ALLOCATING CONTROL CHANNEL ELEMENTS TO DOWNLINK CONTROL CHANNELS

摘要

A method and apparatus is provided for allocating shared control channel resources. The control channel elements (CCEs) are allocated in units referred to as CCE sets. Each CCE set includes one or more control channel elements. Early commitment of control channel elements in a CCE set to a specific scheduling entity is avoided in situations where two or more candidate sets are available for the scheduling entity. In this case, the CCEs belonging to the candidate sets are designated as an alternate resource for a first scheduling entity. A CCE designated as an alternate may be allocated to another scheduling entity as long as such allocation does not block the first scheduling entity.