Patent ID: 8542640

Claim:
A method of operating a multiple-cell network, each cell having at least one wireless transmission entity, the method comprising: dividing multiple cells into a plurality of subsets of cells, each subset having one or more cells, the plurality of subsets of cells having an associated priority, the priority of which is changed over transmission resources; causing cells of a subset to operate transmission processes independent of each other without requiring exchange of information between the cells of the same subset; causing cells of lower priority to utilize transmissions by cells of higher priority and transmission parameters from cells of higher priority in determining their own transmission parameters; performing scheduling and transmission parameter operations for each cell starting with a highest priority subset of cells, and ending with a lowest priority subset of cells; forwarding scheduling and transmission parameter information from each of the transmission entities in the subset of cells having a higher priority to selected transmission entities in a subset of cells having a lower priority, and further comprising: selecting beamforming vectors by sending beam pilots from transmission entities in the subset of cells having a second highest priority, wherein the beamforming vectors and associated beam pilots in each such cell are selected in part to limit interference to user terminal in at least some of the highest priority cells based on scheduling and transmission parameter information received form cells having the highest priority; performing scheduling decisions and transmission parameter decisions, wherein the scheduling decisions and transmission parameter decisions include selecting for each of the second priority cells, at least one of the following: (i) beamforming vectors to send data on, (ii) rate allocations to users, and (iii) power on each of the beamforming vectors; wherein the second priority cells operate such processes independent from processes other second priority cells.