CHANNEL QUALITY REPORTING IN A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

摘要

A wireless communication system comprises a scheduler for scheduling air interface data for a plurality of user equipments. A control channel scheduler (211) estimates a scheduling time for a scheduling of air interface data to a first user equipment (101) of the plurality of user equipments (101-105) in response to a current scheduling metric for the first user equipment and a reporting processor (213) generates a channel quality reporting request for the user equipment in response to the scheduling time. The channel quality reporting request is transmitted to the user equipment which proceeds to provide channel quality reports in accordance with the request. The approach may improve performance in a wireless communication system by reducing channel reporting resource requirements while still providing channel quality information when needed. The invention may be particularly suitable for a Long Term Evolution 3rd Generation Partnership Project cellular communication system or an IEEE 802.16 wireless communication system.