Patent ID: 7912472

Claim:
A method for managing radio resources in a mobile communication network, said resources being allocated to a plurality of communication channels each associated with a set of requested quality of service parameters, said method comprising the use of a resource preemption procedure following the acceptance of a new request for a communication channel associated with a set of requested quality of service parameters and following the detection of a lack of resources necessary to support said new request, the resource preemption procedure being designed to modulate allocation of resources to previously active communication channels as a function of a priority level associated with each of them, so as to set up an order relation between the different communication channels, wherein said preemption procedure comprises the following steps: a) identifying active communication channels on the network that might be preempted and among them, selecting the lowest priority communication channel according to predefined selection criteria; b) evaluating the gain in radio resources obtained by at least partial reconfiguration of the selected communication channel, said selected communication channel and said associated gain being memorized in a reconfiguration list; c) checking if the gain achieved by all communication channels included in the list is sufficient to support said new request; and d) repeating steps a to c: until the gain obtained is sufficient, in which case the communication channels included in the list are reconfigured and the new request is accepted, or until all communication channels that could be preempted have been evaluated without obtaining sufficient gain, in which case the new request is refused.