Patent ID: 8605592

Claim:
A method in a Radio Base Station for detecting and reducing congestion in a Radio Access Network, wherein the Radio Base Station is comprised within the Radio Access Network and is configured to control the bitrate allowed for a flow of traffic incoming to the Radio Base Station from a Radio Network Controller, the method comprising: detecting the occurrence of traffic congestion within the Radio Access Network, measuring an incoming bitrate of said flow during a period of time, obtaining a shaping bitrate concerning the traffic between the Radio Base Station and the Radio Network Controller, comparing the obtained shaping bitrate with the measured incoming bitrate, determining a congestion event type describing a type of the detected traffic congestion as soft congestion or hard congestion, wherein if both soft congestion and hard congestion are detected said determining comprises determining the congestion event type as hard congestion, computing a bitrate reduction, for reducing the bitrate allowed for said flow, based on the comparison between the shaping bitrate and the measured bitrate and also based on the determined congestion event type, wherein the bitrate reduction is inversely correlated to the measured incoming bitrate, and reducing the bitrate allowed for said flow of traffic incoming to the Radio Base Station, according to the computed bitrate reduction.