Patent ID: 8422453

Claim:
A spectrum-assignment method for use in a wireless communication system, the system comprising at least first and second communication apparatuses each having a portion of communication spectrum pre-assigned to it for communication, the method comprising: on a dynamic basis, controlling re-assignments of said spectrum between the first and second communication apparatuses in dependence upon spectrum requirements of those apparatuses and at least one indicator indicative of interference expected to result from such re-assignments, so as to tend to improve spectrum utilization between those communication apparatuses; for each such re-assignment, selecting a spectrum configuration to be adopted in dependence upon one or more indicators of the at least one indicator; identifying a plurality of candidate configurations for such selection; selecting the configuration to be adopted from the plurality of candidate configurations; and identifying the plurality of candidate configurations by identifying a first such candidate configuration and identifying the further candidate configuration(s) by carrying out an iterative process on the first candidate configuration.