Patent ID: 8165098

Claim:
A method for allocating bandwidth from a radio frequency spectrum in a cellular network including a set of cells, wherein each cell includes a base station for serving a set of mobile stations in the cell, comprising: partitioning an area around each base station into a center region and an edge region; reserving, in each base station, cell-center bandwidth for allocation to the mobile stations in the center region according to an inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) protocol; reserving, in each base station, cell-edge bandwidth for allocation to the mobile stations in the edge region according to the ICIC protocol and a base station cooperation (BSC) protocol; and allocating the center-cell bandwidth and the cell-edge bandwidth to the mobile stations as the mobile stations communicate with the base stations according the ICIC protocol and the BSC protocol, and wherein the cell-edge bandwidth reserved for the center region and the cell-edge bandwidth reserved for edge region are disjoint.