Patent ID: 6963741

Claim:
A method of controlling resources to avoid congestion in a cellular radio system having at least one mobile terminal connectable to a network via at least one base station, said method comprising the steps of: receiving in each of a plurality of base stations, an uplink signal sent from the mobile terminal, wherein each base station receives the uplink signal with a different quality due to different uplink radio paths between the mobile terminal and each of the base stations; sending the received uplink signal from each base station to a network node; combining the plurality of uplink signals received at the network node to obtain a resulting signal corresponding to the uplink signal sent from the mobile terminal; determining an amount that each received uplink signal contributes to the resulting signal; determining whether there is a shortage or a projected shortage of resources to handle current or projected traffic demand in each base station; and if there is a shortage or a projected shortage of resources in a given base station: determining whether the uplink signal received by the given base station contributed a greater amount to the resulting signal than most of the other base station; if the uplink signal received by the given base station contributed a greater amount to the resulting signal than most of the other base stations, maintaining the allocation of resources to the downlink connection between the given base station and the mobile terminal; and if the uplink signal received by the given base station did not contribute a greater amount to the resulting signal than most of the other base stations, freeing resources from the downlink connection between the given base station and the mobile terminal.