Patent ID: 8228811

Claim:
A network node for communicating over an air interface with a first mobile user terminal, the network node comprising: a hardware pool comprising hardware resources for communicating with a plurality of mobile user terminals over the air interface; a scheduler configured to allocate and de-allocate at least a first hardware resource from the pool of hardware resources for communicating with the first mobile user terminal, wherein the scheduler includes a delayer configured to delay the de-allocation of an allocated hardware resource when delayed de-allocation of the allocated hardware resource is needed; a detector configured to detect whether the mobile user terminal will continue to utilize the allocated hardware resource after a scheduled de-allocation for transmitting pending retransmissions; and a rate detector configured to estimate transmission rates; wherein the delayer is configured to delay de-allocation of the hardware resource when the mobile user terminal will continue to utilize the allocated hardware resource after the scheduled de-allocation for transmitting pending retransmissions, and the estimated transmission rate of the retransmissions is larger than a threshold value.