COMMUNICATION METHOD, BASE STATION, AND USER TERMINAL FOR A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK

• US 20080125132A1
• Filed: 11/20/2007
• Published: 05/29/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: ROUFFET, Denis, URIE, Alistair
• Granted Patent: US 8,103,281 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/447
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/06 Hybrid resource partitioning, e.g. channel borrowing

Abstract

The present invention comprises a method for communicating in a wireless communication network (1) comprising a number of cells (2.1, 2.2, 2.3) served by respective base stations (3). According to the proposed method, the following steps are performed: splitting up one at least one of a frequency bandwidth and a time interval allocated to the communication in at least a first part and a second part; using said first part for communication according to a first reuse scheme; and using said second part for communication according to a second reuse scheme.

Claims

1. A method for communicating in a wireless communication network comprising a number of cells served by respective base stations, whereby the steps of:

splitting up one at least one of a frequency bandwidth and a time interval allocated to the communication in at least a first part and a second part;

using said first part for communication according to a first reuse scheme;

using said second part for communication according to a second reuse scheme.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said first reuse scheme is a reuse-1 scheme and in that said second reuse scheme is a reuse-3 scheme.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising covering a first region of a given cell using said first reuse scheme and covering a second region of a given cell using said second reuse scheme.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing a hand-over of a user terminal between said first and second parts based on at least one transmission-related characteristic, in particular a signal-to-interference plus noise ratio, SINR, or carrier-to-interference ratio, C/I, determined by said user terminal.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising using a third part of the bandwidth for broadcast transmission to a number of user terminals.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising splitting said third part of the bandwidth in at least a first and a second time interval and using said first time interval for paging and interactive communication and using said second time interval for broadcast transmission.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

splitting up said first time interval in at least a first sub-part and a second sub-part with respect to one of frequency and time;

using said first sub-part for communication according to a first reuse scheme;

using said second sub-part for communication according to a second reuse scheme.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said third part is different from said first and second parts.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein said third part at least partly overlaps with at least one of said first and second parts.

10. A base station for use in a wireless communication network comprising a number of cells served by respective base stations for communicating with a number of user terminals,

whereby:

means for splitting at least one of a frequency bandwidth and a time interval allocated for the communication in at least a first part and a second part;

means for communicating with a first number of user terminals using said first part according to a first reuse scheme;

means for communicating with a second number of user terminals using said second part according to a second reuse scheme.

11. A user terminal for use in a wireless communication network comprising a number of cells served by respective base stations,

wherein

said user terminal comprises means for transmitting and receiving communication signals over a predefined bandwidth, said bandwidth and/or a time interval allocated to the communication being split in at least two parts, a first part of said two parts being used for communication according to a first reuse scheme, and a second part of said two parts being used for communication according to a second reuse scheme.

12. The user terminal of claim 11,

whereby

means for determining at least one respective transmission-related characteristic for deciding on a hand-over between said first and second parts.