AUTONOMOUS CARRIER SELECTION FOR FEMTOCELLS

摘要

A carrier for a femtocell is selected from a set of carriers available to femtocells. The femto node determines a preference order for the set and measures received signal strength (RSS) for each carrier. The femto node determines a least interference carrier from the set based on the RSS for each carrier, then defines a selected carrier for the femtocell by comparing the RSS of the least interference carrier to the RSS of other carriers in the set. The selected carrier may have a RSS larger than or equal to the RSS of the least interference carrier offset by a predefined margin. The comparisons may be performed in the preference order. The set available to femto nodes may be a subset of all carriers available to a combination of femtocells and macrocells and one or more of the carriers available to femtocells also may be a carrier available to macrocells.