Patent ID: 7177598

Claim:
A method of reducing co-channel interference in a communication system having base stations and terminal stations with each terminal station associated with one base station sector, each base station has an associated and corresponding cell, each cell includes a plurality of associated and corresponding sectors, each sector of each cell having a different channel than the other sectors of the same cell, the communication system comprises an uplink and a downlink with each including at least one slot, and the uplink comprises an uplink signal divided in the frequency domain into a plurality of channels, the method comprising: determining a set of terminal stations that may potentially interfere with each other at a selected base station sector if they use the same channel; determining a first subset of the set of terminal stations such that the subset communicates with a first set of associated and corresponding base station sectors that are arranged along a first line of sight that includes the selected base station; determining a second subset of the set of terminal stations, wherein the subset communicates with a second set of associated and corresponding base station sectors that are arranged along a second line of sight which is parallel with the first line of sight; allocating a first up link channel for the first subset of terminal stations; and allocating a second uplink channel for the second subset of terminal stations.