Method for generating a congestion flag based on measured system load

摘要

A radio base station generates a congestion status flag, based on measured resource usage in its cell, and based on performance of sessions in the cell. The flag may be a one bit, or a small number of bits, indicating whether the base station is congested. The flag can be sent to neighboring radio base stations, for use in determining whether to perform handovers to that radio base station. The flag generated in a radio base station, and the flags generated in neighboring radio base stations, can also be sent to user equipment in a cell.

主权项

1. A method of indicating a status of a radio base station of a telecommunication network, the method comprising:
measuring a usage of a transport network associated with a first radio base station; generating a congestion status flag based on the measured usage of the transport network and based on a measured usage of downlink and/or uplink radio resources in the first radio base station, wherein the congestion status flag has one of more than two possible values, and wherein the possible values include a first value indicating a highest level of congestion, a second value indicating a lowest value of congestion, and one or more intermediate values, each intermediate value indicating a respective different intermediate level of congestion; and sending the congestion status flag to a second radio base station.