Patent ID: 8488459

Claim:
An apparatus for power control for QoS classes in a wireless communication system, comprising: a controller operative to identify, for each of at least two terminals given as belonging to a QoS class among a given plurality of Quality of Service (QoS) classes, whether the terminal is a disadvantaged terminal or a not disadvantaged terminal based on an estimated channel gain of the at least two terminals; and a processor operative to process data transmissions received from one or both of the at least two terminals given as belonging to said QoS class for at least one of the Quality of Service (QoS) classes and to obtain, for each of at least two of the data transmissions, a status information indicating a received quality of the data transmission, wherein the controller is further operative to conditionally update a QoS parameter corresponding to said QoS class, conditional in part on the status information and on whether the received and processed data transmission for which the status information is obtained is from a terminal identified as a disadvantaged terminal, wherein if said received and processed data transmission is from a terminal identified as a disadvantaged terminal, to update said QoS parameter for the said QoS class based, at least in part, on the obtained status information and at least one given requirement for said QoS class, and to send the updated QoS parameter to at least two of the terminals given as belonging to the said QoS class, wherein at least one of said at least two is identified as disadvantaged terminal and at least one of said at least two is identified as a not disadvantaged terminal, and if said received and processed data transmission is from a terminal not identified as a disadvantaged terminal, to not update said QoS parameter based on the status information obtained for the data transmission.