MULTIPLE ACCESS WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM USING A MULTISECTOR CONFIGURATION

摘要

Power control methods and apparatus for use in a sectorized cell (438) of an OFDM communications system (400) are described. Each sector (442) of a cell (438) uses the same frequencies and transmission times and is synchronized with the other sectors (444) in the cell (438) in terms of tone frequencies used at any given time and symbol transmission times. Tones are allocated to channels in each cell (438, 440) in the same manner so that each channel in a sector (442) has a corresponding channel in another sector (444). Power differences between channels in different sectors (442, 444) are maintained to be within a pre-selected power difference. Different channels in a cell (438) are assigned different power levels. Wireless terminals are assigned to channels based on channel feedback information. Wireless terminals with poor channel conditions are allocated to higher power channels than wireless terminals with good channel conditions. Lower power channels often include more tones per symbol time than high power channels.