Importance

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Abstract

A base station (21, 22, 23) in a radio communication system (20) comprises a channel allocator (62) for allocating communication channels in accordance with a fully distributed dynamic channel allocation method. The channel allocator accesses a Preferred Channel List (PCL) (64) to allocate the communication channels. The PCL ranks channels (116) in accordance with the occurrence of prior events on the channels (112), such as interrupted calls (122), blocked call setup requests (118), and calls successfully completed (106) and in regards to the mean quality margin (110) and the current channel quality (114). The channel allocator (62) allocates (140) the first available channel (128) in the PCL having a free timeslot (132) and with good current channel quality (136). Alternatively, the channel allocator (62) allocates communication channels in accordance with an optimal dynamic channel allocation method. A list of channels assigned to the base station is updated by removing channels (372) that are locally heavy loaded (366) and in poor quality (370) and by adding channels (390) if the channels are locally heavy loaded (384), and in good quality (394) for a period of time (392). Unassigned channels may be borrowed (388) if they are in good quality (382), are in a locally lightly loaded period (384), and have been idle for a predetermined period of time (386). The assigned channels of the base station (340) are allocated first (356, 360), with the borrowed channels being allocated (350) when no assigned channels are available (340).

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First Claim