhead channel group of a given sector: in response to detecting the failure, identifying an additional channel card on which to configure failover channel elements for the overhead channel group; determining that there is an insufficient number of unassigned channel elements available on the additional channel card to serve as the failover channel elements for the overhead channel group; in response to determining that there is an insufficient number of unassigned channel elements available on the additional channel card, (a) identifying each channel element on the additional channel card that is assigned to a call in a call setup phase and (b) terminating each call on the additional channel card that is in a call setup phase to make available each identified channel element assigned to a call in a call setup phase; and dynamically configuring at least one identified channel element previously assigned to a call in a call setup phase to serve as at least one of the failover channel elements for the overhead channel group.