Nokia Corporation

Otto Lehtinen

Antti Anton Toskala

Petri Antero Jolma

Petri Patronen

Kalle Passoja

In a communication system in which mobile terminals may roam throughout an area with a plurality of base stations with overlapping coverages and wherein the base stations employ multiplexed slots all in the same frequency range, a system and method for allocating slots based on the quality classes of the transmitted traffic wherein certain slots are assigned as owned by some base stations and certain other slots are assigned as shared between base stations. Slots assigned as owned by a base station are assigned as avoided by adjacent base stations. When assigning a slot for communication from a mobile terminal, the number of slot quality measurements that must be made in order to find a slot with interference below an acceptable level is reduced, compared to conventional dynamic slot allocation schemes.

System and method for slot allocation with reduced need for measurement

The method according to the invention is intended to be applied in a situation where the power level of the signals transmitted by that mobile network to which the terminal is connected sink below predetermined threshold levels. Then the terminal is arranged to measure the power levels of signals transmitted by the base stations of at least one second system. The method according to the invention comprises advantageously steps in which the cellular radio system at first transmits to the terminal at least one threshold value. Then the terminal measures the strength of the signal transmitted by at least one base station and compares the measured signal strength with said threshold value. If the signal strength of the received signal is lower than said threshold value the transmission mode is changed to a mode where the measurement of the signals of a second system can be performed. A terminal according to the invention comprises advantageously means with which the steps of the method presented above can be performed.

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Raisio, Finland

Otto Lehtinen