Patent ID: 7844289

Claim:
A computer implemented method comprising: acquiring information about interfering base stations in a vicinity of a base station of interest (BSOI); and choosing one of said interfering base stations as a master base station for said BSOI, wherein a master base station is a base station to which another base station is to synchronize; wherein choosing one of said interfering base stations as a master base station includes: when said interfering base stations are from multiple sync groups, selecting a sync group from said multiple sync groups to be a master sync group, wherein a sync group is a group of base stations that are currently synchronized with one another; when said interfering base stations are all from a common sync group, identifying said common sync group as said master sync group; and when said master sync group includes at least one master base station that is also one of said interfering base stations and that has a received signal strength within said BSOI that is adequate to perform accurate synchronization, assigning one of said at least one master base station as a master base station of said BSOI.