Patent ID: 8190168

Claim:
A method, comprising: identifying one or more cell edge mobile stations by an identifying base station in a wireless network; grouping base stations and mobile stations into approved base station/mobile station (BS/MS) pairs by the identifying base station, the approved BS/MS pairs comprising BS/MS pairs that can share resources with the identifying base station and one of its identified cell edge mobile stations; grouping other base stations and other mobile stations into avoid BS/MS pairs by the identifying base station, the avoid BS/MS pairs comprising BS/MS pairs that cannot share resources with the identifying base station and one of its identified cell edge mobile stations; and scheduling a BS/MS pair by the identifying base station using a first scheduling algorithm if the identifying base station has a fast backhaul connection to other base stations in the network, the first scheduling algorithm consisting of the following steps: selecting one or more cell edge users that satisfy predefined conditions for each frame by the identifying base station, wherein the selected cell edge users are part of an eligible cell edge user set; calculating a scheduling metric using scheduling and channel information obtained in earlier frames for all users in the eligible cell edge user set; selecting a cell edge user from the eligible cell edge user set, wherein the selected cell edge user has the highest scheduling metric; and scheduling downlink transmissions to the selected cell edge user; and otherwise using a second scheduling algorithm; wherein the scheduling algorithms schedule downlink transmissions to cell edge users while simultaneously reducing interference to cell edge users served by neighboring base stations.