Patent ID: 7961641

Claim:
A method comprising: determining, by a mobile user device, an uplink propagation path loss (L) value between the mobile user device and a base station; determining, by the mobile user device, a noise and interference level (NI) value for the base station; determining, by the mobile user device, a normalized carrier-to-noise (C/N) value for ranging; determining, by the mobile user device, an offset value (offset); transmitting a ranging sequence at an initial signal strength (PINITIAL) determined by the mobile user device from the mobile user device to the base station, wherein PINITIAL is a function of L, NI, C/N, and the offset value, the method further comprising: (i) determining if a ranging response is received from the base station; (ii) if a ranging response from the base station is not received within a period of time, incrementing the initial signal strength by a step value (D) and retransmitting the ranging sequence, wherein D=(PMAX−PINITIAL)/K, where PMAX is a maximum signal strength and K is an integer greater than or equal to 1 and, (iii) repeating (i) and (ii) until the ranging response is received at the mobile user device transceiver.