Method and apparatus for allocating communication resources
First Claim
1. A method for allocating communication resources to support both a first communication service and a second communication service that is different from the first communication service, comprising:
- providing a pool of communication slots as supported by a plurality of physical carriers, wherein at least some of the communication slots share a common physical carrier;
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the first communication service, preferentially allocating, when available, one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers;
does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service; and
has a highest number of presently unallocated communication slots; and
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the second communication service, preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service when available.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In a communication system (10) having a pool of communication resources (11), such resources are preferentially allocated amongst a plurality of communication services (such as, for example, voice services, single-slot packet data services, and multi-slot packet data services) in a manner that tends to facilitate subsequent expansion of selected services (such as multi-slot packet data services). In a preferred embodiment, the allocation process also tends to favor balanced as versus unbalanced expansion of certain services when comparing one physical carrier that supports the service against another physical carrier that also supports that service.
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Citations
31 Claims
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1. A method for allocating communication resources to support both a first communication service and a second communication service that is different from the first communication service, comprising:
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providing a pool of communication slots as supported by a plurality of physical carriers, wherein at least some of the communication slots share a common physical carrier;
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the first communication service, preferentially allocating, when available, one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers;
does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service; and
has a highest number of presently unallocated communication slots; and
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the second communication service, preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service when available. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 31)
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22. A method for allocating communication resources to support a voice communication service, a multi-slot packet data communication service, and a single-slot packet data service, comprising:
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providing a pool of communication slots as supported by a plurality of physical carriers, wherein at least some of the communication slots share a common physical carrier;
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the multi-slot packet data communication service, preferentially allocating, when available, one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers;
does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the multi-slot packet data communication service; and
has a highest number of presently unallocated communication slots and communication slots that are allocated to support the voice communication service; and
when more than one physical carriers have a same maximum number of presently unallocated communication slots and communication slots that are allocated to support the voice communication service, preferentially allocating a slot to the multi-slot packet data communication service from the carrier that has a highest number of unallocated slots;
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the voice communication service, preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the multi-slot packet data communication service when available;
upon determining a need to allocate a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support the single-slot packet data communication service, preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the multi-slot packet data communication service when available. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24)
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26. An apparatus comprising:
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a pool of communication resources comprising a plurality of physical carrier transmitters, wherein each physical carrier is comprised of a plurality of allocatable communication slots;
an allocation need detection unit;
an allocation unit that is responsive to the allocation need detection unit and the pool of communication resources for;
allocating a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support a first communication service by preferentially allocating, when available, one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service; and
has a highest number of presently unallocated communication slots; and
communication slots that are allocated to support the second communication service; and
when more than one physical carriers have same maximum number of presently unallocated communication slots, and communication slots that are allocated to support the second communication service, a slot to the first communication service from the carrier that has highest number of unallocated slots. allocating a communication slot from the pool of communication slots to support a second communication service, which second communication service is different from the first communication service, by preferentially allocating one of the communication slots from whichever of the physical carriers does not already have a communication slot that is supporting the first communication service when available. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28)
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29. A method for allocating communication resources to support both a multi-slot packet data communication service and a second communication service that is different from the multi-slot packet data communication service, comprising:
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providing a pool of communication slots as supported by a plurality of physical carriers, wherein at least some of the communication slots share a common physical carrier;
providing a predetermined value;
upon determining a need to expand the multi-slot packet data communication service on a given one of the physical carriers that has presently unallocated communication slots;
allocating at least one presently unallocated communication slot on the given one of the physical carriers to expand the multi-slot packet data communication service on the given one of the physical carriers when a total number of unallocated communication slots for a predetermined plurality of the physical carriers at least equals the predetermined value;
not allocating a presently unallocated communication slot on the given one of the physical carriers to expand the multi-slot packet data communication service on the given one of the physical carriers when the total number of unallocated communication slots for the predetermined plurality of the physical carriers does not at least equal the predetermined value. - View Dependent Claims (30)
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Specification