Patent ID: 8238322

Claim:
A method, comprising: setting up a connection between a base station and a user terminal in a radio access network of a cellular communications system; transmitting map messages within frames from the base station to the user terminal; predefining one or more allocations, each allocation indicating locations of one or more selected frame slots, and at least one allocation indicating a location of more than one frame slot; defining one or more allocation sets, each set including at least one allocation; assigning an allocation set for the connection; providing information on the assigned allocation set to the respective user terminal; activating, if needed, one or more of the allocations in the assigned allocation set by transmitting a map message in a selected frame to the user terminal, the map message identifying the allocation to be activated; defining a first bitmap for defining a location, size and modulation and coding scheme for the allocation, and defining a second bitmap for specifying whether the first bitmap for a particular connection is used or not.