Patent ID: 8842621

Claim:
A method of controlling a wireless network for connecting network users to a communications network, the wireless network comprising a plurality of network components, the network components comprising a plurality of base stations connected to the communications network and a plurality of terminals connected to the network users, each terminal having a link with a base station to form a base station/terminal pair, and the links being established over a wireless resource comprising a plurality of resource blocks, the method comprising the steps of: determining, for each base station/terminal pair, a set of resource utilisation fractions, said set of resource utilisation fractions indicating probabilities for establishing said link between that base station and that terminal via each of said plurality of resource blocks; determining a set of co-channel interference matrices, a co-channel interference matrix being determined for each network component, said co-channel interference matrix indicative of an expected interference from other network components, for each of said plurality of resource blocks, when that network component receives network traffic via that resource block, wherein said expected interference is probabilistically determined in dependence on said sets of resource utilisation fractions; distributing, to each base station, corresponding elements from said sets of resource utilisation fractions and from said sets of co-channel interference matrices; suppressing, in each network component, co-channel interference in dependence on the co-channel interference matrix determined for that network component; and in each base station, when exchanging network traffic with said plurality of terminals, dynamically establishing said links as required to handle said network traffic for that base station by selecting from said resource blocks in accordance with said resource utilisation fractions.