A METHOD AND AN APPARATUS FOR SCHEDULING TRANSMISSIONS AND RETRANSMISSIONS IN A CELLULAR COMMUNICATION SYSTEM BASED ON THE LOAD OF SAID SYSTEM

摘要

An apparatus (300) for a cellular communication system (100) comprises a buffer (303) which receives data for transmission over an air interface (115). The buffer (303) is coupled to a scheduler (305) which schedules the data and allocates the physical resource of the air interface (115). The transmissions are performed using a retransmission scheme such as a Hybrid-Automatic Repeat reQuest scheme. A load processor (309) determines a load characteristic associated with the scheduler (305) and a target controller (311) sets a target parameter for the retransmission scheme in response to the load characteristic. Specifically, a block error rate target may be set in response to a load level of a cell or plurality of cells. A transmission controller (307) sets a transmission parameter for a transmission in response to the target parameter and a transmitter (301) transmits the data using the transmission parameter. Accordingly, an operating point of the retransmission scheme may be dynamically adjusted thereby reducing overall latency.