Patent ID: 7668555

Claim:
A method comprising: designating a region in a transmission frame as an uplink sounding signal region that is to contain uplink sounding signal sequences to be transmitted by one or more customer premises equipment (CPE) in a cell intended for reception by a base transceiver station (BTS) in the cell; at the BTS, communicating uplink sounding information including a selected sounding signal sequence used in the cell with at least one other BTS that serves CPEs in an adjacent cell, wherein the selected sounding signal sequence is selected from a set of orthogonal signal sequences such that a different sounding signal sequence is used in corresponding ones of a plurality of cells which are adjacent to each other to enable the BTS to distinguish a sounding signal received from a CPE in the cell from a sounding signal received from a CPE in an adjacent cell; at the BTS, receiving one or more first sounding signals in the uplink sounding region of a transmission frame from a first CPE in the cell, wherein the one or more first sounding signals are considered desired signals based on the sounding signal sequence contained in the one or more first sounding signals; based on the one or more first sounding signals received at the BTS, determining whether the first CPE uses the same channel as that used by one or more second CPEs in in one or more adjacent cells; at the BTS, detecting one or more second sounding signals from the one or more second CPEs at the BTS and determining that the one or more second sounding signals are interference signals based on the sounding signal sequences contained therein; and at the BTS, calculating a beamforming weighting vector using the one or more first sounding signals and the one or more second sounding signals in order to suppress the one or more second sounding signals.