Patent Document ID: 10097329
Application ID: 14075516
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of optimizing transmission resource allocation in a radio access network (RAN) that includes a plurality of radio nodes (RNs) each associated with a cell and a services node operatively coupled to the plurality of RNs, the method comprising: obtaining at least one system-wide performance metric representing operational performance of the RAN; dividing the plurality of RNs into a plurality of clusters based on an interference metric that assigns to each of the plurality of clusters two or more of the plurality of RNs that interfere more strongly with one another than RNs assigned to different clusters; and if the at least one system-wide performance metric is less than a target threshold, then adjusting a system-wide fractional frequency reuse (FFR) pattern used to allocate transmission resources to the plurality of RNs until the at least one system-wide performance metric meets or exceeds the target threshold, the system-wide FFR pattern including a plurality of cluster-based FFR patterns each being allocated to a different one of the plurality of clusters.