Patent ID: 8787305

Claim:
A method in a network node for allocating resources for peer-to-peer communications, the method comprising: creating or updating peer sets, in the network node, from measured performance information received from one or more stations, wherein the measured performance information includes at least one quality metric associated with a downlink signal sent from the network node to the one or more stations; determining, based on the measured performance information, whether the network node is a high impact peer of a low impact peer of a peer-to-peer communication transmit station; determining, in the network node, a preferred timeslot for both a peer-to-peer communication among medium or high impact peer stations and a downlink communication by the network node based on current resource assignments in each timeslot, the peer sets, and the determination of whether the network node is a high impact peer or a low impact peer of each station associated with the peer-to-peer communication; marking, in the network node, potential resources in a peer-to-peer portion of a resource allocation map based on the determination of the preferred timeslot; and allocating, in the network node, one of the potential resources for peer-to-peer communication between a transmitter station and one or more receiver stations.