Patent ID: 8897796

Claim:
A method comprising: determining a strength of a signal at a base station, the signal being received wirelessly from a mobile station; determining whether the mobile station has a preferred status that allows the mobile station to be assigned to a reserved wireless channel in a first subset of wireless channels based on a preference assignment; responsive to a determination that the mobile station does not have the preferred status: determining a position in an ordering of the wireless channels based on signal strength; and assigning a wireless channel that corresponds to the determined position to the mobile station, the wireless channel being formed by a set of OFDMA subcarriers for a predetermined period of time; reserving the first subset of the wireless channels for a first set of mobile stations in a first cell that have preferred statuses, the first subset of the wireless channels having a restricted assignment status in a second cell; causing a second subset of the wireless channels to remain vacant by restricting an assignment status of the second subset of the wireless channels in the first cell; and assigning a third subset of the wireless channels to a second set of mobile stations in the first cell based on signal strength.